Carolina Hash Transcript
- [Stanley] What is hash?
- It's pig.
- It is?
- Yeah.
- [Stanley] Tell me what hash is.
- It's pig, I reckon.
- [Stanley] Yeah? What's it, the ground?
- It's the ground-up meaty part of the pig.
- [Stanley] It's the ground-up, meaty part of the pig.
- Yeah, not the fat, but the meat.
- [Stanley] Okay, and does this lady , do you eat hash?
- Yeah, and Shealy's Bar-B-Que's got the best.
- [Stanley] Shealy's.
- Mm-hmm.
- [Stanley] Okay, why do you say that?
- 'Cause that's the only place I eat it from.
- [Stanley] You're not a Shealy, though, are you?
- No.
- [Stanley] Okay. 'Cause if she's a Shealy, I can't use it because she'd be a little prejudiced-
- What are you doing?
- You know, about that.
- [Stanley] We're just going all over South Carolina trying to find out first of all what hash is, because you know, they don't know what it is in North Carolina and they don't know what it is in Georgia.
- They don't know what hash is?
- [Stanley] Uh-uh.
- [Person With Baby] They don't eat it?
- They don't have barbecue places?
- [Stanley] They have barbecue places in North Carolina, but they ain't never heard of hash.
- [Crew Member] You'd be surprised of the places that don't have it and never heard of it.
- What are you doing, really?
- [Stanley] I'm doing a documentary about hash.
- Just any kind of hash?
- You're wasting your time.
- Barbecue hash? We've never heard of barbecue hash.
- [Stanley] Well, it's a South Carolina dish.
- That's right.
- It's cooked in big black iron kettles and stirred with wooden paddles. Y'all never heard of it?
- I have.
- Never heard of it.
- [Man With Glasses] I have.
- Heard of corn beef hash.
- You have?
- Yes, sir.
- He used to travel South Carolina.
- I traveled all of South Carolina and Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina.
- [Stanley] So, you've heard of hash.
- [Man With Glasses] I've heard of hash.
- [Stanley] Why do you think it's only in South Carolina?
- I have no idea, except they need it down there, I guess.
- [Stanley] Where can I find some hash?
- I don't know where you can get any hash. I don't even know what it is.
- My daddy can tell you more about it.
- That's for people that ain't got no teeth that they can gum it. They have to gum it. When you get hash, you don't chew it. It's pre-chewed.
- This is Debbie Webb. She's the owner of the barbecue place.
- [Stanley] Debbie, how are you doing?
- Fine, how are you?
- [Stanley] We're doing a story on hash. Do you serve hash?
- We don't do hash.
- You don't do hash.
- No.
- Here, try this. You don't want any hash.
- [Stanley] Having tested the rumor in South Carolina that people in North Carolina don't know what hash is, we returned across the border to Gaffney, South Carolina and found ourselves in the middle of Upstate hash.
- Yes, sir.
- [Stanley] I'm looking for David Phillips.
- You found him. If you'll step right around here at the side door, come right on in.
- [Stanley] What kind of hash do you make here?
- Well, we use all beef. It's all-beef hash.
- It's all beef?
- It's not like the lower part of the state. It's different. It's mostly in this region here. You don't find it everywhere, so. A lot of people at the 4th of July to always have hash. Get the big wash pot out and ax handle or a boat paddle and cook a pot of hash up. As far as that goes, I know a guy here in town was close by here has really got an old pot.
- There's what they set in.
- [David] There's the stands they used to set 'em on. That what used to be. You can see here's the old pots. You see two big pots back then.
- [Willard] That can hold 110 and that hold 90 gallon.
- See how thick they are and heavy? So.
- [Stanley] When you worked on the farms and you cooked hash, when would you cook the hash?
- Well, we just sold it on Saturday, one day a week.
- Did you?
- Yeah. Yeah.
- That subsidized your farm back then. They'd come up on Saturday and make enough money to keep his cows fed.
- [Stanley] When you guys look at that old hash pot that's sitting down there, what comes to your mind?
- Oh, I get more memories out of that than anything. I mean, you know, getting up and doing that every week and truck farming, all that kind of stuff. I mean, I wouldn't take nothing for my raisin's.
- [Stanley] We're doing a documentary on hash.
- On hash. Good-old Southern barbecue hash. My wife's from the lower part of the state of South Carolina around Rowesville, Bamberg area, and we actually got this recipe from her great-grandfather.
- So, down in the Lowcountry, that's what we grew up on was hash and rice.
- It started out as just scraps from the pig itself. Anything they couldn't use as far as a plate or a platter would be concerned, then they would just grind this stuff up.
- First thing I looked for up here was hash and I could not find any, so and I haven't found any that could really touch what we have in the Lowcountry. So, now we're making our own hash and hopefully we're gonna start something new up this way with the Lowcountry hash.
- [Stanley] Which one's the hash?
