Barbecue and Home Cooking Transcript
- [Stan] My name is Stan Woodward. I make Southern culture and folk life documentaries. I returned to my home state of South Carolina to locate and authenticate places where a traveler can still get a genuine taste of South Carolina home cooking and barbecue cooked in the old fashioned way. With roots in the farm kitchens and barbecue pits of what is now a four County region of the South Carolina national heritage corridor.
- [Stan] This is the land of my fathers and my father's fathers. I remember as a boy walking in sun drenched fields and picking cotton with the field workers on my grandfather's farm or watching my uncles plow furrows with a team of mules.
- There are many opportunities to find the taste of the South Carolina countryside but you have to know where to look. We're talking about local home cooking and barbecue restaurants that maintain traditions rooted in the kitchens and barbecue pits of past generations. Folk life documentary film maker, Stan Woodward and I spent over a year traveling through the four counties in this region. We located sites by stopping and talking to local residents asking them, where do they go for home cooking and barbecue with roots. Identified as folk heritage foodways sites, these restaurants represent traditions that were born in the farm culture of the local communities. Some are off the beaten path and are gonna take a little effort to find, but it's well worth it. You'll find wonderful people and a plate of food that puts a smile on your face. Stan, the best way to find authentic folk heritage foodways sites, restaurants that are born right here in this region is to get out and simply start talking to people. Gas stations, vegetable stands, meet people where they are.
- Where would you go for some good barbecue?
- Well, Edmunds is the closest right down here on the left.
- [Stan] How are you doing?
- Hi, how are you doing?
- [Stan] How is the barbecue here?
- Oh it's real good, real good.
- [Stan] Is this pretty typical of the barbecue you grew up eating?
- Oh yeah. I grew up right across the street so I've eaten it all my life.
- This is my favorite barbecue sauce. Sometimes I wanna just take it with me. Might try to see if he'll sell me some today.
- Duke's pork shoulder.
- Well, they go to the Track kitchen that's run by Pockets, an old time horseman.
- [Carol] It's really not publicized but we do get a tremendous amount of people from out of town.
- [Stan] What seems to bring them here?
- I guess just the atmosphere itself, the food,
- Being around horses.
- And being around horses. You can sit and have breakfast. You might see a horse pass by, or the carriage horse pass by.
- The riders, the grooms, trainers and all, they will come in to have breakfast early in the morning and get back to work and they call it the Track Kitchen.
- [Stan] Excuse me, I'm looking for a good home cooking restaurant, in downtown Aiken like mama used to cook.
- You would probably want to go to Pat's restaurant. It's on the corner of Newberry and Richland Avenue.
- The food is the best you can get, it's soul home style cooking. And they've got a cook Rose back there, you ought to talk to her. She's been here about 25 years.
- The ladies back there in the back know what to do with a stove.
- Gravy onion, potato salad, macaroni and cheese going twice. I'm the oldest of 12 children, now I have eight living brothers and one sister and I had to cook for all of them because they were smaller. So I had to do a lot of cooking. And my mama taught me to cook at a early age because when she was younger she had to work in the fields and pick and chop cotton so I did a lot of the cooking. And then my daddy built me a little stool, a little stool, a couple of nails, and it would make me taller so I would stand up to the sink or to the table, or stove wherever I was cooking to see what I was doing. Peggy.
- Small community gas stations like this are rich resources for local food traditions. Now these are some of the first places you're going to drive by and not think twice about, but as I've traveled the two lane highways at criss cross region three of the heritage corridor. We've found some real jewels in rural communities like this. Does this remind you of home cooking?
- Yeah, this is that rice and cube steak too.
- [Stan] Oh man. You've got a home cooking here at this gas station. That's a little unusual, isn't it?
- Yeah, a rare breed I guess you would say, we've got mashed potatoes, fried pork chops, meatloaf.
- Country home cooking, comprable with any Southern home style restaurant. I'll eat here, eat lunch probably a couple of times, three, four times a month.
- [Stan] Well now, is that unusual to find that for me at a gas station?
- Well, I don't know if we can just call this a gas station or not, they're very good, but it's a home run operation.
- This is about the closest you'll come to eating out of your grandmother's kitchen without being in her kitchen.
