Whole Hog, A Film by Joe York

My friend Jonathan called my attention to a wonderful documentary on barbecue culture in Tennessee, available (here) on the website for the Southern Foodways Alliance. The forty-minute-long film by Joe York focuses on Ricky Parker, the pit master at B.E. Scott's Bar-B-Que in Lexington, Tennessee. Well worth a watch if you have the time.

While on the Southern Foodways Alliance site, also check out their publications, including the excellent Cornbread Nation books of southern food writing, and recipes, such as this one for pork stuffed pork chops. If you are interested in the food and culture of the American South, whether you are a southerner or not, you should join the SFA.

Bacon Explosion

I suppose it's an index of how busy I have been that I failed to notice that a recipe for something called the "Bacon Explosion" has been sweeping the internet. Thanks to a piece in Wednesday's New York Times food section by Damon Darlin (here), I now feel up to date. The "Bacon Explosion"--two pounds of pork sausage wrapped in two pounds of bacon--was created by Jason Day and Aaron Chronister of the Kansas-based BBQ competition team Burnt Finger BBQ. It contains about 5000 calories and 500 grams of fat, and is either something that will make your mouth water or turn your stomach in disgust. The NYT article is largely dedicated to the mechanics of the recipe's spread throughout the country via the internet and text messaging. More germane for my purposes, of course, is the recipe itself, which reflects both the surging popularity of bacon and a carnophallic backlash to vegetarians, the health conscious, and friends of animals. 

The image of the "Bacon Explosion" on the smoker comes from the bbqaddicts.com website where the recipe first appeared. The NYT also has lots of instructional photos and video in case you want to make one of these for Sunday's Super Bowl.

Pork With An Attitude in Memphis

My colleague David just returned from a trip to Memphis and Nashville. On Beale Street in Memphis he snapped this photo of a great sign. Can't go wrong with "pork with an attitude," unless the place is a BBQ joint, which I'm assuming is the case...

"Pigging Out and About" BBQ Tour

I was taking a look at the Oxford American site (their annual music issue is out now and is a must have) and found a link to The American Table Culinary Tours, a group that leads "field trips" to important sites for American cuisine. The one that caught my eye was the September 2007 Memphis barbeque tour "Pigging Out and About" (here), led by Lolis Eric Elie, author of Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbeque Country and editor of Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbeque, and folks from the Southern Foodways Alliance. I imagine everyone had quite a good time. There are some excellent-looking tours of Detroit cuisine and Kentucky bourbon scheduled for 2008, by the way.