- [Hash Customer] I would imagine that one is right there.
- I think we're the only barbecue place up in this area, up in this part of the state that has hash. I remember my dad making it when I was a little boy. When we had the Quattlebaum reunion, they always had what they call Lowcountry hash, and that was, I remember I loved it and I liked it. I liked the way they fixed it there with the liver in it, but the people up in this part of the state didn't like the liver. You have some people up here in the upper part of the state won't eat the hash. Now they'll ask you what you got in it before they say they'll try it. ♪ Let the church say amen ♪ ♪ Let the church say amen ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Uh-huh ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Let the church say ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Let the church say ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Then said ♪ ♪ Amen ♪
- Mike.
- Girl, no. What is that I had on?
- I don't know.
- Get out of here.
- How y'all doing?
- All right.
- All right, all right, all right. How are you doing?
- Hi, Daddy.
- Good.
- Good.
- Hey, hey, what's up?
- We're getting ready to prepare these heads for the hash. We have 11 hog heads. This head is being prepared right now. What we're doing, we gon' cut this back, take this out. You'll cut it down through here on both sides. We'll cut this out, then we'll take it and we'll wash it and we'll clean it and then we'll put it into a pot.
- This is my father right over here, Willie Williams, better known him as Huddie, and he's gon' be doing the hash, and whatever you want to know, ask him.
- [Stanley] And how long have you been cooking this hogshead hash?
- About 30 years.
- [Stanley] 30 years.
- That's your heads boiling in the pot right there. Once they get boiled up, we gon' take 'em off the bone and have it chopped up, and then we gon' go from there to putting the ingredients into the hash. But the first thing, you gotta get the meat cooked up first, and after that, you go from the meat into your ingredients and you mix. Then you got your hash.
- [Stanley] one. Is that corn and tomato stew?
- [Pourer] Corn, tomatoes.
- All right, give me a different stirrer, man. That's that hash. That's the favorite. That's why when they come here, they gon' talk for years and years and years and don't never stop coming 'cause they love that hash.
- They gotta come.
- They gotta come back. Once they taste that hash, it's all over.
- That's that secret I put in there, and gimme the mind, they always say, "Let's go back."
- [Stanley] What'd you say? I didn't hear you. What'd you say?
- When I put that secret in there and they taste it, they always tell me, "Let's go back, let's go back, let's go back."
- [Onlooker] Got the master chef. ♪ Go if I have to go ♪ ♪ Then I have to go by myself ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll pray if I have to pray ♪ ♪ But I'mma pray ♪ ♪ Have to pray by myself ♪ ♪ But I'll pray if I have to pray ♪ ♪ But I'mma pray ♪ ♪ Have to pray by myself ♪ ♪ If my mother ♪ ♪ Don't pray ♪ ♪ If my father ♪ ♪ Don't pray ♪ ♪ If my sister ♪ ♪ Don't pray ♪
- [Stanley] How's the hash?
- Very good. ♪ Pray if I have to pray ♪ ♪ By my ♪ ♪ Have to pray by myself ♪ ♪ Lord, I'll pray ♪
- Every family makes their hash differently, and from the hashes that I've tasted around, this is the best one around.
- [Guest] This one good today, huh?
- People come from miles around just to taste the hash. It's real good hash. Taste it for yourself. ♪ If my mother ♪ ♪ Don't sing ♪ ♪ If my father ♪ ♪ Don't sing ♪ ♪ If my sister ♪
- [Stanley] Rodney, thank you for meeting me down here. I know that your family is of German origin and that you are steeped in mustard-based hash, and I wonder if you could tell me where that tradition started and how you guys ended up with it.
- Absolutely. Stan, when the English colony settled here in South Carolina, they brought over the Germans, who were a hardy lot of people. Very sturdy, very strong, not afraid of work, had history in agriculture. Brought 'em to work the docks in Charleston. Well, as that was going on, the English also wanted to settle into the back country of South Carolina, the Dutch Fork region, what's going to become the Dutch Fork region, but it was occupied by Cherokee Indians. And so I believe they took the Germans who were great at managing small lots of farmland and they shifted them up the Santee, the Congaree, into the Saluda and the Broad, up the rivers, to create these little farms, and they pushed the Cherokees out and settled the white settlements. Well, the German stuck in, and with them, they brought their mustard from Germany, and I believe that when they were doing the outdoor cooking, that the mustard influence came in with the barbecue sauce, the mustard-based barbecue sauce, the mustard-based hashes. My family is all from the Dutch Fork region. My grandmother, she turns a hundred next year. She was born in Chapin. My father's side goes back to the 1850s with the Longs. So, all of our history really comes from those Germans paving the way right up the corridor from Charleston to the Dutch Fork region. Stan, I want to kind of show you how the Germans got to the Dutch Fork area. They started right here in the Charleston area, and this is the area up here, the Dutch Fork area between the Saluda and the Broad that they wanted settled, so they moved them up the Congaree, up the Broad, over the Saluda, and this is the area known as the Dutch Fork. And right here in the Chapin area is where my grandmother came from, and I grew up here in this little area of Newberry called Jalapa. And this whole area right here, you will find an enormous concentration of German lineage, and that's where your mustard base and your barbecue hash with the mustard base in it, that's where it comes from and that's where it still is today. Now, my father, we grew up farming, and so one year he decided to do a barbecue on Labor Day, and this barbecue probably had 50 people. Within the course of four years, it had grown to 250 people. Well, the fifth year they couldn't afford to do it because as farmers, they just couldn't afford the product to do. So, he and my uncle Lionel Long decided to build a restaurant in Clinton, South Carolina, which was Hickory Hills Bar-B-Que. Now, my step-granddad, Herman Wise, he was also a fantastic influence, and his name is actually synonymous with mustard-based barbecue and hash in Newberry, South Carolina. And he helped Jimmy and Johnny Wise, which is what the barbecue I cut my teeth on, helped them start Wise's Bar-B-Que in Newberry.