- And these small community-based gas stations and grocery stores, convenience stores, whatever they might be, like they're restaurant cousins, they're located in rural areas. and for a lot of these places, this is the community center. This is the place where folks come to catch up on the local news, to get their groceries and get the diesel fuel for their tractor and to get a darn good home cooked meal.
- I picked these nice fresh tomatoes out of my garden today and they're going on the buffet.
- My mother, she started cooking in smokehouse for me and doing the barbecuing for me and we just took it over from her.
- [Musician] Thank you, thank you so much.
- [Stan] How do people find you? This is a little bit off the beaten path.
- Yes, it is. From Columbia you would come out 20 to exit five. Exit five which you turn into Martin Town Road, once you get over into the city of North Augusta and you would go to Atomic Road. You take a Atomic Road down to Beech Island and you can turn on to Urquhart drive and Urquhart drive will bring you around the Sandbar Ferry road and you make a left on the Sandbar Ferry and you can't miss it.
- [Stan] Sounds good.
- Now I gotta get here and cover these up here.
- [Stan] How is Freeman's for barbecue.
- I've been coming here for about 20 years, I think the best.
- [Stan] Is this what you grew up with?
- Oh yeah.
- [Stan] You remember barbecue when you were a little boy?
- Oh yeah.
- [Stan] How'd they used to cook it?
- Same way Freeman cooks it.
- [Stan] Somebody told me you make your own charcoal for your hog, is that right?
- Yeah, I do.
- [Stan] You know anybody else who does that?
- No I don't.
- Okay, here's my charcoal.
- I know he does it the old fashioned way. He puts his whole hog on the pit he don't turn him over till he's done.
- [Stan] That's the old way?
- That's the old fashioned way.
- [Stan] That takes slow cooking, doesn't it?
- Well, anything worth doing is worth doing right.
- [Stan] Yes, sir. Mr. Freeman, when did you start learning to cook barbecue?
- Ever since I was a boy.
- [Stan] Who'd you learn from?
- My grandfather.
- [Stan] Who'd he learn from?
- I don't know who he learned from.
- [Stan] And you cook pretty much the way you remember him cooking?
- Same way.
- Did he make charcoal or is that your invention?
- Me and him, he learned me.
- That's why I keep coming back to Freeman's, he's a connoisseur on his barbecue, you'll notice you always find him in the pit, he's not in there behind the register, he's in the pit. He's real peculiar about his barbecue and he won't sleep till everything's done right.
- How much longer on the ribs?
- Forty five minutes.
- [Stan] Is Freeman's where you come for your barbecue most of the time?
- [Woman] Uh-uh.
- [Stan] Is it like what you grew up with?
- Yes.
- Everybody kinda, you know, likes what they grew up with
- That's the reason I like Freemans sauce He's got the vinegar type sauce and he still chips his meat up he doesn't have one of those machines and that's my choice.
- [Stan] What's special about this place to you?
- I think the tradition passed down from father to son and working on the next generation from there. So I don't think it ever loses its taste.
- To me it has more flavor and more hickory taste. I bought some yesterday from somewhere else but I kept thinking about it this morning. I said, I got to get to Freeman's 'cause I want some of theirs 'cause it's got that smokey taste.
- We have been coming here for the past 10 years from New York.
- The lady at the beauty shop told my wife that it was the best barbecue in South Carolina.
- Slow down, man get off the interstate go in the backwoods, that's what we do. Yeah, we stay off of them
- Home cooking has a lot to do with the seasoning and a lot of people you go in a lot of places they don't season the food very well. But in South Carolina we have our own little version of seasoning and we like it to taste good. How you doing?
- How you doing? What you're doing back here?
- Oh making a little pimento cheese, homemade stuff. Pimento cheese? Homemade pimento cheese
- I do almost everything homemade, it's kind of an art that's lost anymore.
- [Stan] who'd you learn from?
- My grandmother. I started when I was about eight years old helping her in the kitchen.
- [Stan] If I say home cooking to you, what comes to your mind?
- Places like this right here. I'd rather eat here then McDonalds and Hardees(
- They've served some good food here, real good.
- [Stan] You musicians know where to eat around here?
- Mm-hmm.
- If I asked you where you recommend me to go to get some good home cooking, I mean the kind that came off the farm, where would you tell me?
