12.27.10

Who would have guessed that the December Holiday Season would provide such a wealth of barbeque travels?

Mine and Susan’s Deep South trek to visit family ended up as an orgy of delectable smoked pork products through Alabama and Mississippi. But the month’s ’que-oriented activities began with a return trip to Knoxville’s own Sweet P’s Barbeque and Soul House, which I wrote about in the November 30 edition of the BBQ Blog.

Sweet P’s was just as good as the first visit, except that this time around they had fresh ribs off the smoker available. Oh man, the pulled pork was good, but the ribs are even better: fall-off-the-bone tender with dry rub heavy on brown sugar that gave things a sweet tinge that went well with Sweet P’s homemade hot barbeque sauce. Heavenly... good work, Chris (and thanks for plying our table with banana pudding samples).

A coupla days before Christmas, Susan and I loaded the van with gifts and made our way south to visit family in Mississippi and Georgia. En route to Jackson, where my family lives, we started getting hungry around Gadsden, Ala., and were full-tilt ravenous by the time we hit Birmingham.

Fortunately, Susan remembered a ’que joint she’d made note of on her iphone and before you know it, we’d made our way to the Homewood neighborhood and were seated at Saw’s Barbeque.

Saw’s is a modest place, located in an older storefront alongside antique shops and other restaurants, and the décor is post-modern hipster-Cracker Barrel: you know, old metal signs, beer logo neons and Crimson Tide memorabilia covered the walls. Small, yet comfortable, Saw’s featured a menu that covered the usual pig and chicken suspects along with several homemade side dishes.

Susan opted for the pulled pork, which might be more accurately described as big chunks of meat pulled from the pig, not chopped up or divided into stringy bits. Super-succulent with plenty of bark and a deep smoke ring, it was excellent. Their own brand of barbeque sauce (just one flavor) was a slightly sweeter version of the cider-and-tomato-based sweet and savory sauce that is common to central Alabama ‘que joints.

I ordered the rib plate, which featured three bones that appeared to have come from the side of a Brontosaurus; they were huge. They were also tender and tasty, featuring the same tasty bark and deep smoke ring as the pulled variety, plenty of smoke flavor without overpowering the meat. Did I mention tender? All you had to do was look at ’em wrong and the meat fell off the bone.

For sides, Susan got the mac and cheese and the greens, both of which were homemade and measured up to her standards. I got the vinegar-based slaw (one of my favorites) and the baked beans, which contained as much meat as most bbq places’ pulled pork plate. All good stuff.

The following day, we made plans to meet up with my nephew Garrad and his wife, Katherine, for lunch (which ended also included my brother’s other two sons, Austin and Jess, an unexpected treat). Garrad suggested we meet at Lumpkin’s, a barbeque and soul food restaurant on the south side of town.

Given the directions, I was pretty sure I’d eaten at a meat-and-three joint in the same location in the past. I was correct, and at Lumpkin’s we found a buffet-style home-cookin’ spread fit for royalty.

There’s nothing fancy about this place, but who needs snazzy décor when you have a plate of homemade goodness staring you in the face?

Lots of veggies to choose from, including the best fried green tomatoes I’ve ever encountered — crisply fried with a light batter, firm enough to pick up and eat with your fingers. I’ve rarely liked steamed cabbage from a buffet line, but Lumpkin’s was fantastic. Not to mention the dressing and various gravies, cornbread and black-eyed peas.

One could easily make a meal of Lumpkin’s side dishes, but that would be a mistake. I passed on the fried chicken, although it looked delicious, but did grab a small smoked chicken thigh in order to give the yardbird its due. And at the end of the line, a gentleman with a pair of sharp knives carved up brisket or ribs to your order.

Of course, I went for the ribs, which were dry-rubbed and delicious. Their tangy sauce was full of flavor but almost unnecessary for the melt-in-your-mouth rib meat.

If you’re ever in the Bold New City, we highly recommend Lumpkin’s. Now I wanna go back for the fried chicken.

[I have to give a shout-out to my brother Jack for providing the excellent smoked turkey for the family’s early-Christmas dinner. It was the perfect complement to my mom’s cornbread dressing and gravy (among my favorite ten dishes in the world), green beans and other various fixings.]

On Christmas Eve, we set out across I-20 on our way to Atlanta, where Susan’s folks were visiting her grandmother. Again, traversing Alabama had us thinking about barbeque again. Skipping our beloved Dreamland in Tuscaloosa, we set our sites on another new (to us) ’que experience, Bob Sykes Bar-B-Q in Bessemer.

In business since the late 1950s, Bob Sykes doesn’t seem to have changed much over the years. And that’s a good thing.

Entering the restaurant through the side door, the first thing we saw was the indoor, open-air smoke pit. Stacks of split hickory logs lined the wall and racks of ribs joined whole chickens to cover the grate of the smoker. A lone worker studied the meats meticulously as they cooked, adding moisture when necessary and moving racks from the hottest part of the grill when called for.

Simply put, the man was an artist in the medium of smoked meats.

We ordered from the counter (yeah, I got the ribs/Susan got the pulled pork) and pulled a coupla tall chairs up to a center bar that offered a good view of the artist at work. In no time at all, our orders came out.

Susan’s pulled pork was swimming in a bath of Sykes’ homemade sauce, which is very similar to the Dreamland, which originally opened around the same year. It was tender and tasty, the way it’s supposed to be. We both opted for fried okra (perfectly browned, not greasy) and cole slaw (very traditional, sweet) for our sides.

The rib plate featured six massive bones (I don’t know where they get these dinosaur-sized pigs in Alabama, but I approve), more than I could put away for lunch. While not quite as melt-in-your-mouth as the ribs I’d experienced the previous two days, Sykes’ bones were mighty good. Plenty tender and full of smoked flavor (without overwhelming the pork taste), I deemed them a perfect selection to close out my Deep South Rib Trifecta.

That night, we met up with our pal Jeff Clark and hit a coupla watering holes that were kind enough to open on Christmas eve, as has turned into somewhat of a tradition for us. As always, Jeff is great company and we had a great time.

There are a lot of things that bear remembrance during the holiday season: family and friends foremost.

But our trip was also a pleasant reminder that if you take a few minutes and look past the generic interstate exit fare, there’s a lot of good eating out there.

Happy New Year, y’all …

—TL