I don’t believe everything I’m told, which is why I related it as second-hand information
There is only one A&S location, the others are imposters who do not cook their barbeque in the same manner as the real Allen & Son - over a hickory wood fire. This location can be found on highway 86. If that is the restaurant that was serving yesterday, then the gods be praised.
I read a review of the place as recently as late August, which led me to believe I had faulty information. They are one of only a handful of places left in NC that still cooks their pigs over a hickory fire. Everyone else has moved to charcoal or gas.
Being as I am a Dirty Foreigner and all, I thought you meant the apparatus in our back yard which is used to cook the meat. Apologies.
However, now knowing what you meant, I will tell you that I never met Barbecue that I didn’t like. Although if that white sauce you’re talking about is mayonnaise based, I think I’ll pass. Hot mayo? BLEAH.
That’s what I used to think, until a buddy of mine started making his Hot Pea Salad at Thanksgiving. Wonderful, and so simple. All it takes is a bag of frozen peas, some chopped scallions, a few strips of crispy cooked bacon, and some mayo. Cook peas, add chopped scallions and chopped bacon, and bind with mayo. Trust me on this one, It’s delicious!
Come here, my dear. Come learn the joys of hot mayo from a midwestern cook:
Take 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts. Take 1/2 cup mayo and 1/4 cup fresh grated/shredded Parmesan cheese. Mix the later two ingredients and spread them on top of the first. Sprinkle each breast with 1 tsp Italian flavored breadcrumbs. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes. 4 servings/7 points a serving if you make it with low-fat mayo.
It’s, like, ungodly good for something so very simple. This is one of those recipes where the final product is way more than the sum of its parts.
I like the red sauces, and it ain’t BBQ without the sauce.
Pork ribs, pork shoulder, brisket. BBQ pork over fruit woods, beef over hickory, oak, or pecan. I think Texans like mesquite because they don’t have any real trees.
samclem, you didn’t sound rude. Sorry if I did. I was very skeptical when my friend tried to tell me they were closed, but he was rather insistent. I feel better now.
One thing you have to remember about BBQ sauce is that they may be called “mayo based”, or “tomato based” or even “mustard based”, the predominate flavor in a lot of them is vinegar. There are some, especially in Texas & Oklahoma (& parts of Missouri), that are very tomato and sugary, but the vast majority of sauces I encounter in the southeast have a very noticeable vinegar component.
If you’ll look at a mayo-based recipe, there is usually almost as much vinegar as mayo, which makes for an extremely tart sauce. Even my tomato recipe, which has less than half as much cider vinegar as it does tomato, is very tart. Ditto with almost any mustard-based sauce I’ve ever made.
Vinegar just does a really good job of cutting through the fat component of pork barbeque, which is why it is used so often. Even though the color of the sauce often varies, I find vinegar to be more of the primary theme in a lot of barbeque sauces.
My understanding is that if you’re south of the Mason-Dixon line, you are referring to pulled pork only.
Up nort’ over by here, it’s always bbq something. Chicken (hate it), beef (it’s ok), pork (love it), ribs (never in public). I like it with brown sugar (similar to Sweet Baby Ray’s).
Sadly I know the day will come that A&S will indeed close forever; I highly doubt that anyone else would want to take on the amount of work Keith Allen does to create his product - as it is, they will close for short periods if he’s sick or needs a break. I just hope that dreaded final day is later rather than sooner!
It’s very popular; Sims, the best joint in the Little Rock area is pulled pork and beef as was Mama Plant’s favorite in the metropolis of Finley, Tennessee. The Shack, gone since the rats mentioned above, was chopped beef.
Aint’t that the truth. I feel like I’m trying out for Quest for Fire.