- Well you know, there's several of those around here. If you name one, you don't name all of them, you gonna get in trouble. But if you want some real good cooking, the Winton Inn restaurant out here the Winton Inn motel is good. The Miller's Bread Basket over in Blackville is a Mennonite restaurant, delicious. Brookers right down here on Allen street, good old home country cooking that has a lot of other good food to be eaten in Barnwell But that's the good old home country restaurants.
- How about that?
- No give me some of your pudding.
- [Stan] Miss Brooker?
- [Miss Brooker] Uh-uh.
- [Stan] What is home cooking to you?
- Like old time you used to cook, you can't get that now. And my mother taught me how to cook. I was cooking here since I was nine years old.
- [Stan] Nine years old?
- Nine years old and it kept going and going and going until, I always wanted to get out and work in a restaurant. I always want to get out there and cook a home cooked meal for somebody like my mother taught me how to cook so they can enjoy it.
- [Stan] Yeah.
- But see you hardly get that anymore but everybody be running and working and they don't have time to do it, but I do, I take time and do that kind of cooking.
- She likes to have you to treat a customer high and respect. And if you treat someone right, they always will come back. If they see a smiling face and see that you will have a smile face, they gonna come back.
- This is the best place to get you a good homemade meal that you can find in Barnwell.
- [Stan] Is that right?
- That's right.
- [Stan] And what makes it a homemade meal?
- Well, I'll reckon you call it soul food. It's just good, good country eating.
- When you cook your food and your customer enjoy it, like Mr. Bassett there, he come eat every morning, sit down and eat with us, he enjoy his food and that mean a whole lot to us.
- This is just one of them. You can get whole chickens fried up, they'll do anything for you. Accommodation, prices are very reasonable. There's not anything any better around.
- [Stan] I've noticed that that there are black folks and white folks are piling in here this morning. So this is a food that both blacks and whites love to eat?
- Everybody loves to eat here, it don't matter what they are. Yellow, green, martians would come here and eat.
- [Stan] You ever had a martians come in here?
- [Both] Yeah.
- [Stan] What you got?
- Home cooking, fried chicken, stew tomatoes and rice and field peas.
- Soul food is something like we put out there, that is soul food.
- [Stan] What you have in the buffet is soul food?
- That's soul food.
- [Stan] What is it? Why do they call it soul food?
- 'Cause it good, you bring it, you cook it from scratch.
- [Stan] From scratch?
- Yeah.
- It's what I've eaten all my life. And I just don't think there's anything any better in the world than good old Southern cooking.
- It's Bo Whitlock's private recipe.
- [Mildred] I've been cooking for years. I learned how to cook when I was about maybe 12.
- [Stan] Did your mama cook?
- My mother cooked but I mostly learned from my grandmother cause that's who I live with most of my time, it's with my grandmother.
- [Stan] Where do I go to find some good food around here?
- The Miller's Bread-Basket.
- [Stan] And what makes Miller's so good?
- [Old Man] 'Cause it's home cooked.
- [Stan] Home cooked?
- [Woman 2] Home cooked.
- I hear Miller's Bread-Basket and many of the little Southern restaurants you find the mom and pops aspect which means that they are different. There's something that that restaurant does that is not going to be like, we can't buy it anywhere else. It's right here, it's nowhere else. And it's not a repeated thing many, many times, It's just one and one only. And the only place you'll get it is where it originated. We make bread here every day. We have a little old mixer that makes 10 to 12 loaves each. And so we have at least in any given day you'll have four or five different fresh breads. I don't think the Mennonite cooking is that much different than home cooking down in the South area, you know with a little spice and flavoring you can really enhance that food. The kitchen produces what's at hand, what was raised on the farm.
- Well, that looks good, right?
- Yeah.
- I hope in my lifetime that there's always little country restaurants like this because it's a time that's slipping away from us real fast.
- Well, it's kind of my little niche. That's what I like to do. And we have a little something special here that home cooked meal. Even though it's cooked right here in this restaurant is still a home cooked meal. Just like grandma did it.
- [Stan] How you doing?
- Fine, how you doing?
- [Stan] Where can I get some good home cooking, you know like just cook on an old wood stoves, that type of cooking, where can I find some?
- Hattie and Fannie.
- [Stan] Where are they?
- [Stan] That is a good looking plate. How about letting me eat that and you order another one?
- Today at Hattie's and Fannie's, we are serving white rice, gravy, seasoned rice, stew tomatoes, ham hocks, fried chicken, fried pork chops, smothered chicken, we have the fried fish, the sauces, the macaroni and cheese, yams, corn bread and butter beans and cabbage.
- [Stan] At this little place?
- Yes.
- [Stan] And do you serve that every day?
- Yes.
- [Stan] And then do you have any specials?
- Yes, it's like on Thursdays we have the chitlins and the stone stew.
- It's good soul food
- Down home country food. It's a good place to come to eat.
- [Stan] How would you describe this restaurant to a tourist who was coming into this area?
- Quaint.
- Some of the best food today is in Blackville. And I tell you what, it's delicious.
- [Stan] Yes, sir.
- Usually in the city, you got fast food restaurants, people eat real quick and come and go, you come to a place like this, you can sit down and take your time to really let your food digest and really enjoy, you know stuff that people don't do no more in the city.
- In Fanny's family folklore was happening, and they didn't even know it. I mean, she was watching her mom. She was probably right at her mom's elbow learning to cook and her mom didn't have any idea that it was going on. So that's the dynamic of folklore right there. You know, Fannie's mom comes home and this whole meal is prepared. She unknowingly has taught her daughter how to cook which is just a perfect story to illustrate that.
- [Stan] So if people want to experience folk life get a taste of South Carolina and really learn what what the folk life experience is about they could come here and eat this food and they'd. get a big hit out of it, wouldn't it?
- You could. You're ingesting the folk life of Hattie and Fannie's family.
- [Stan] This a pretty good place to eat?
- Yes. I invite anybody to come here.
- [Stan] Yeah?
- Yes.
- [Stan] What kind of food they got? Like they say, down home cooking.
- Oh, I love it, its good.
- Something like mother would cook.
- Feel like we at my mom's house on Sunday.
- Through the week we do pig feets, neck bones, all this old fashion food.
- [Stan] Yeah?
- Yeah. We do very good on it. You'd be surprised the people that eats here.
- Hello, hello, how's everybody feeling? I wanna see Ms. Jeanette.
- You know me.
- [Stan] If I say home cook and what pops into your mind?
- Well now, I see you say home cooking I would be unfair if I don't say sweet potatoes and corn something like that so I'm, you know, right away I'm where I'm coming from.
- [Stan] Yes sir.
- Like pot liquor, they selling pot liquor everywhere.
- [Stan] Now, if somebody comes here from, you know, Iowa or New York and they don't know what pot liquor is, how would you describe pot liquor to 'em?
- Well, its the greatest substance in the world from your greenery like chards, collards, things like that rutabagas things like that. Pot liquor I'll describe it, get the juice from their food and you got it.
- Thank you ma'am.
- Thank you.
- For all the nice things. And this kind of food where we gotta go back to, you know, straighten that stuff out. You got to get off the and go find out in the root of it, where the food is at we gotta start doing that. Drive off with your family and go to one of these small restaurants and you'll find yourself eating food that is good for your kids and good for your family and was good for your grand family.
- It was always a hobby, always my dream, ever since I was about 10 or 12 that was my dream.
- [Stan] Really?
- Yeah.
- Of course she should have a right to fulfill her dream, everybody should have a right to the tree of life, but you know what? I've been all over that tree. And this is where life is right here. God bless ya
- Come right in.
- [Stan] Where's a good place to eat around here for home cooking?
- All right, well, we got Rachel's Restaurant.
- [Saddler] Does that scare people off or does that bring people in?
- Well, everybody comes in and says they liked my sign.
- And then we have the little Bee Box and we have a little fish market right across the street.
- We have flounder, croakers, Florida bream we have a shrimp fried rice, we have all salads, all kind of a seafood salads. We have a lot of locals that comes in and patronize our business.
- It's really good.
- [Stan] Is it?
- Mm-hmm.
- [Shirley] And some travelers that comes along you know, we have good conversations and eat a good meal They eat in with us and then some desire to take the food out with them.
- [Stan] How you doing?
- [Walter] Fine, you?
- [Stan] This your place?
- [Walter] Yes, sir.
- [Stan] What kind of cooking do you do here?
- What kind of cooking?
- [Stan] Yes.
- Home cooking.
- [Stan] Home cooking?
- Home cooking.
- [Stan] What is home cooking?
- Well we can fix you any vegetables, fried chicken, complete menu.
- [Stan] And who'd you learn from?
- My mama.
- [Stan] Who'd she learn from?
- Her mama.
- [Stan] Who'd she learn from?
- Her mama.
- [Stan] Do you remember your mama cooking on a wood stove?
- Yes, sir.
- [Stan] Are these recipes pretty much like what she cooked on a wood stove?
- Pretty much same. We have catfish stew on Friday, it goes back the recipe for over a hundred years.
- [Stan] Wow.
- [Barbara] Highway 64 is our nature trail. And if you go down the top where you see these blue signs, Heritage Corridor nature. It promotes tourism, people are looking for their heritage to see where they were born and raised and hunting good food.
- [Saddler] I liked your shirt here. You got heritage corridor on the shirt too. Yes!
- Tell me what heritage corridor, What are you trying to promote with it?
- With the heritage corridor? Well we're trying to do the same thing you are, promote South Carolina, promote local traditions, local food, local artists.
- We have beach goers coming out of Aiken, North Augusta, they come right up 64 nature trail, go right on down to the beach and they plan to eat here going, they leave the beach and they plan to eat here going back.
- And what type of food are they looking for?
- Home cooking.
- Home cooking.
- Home cooking.
- [Stan] Home cooking. If I say Rachel's what pops into your head?
- Fried chicken.
- [Stan] If I say Rachel's what pops into your head?
- Fried chicken.
- Macaroni and cheese.
- Fried chicken and macaroni and cheese.
- We have a lot of people that come in and they love to sit on the porch. - We've gotta get some gas Stan.
- You go to B & D Barbecue. Is that right?
- [Man On Register] Yep. There's good home cooking.
- B & D Barbecue is one of the most out of the way barbecue houses in South Carolina, it's 10 miles from Earhart, 30 miles from Orangeburg and at least 20 miles inland from interstate 95. But it's family owned, it's located right on the farm and from what we've heard from people throughout the region you'll find some of the best barbecue in the state.
- When I came over here, it was a big joke, they called it Plum Nelly. It was plum in the woods and nelly out the world. And I still have folks coming to eat B & D barbecue and they think they at the end of the map and they fixing to fall off.
- [Stan] Bobby how'd you get started in barbecue?
- Well, we was cooking a lot of barbecues for our church, four or five a year then we got so bad with the farming we decided we would try it for ourself and helped ourself out.
- [Stan] And what made you decide to barbecue again?
- That was about the only thing that we know that we could cook and we could do good. Farming business is just so bad, we had to find something else to do.
- [Stan] Miss Dixie what you fixin to make here.
- I'm gonna make the barbecue hash for our Saturday operation and it's made of beef and pork.
- [Stan] A lot of hash men talk about the look of their hash, that's pretty important to you, isn't it?
- That's right.
- [Stan] The look at the hash.
- You see a whole grain of corn floating in a pot of hash, that just don't look good.
- [Stan] You got a name for this sauce?
- Yeah, Dixie delicious.
- Ain't that pretty, that's a long ways from when we put it on first.
- [Stan] That's beautiful.
- [Stan] Now you got Elvis on the wall behind you, you like Elvis?
- Yes, Dixie's crazy about him.
- [Stan] Wonder if Elvis would like B & D barbecue.
- Yes he's had some.
- [Stan] Has he?
- And he comes around here That's right back two miles from my house and has a party every over there.
- [Stan] Who does?
- Elvis Presley, the impersonator does.
- [Stan] Oh okay.
- I started cooking fish around 19 probably 80 and I learned it from my aunt. She was a cook and she cook for different people and I needed help. And I called her and she came in and helped me and she taught me how to fix it. And she had a special seasoning and we started from there and the rest is history.
- I've been coming and visiting with Mr. David for about 23 years now. My mother-in-law started me here and I've got a couple of friends in Orangeburg They'll drive from Orangeburg over here to get fish from him to have good fish all the time.
- [Stan] It must be special fish.
- Yeah, we can say that. And the PR is good. You know, you don't mind spending your money with somebody that shows you that they care and the kindness, you know the way you're treated when you're spending your money.
- [Stan] Yes ma'am.
- This is Mary's special every Friday. Fried fish, every Friday.
- [Stan] Does she get the same kind of fish?
- Same kind of fish every Friday, we'll eat nothing but Croaker fish.
- That's right, nothing but Croaker.
- [Saddler] What do you like about Croaker?
- It's good, that's all, it's good. Okay see you later, same time next week then.
- Yeah, right across the street here, that's the Duke's hash house. That's where he cooks his hogs, does his hash for the two restaurants he has, one being in Ellery and one in Bamberg. Chuck and Theresa Way are the owners and they go back to some of the original Duke's family. Theresa's mother and father have a restaurant in Blackville, her aunt and uncle have one in Ridgeland and she's got a sister that has one in Columbia and she's got a sister that has one in Beaufort. So the whole family is they're wrapped up in it so to speak.
- [Stan] And Dukes sorta defined barbecue for this area?
- Boy did, sure did, and they all have the same sauce So I think anyone you step into might be a little different with the preparation but the sauce is about the same.
- [Stan] Thank you so much.
- Thank you.
- [Stan] See ya.
- Take care. Good to have you.
- [Stan] Thank you.
- Stan, one of the recurring themes we've seen in this region's barbecue tradition, the story of barbecue saving the farm. The early 20th century, more and more farmers struggled to make ends meet and barbecue became a viable source of revenue. And we're about to see a classic example of this barbecue as income story.
- Tell me how the Dukes barbecue story started.
- Well, my dad, Willie Baltzegar started doing it for little groups here in Roseville, and they started opening up at once a week. And he hired Danny Dukes to help him because he was working with the South Carolina Arts commission. And that's how the Dukes learn to cook it this way.
- Granddad's started it off, just doing, like just for the fun of it, a bunch of them getting together for the fun of it then they started the community house like Earl talked about awhile ago
- Community house here in Roseville. It's an old building, you know on Thursday night and people would come. The old story that people would come in horse and buggy from all around the Canaan community like you were talking about that's where y'all grew up. I think Roseville is like eight miles outside of Orangeburg where we are, nine mile out of Branchville so people come from all around that little thing and that's kind of where it got started.
- The Duke's name is something we're proud of. It's in our blood and we want to make it as good as we can and it's something that we feel that we can hand down to our children and their children on down the line. It's a good, honest living. And we enjoy doing it.
- Duke's name is synonymous with barbecue. You say Duke's people know what you're talking about, at what point do you think that became the standard?
- Well, I guess it would be Danny Dukes the place in Cope actually, because he was a Dukes. And then he taught Uncle Earl how to barbecue and then uncle Dovie and uncle Earl got together and then they had Elmo's, was a Dukes too and that's how it went. And aunt Myrtle was a Dukes and Aunt Circe was a Dukes so it was just a big family.
- But the personality Floyd with Uncle Danny and all that and uncle Earl, and my dad and all is what really got this thing started.
- Big part of the Duke's name is the fact that you get out there and talk with your customers, you don't alienate yourself. And so we get out front we talk to our customers, they get to know us, we get to know them and I think that's what brings them back. They feel like they're family and they're coming home when they come to your restaurant.
- Right.
- I think the Dukes family is successful because they put a good meal on the table. Trust me, you can travel anywhere you want to and you won't find a family that could cook as good as this family right here.
- One, two, three, very good. I think that'll do it.
- Duke's barbecue.
- The sauce is really out of sight.
- Now, if you'll look behind me here you really can't find a place to park. You've got cars on both sides of the street, the parking lot is full and its interesting, if you look at the vehicles you see here you've got work trucks, you've got nice sedans and Cadillac, it's a clear indication that Duke's has a really wide diverse clientele. And we've got young and old, black and white going in here and when we go inside, we'll see how the eating arrangement is set up. It's set up to be in a group environment.
- That's how you fix a plate, don't waste any room with the potato salad or anything.
- [Stan] What am I looking at here? What is on the plate?
- Got your barbecue meat and your hash and your rice. Hush puppies and pickles
- When we were young and looking for a way to make a better living for our family, Mr. Danny Dukes in our community was the first guy that started barbecuing in this area. My husband and I would go out and help him on Saturday mornings and he really taught us how to cook.
- [Stan] What do you think you have to offer in the way of taste for tourists who come from other states that distinguishes it from a restaurant that's a chain restaurant?
- This food is so good when you taste it the first time it just locks it in your memory. I don't know if it's imprinted in there, some cerebral mechanism, it just does. And I mean if you ever taste it, you'll probably move down here.
- [Stan] You think you can actually move people to South Carolina with your food?
- Sure. We got the best fried chicken in Orangeburg anywhere really. You know, just there's the way the sister cooks that she's got her own recipe.
- Yeah, she fry chicken, I fry chicken just like that too 'cause we was taught when we was young how to do that.
- [Stan] So that comes from your mama?
- Mama.
- [Stan] That's the recipe from your mother?
- Yes sir.
- [Stan] So people, when they come eat this fried chicken they're really eating your mother's fried chicken?
- Mm-hmm.
- [Stan] Excuse me, have y'all eaten here before?
- Yes.
- [Stan] What kind of food do they have in here?
- They have a lot of soul food like your grandma's cooking and there's a lot of food that really sticks to your stomach. Sticks to your ribs, yeah
- Ham and chicken pie, and all kind of good things.
- [Stan] How's the seafood here?
- Oh, it's the best, best in town.
- [Stan] Yeah?
- Yeah. Look, I've been eating fish about, Oh God, at least 25 years since I was old enough to take the bones out of it and this is closest to home.
- What would you consider your specialties? What are you known for?
- Stone stew, is one of the specials.
- [Woman 3] I just ordered one.
- [Stan] Tell me what it is and how would you describe it to somebody from Philadelphia or New York?
- What stone stew is?
- [Stan] Yes ma'am.
- Pig ears, pig tails and hog maws and all kind of good stuff. All kind of good stuff, anything that is on the hog, you like it? That's stone stew-- it's good!
- [Stan] Why are you laughing?
- 'Cause she's right.
- [Stan] She's right?
- She's right.
- Mr. Kearse, is that a pretty good definition?
- Yeah, she summed it up pretty good.
- We have a lot of white folks coming here and ask for stone stew you know, being introduced to them you know like on the job, black brother came back up and he taste it and they would come in here and order some stone stew.
- [Stan] You one of 'em?
- I guess I am. It's awfully good.
- It has a good Southern taste.
- I like the fried chicken and like the ribs and I come here to eat before I go anywhere to eat.
- I just love their cooking, they cook good food. This is what you call soul food, where you can get the collard green, your black eye peas, your candy yam, any type, you know of good soul food.
- [Stan] Is this like home cooking to you?
- [Man] This is home cooking, Bulldog's Kitchen is home cooking.
- It's home cooked food, that's all.
- Soul food.
- When you eat it, you feel it. That's basically what soul food is. You know, food of love, you eat it, you feel it and you wear it.
- [Announcer] In case you didn't know ladies and gentlemen, this is the 37th Annual Governor's Frog Jump.
- Mary's kitchen, that is good old fashioned, old timey cooking. Mary's kitchen, right down the road there.
- Well, today she's got a barbecue with hash and rice, she has rice and gravy, string beans and potato salad.
- All right folks, we are ready to go. We got our first frog out, we're ready to do some jumping. One time, two, jump number three, you got a good job there. There it is and the race is on, all right.
- Springfield has a new one, Goodlands, Goodlands.
- Goodlands barbecue, rather be right here.
- Goodlands, yes sir.
- [Stan] When a tourist wanders into Springfield and eats at Goodlands, when they eat that home cooking and that barbecue is that a taste that's a lot like...?
- [Man 2] We have the same taste that we had 50 years ago, it hasn't changed that much.
- When we started Goodland, we wanted to do something and try to get back to the old original way of doing things and we do heat pits up with gas but once the pits are warmed up and the meats loosened up with the fat dripping and this that and the other that's when we switch to the wood. So from then on up the wood, the wood actually does all the cooking. It's a lot of hard work but it's something we enjoy doing and of course more people are a lot of help. When I started the Goodland idea, I just wanted in some way, recognize all the good cooks around here, especially the hog cookers and the guys who make the good sauces. We use Bo Peep sauce and also use his hash recipe.
- [Stan] Well, Bo Peep, what brought you to be willing to give your hash recipe and your barbecue recipe to the owner of this Goodland barbecue?
- Well, Billy been a good friend of mine for a good while and he just said I'm gon' need to talk and asked me about the recipe
- And I said, well, I'll give you mine. And I just donated mine to him and let him use it as he sees fit.
- Stan, when you go into Goodland restaurant, you'll notice that I've tried to tie a lot of the local theme, if you will, to the inside of our restaurant with the old boards on the wall, black and white pictures on the walls, I've just tried to make it a community thing. So when people come in, they can see that we were trying to share what is and was here in the Goodland community.
- A lot of times they don't know what it is and they'll ask you know, some of them have never eaten it before and hash especially. From up North, they don't know what hash is.
- [Stan] So you give them a hash workshop?
- Yeah I always do that. I used to tell them what it is and all. I sure do.
- [Billy] Our slogan is, 'Where the best local recipes merge on one table'. And that's a tribute to the good cooks and the recipes and this part of the country.
- Most of your barbecue places did start out as a family. With me, a lot of my friends that's in the barbecue business is family owned. It's the Hatley's and Kittrell's and all those All those that's in Orangeburg
- And they all started out as family businesses. And I think that's what makes it successful. They dedicated to what they do.
- You pulled a piece of hickory wood or oak wood in the pit and it goes on a element, it gets red hot, and it puts all the smoke into your meat and that's for your ribs or your chicken
- That's the only piece of wood you have to put in there?
- All the wood that you need.
- That one little stick.
- It's cooked with infrared heat from the top and the bottom and that wood smokes and puts out all the smoke. At times you have to cook your smoke off because it gets too much smoke.
- Well, your dad would really be amazed by this cooker.
- Yeah, I would love to see him come back now and see how things have changed over the years. And like I said, it's just so much hard work for him and back then, when he cut a load of wood he had to cut it with a axe.
- [Stan] I wanted to get some barbecue and home cooking around here that's like what you grew up with where would you tell me to go?
- Well down on Eutawville, Sweatman's bar-b-que.
- [Stan] Sweatman's bar-b-que. Do you remember Mr. Sweatman's farm?
- Oh yes, that was my granddad. I lived with him when I was in first grade until I graduated from school. He'd have a birthday dinner every year. What, every September 30th, around September 30th and he'd invite all his friends, all the family and everybody to eat out in the yard. I mean, it'd probably be a hundred people. And that's one thing everybody looked forward to once a year, they knew they would come and eat Sweatman's barbecue.
- It's one of the few wood barbecues left.
- [Stan] So that was the origins of this tradition, was his birthday barbecue?
- I would say so.
- [Stan] And that's where people in the community began to say, Whoa, that Sweatman's is good.
- It is undoubtedly the best barbecue you've ever tasted in your life.
- When we had the family birthday dinner everyone just enjoyed it so much, you know, so why not just spread it?
- [Stan] Yeah.
- We have some of our relatives that come from West Virginia and we're gonna let them taste the best barbecue in South Carolina.
- We're gon' give them a little taste of South Carolina to take back to West Virginia, that way they'll come back.
- So this is the hash?
- This is the hash, put some rice with the hash on top of it.
- Okay, 'cause she's been telling us about the hash.
- I'm having ribs with cracklin.
- [Stan] What do you think Sweatman's offers a visitor coming off the interstate here?
- Some real barbecue, real Southern barbecue the way it's supposed to be cooked. We cook with oak coals, or hickory coals and no gas.
- [Stan] That's a lot of slow cooking in it.
- Slow cooking, it takes about 12 hours. And if you want real barbecue, you use oak like the old time people did it in the South years ago. We put the coals around the outside of the hog instead of the middle. Bub Sweatman was my dad's brother and my dad made the hash here for my uncle Bub and they showed me how to do it and then when my dad died I had a chance to come back here and make the hash.
- That is good, yeah. All right!
- We treat our people that comes in, I don't care where they come from, like family.
- I'm intrigued with old stores, as the old expression goes, only if the walls could talk but you know, those stores were, they and the churches were the center of commerce the center of socializing, the center of community and rural activity in the good old days. People could sit around the potbellied stove or sit on the front porch in rocking chairs or on the old bench play checkers, talk about current events, talk about bygone days, all of that. I love history and I like the nostalgia of the old times and I thought this would be a way to share a bygone era with family, friends and patrons.
- [Stan] What you making?
- This is a tomato pie, is probably my single most popular dish on the line outside, the barbecue or the ribs.
- The food is very delicious, old recipes and the food reminds us of the past when we were children.
- It sort of takes you back to your mom and grandparents cooking.
- There was a lot of love in the pot.
- That's right.
- Stan, we going to dedicate this song to your home cooking and barbecue documentaries.