- [Commenter] Mustard sauce.
- [Stanley] What do you call that?
- Hash.
- [Stanley] What you making?
- Barbecue sauce.
- [Stanley] Looks like mustard.
- Well, it's got mustard in it. They said if you get below Columbia, they don't use it.
- [Stanley] They don't use the mustard sauce there?
- Uh-uh. And if you get above Greenville, they don't use much of it. Up in the mountain? They use a vinegar base up that way and the same way in the lower part of the state, down below Columbia. You don't have to get too far down. They use a red base down there. Ketchup.
- There's not a sauce that's any better than this mustard-base sauce they have here.
- I prefer this to Greenwood hash.
- Do you?
- Mm-hmm.
- [Stanley] What's the difference between this and Greenwood hash?
- It's just the taste and the sauce. I love the mustard-based sauce.
- Just what you get used to.
- There's eight gallons of mustard in that pot.
- [Stanley] Good Lord. You like mustard?
- Yeah. Somebody does around here.
- I've driven from Rock Hill to be here today.
- [Onlooker] And I live right up the road.
- Yes, sir.
- [Stanley] What makes you come that far?
- Because it's so good.
- To my knowledge, hash varies kinda like sauce does from what region of the states you're in. It runs from the high vinegar content to a high onion content to a rather bland, and then some hash has a mustard base and taste almost like Brunswick stew. As far as the sauces are concerned, my favorite, of course, is the mustard-based. Next I'd go with the Pee Dee area that has the pepper vinegar, and I guess third, the tomato-based is not really my favorite, but I've eaten some good tomato-based sauce.
- Very seldom I get a few people occasionally that ask for red sauce, but I bet you I ain't had nobody asked for it now in months.
- [Stanley] Mustard sauce is it for this part of the state.
- [Restaurateur] Yep.
- [Stanley] On a tip from a hash lover, I learned that the city of Greenwood is one of the most active hash-making areas in the state. Once a textile town, Greenwood has become a New South city with international businesses bringing with them the forces of change. I decided to test just how deeply rooted the old-fashioned way of cooking hash is in Greenwood by dropping in on some of the local business establishments. We're trying to find out whether you know anybody who cooks hash in the old-fashioned way in black iron kettles.
- The Cokesbury Fire Department.
- The volunteer fire departments do it.
- In the Promised Land, Verdery section, there is a gentleman named Edward Hacken.
- Curt Walker. He doesn't cook it enough. He should cook it more often, but he does cook a good hash. The best I've ever eaten.
- [Stanley] He's just your next-door neighbor?
- Just next-door neighbor, and a good one, at that.
- I do cook hash several times a year. I've done it all my life. It's been a tradition for us to do our family reunions every year 4th of July and cook hash.
- [Stanley] What do you cook 'em in?
- Black wash pots.
- [Stanley] Is that right?
- [Mike] Yes.
- [Stanley] Well, you weren't teasing were you?
- No. I have one, like I said, that's much larger. I just don't have it out here. That'll probably cook right at 50 gallons of hash, yeah. The one on the end over there belongs to my son's grandmother and I-
- [Stanley] Which one is that?
- This one right here. I don't know the history on it, but I'm sure it goes way back past that.
- [Stanley] This is your son Brad over here?
- That's my son Brad, yes.
- [Stanley] And does Brad know how to cook hash?
- He's learning.
- Yeah?
- Yeah, I'm teaching him. And every year he gets a little better. Every year he gets harder to teach. He's into teenage years right now where he knows everything.
- [Stanley] Brad, if he got hit by a Mack truck, you think you could cook his hash?
- Yes, sir.
- Do you?
- Yeah.
- [Stanley] How could you do that? He hasn't written down a recipe or anything, has he?
- Just by the things he taught me.
- [Stanley] I'm doing a documentary on hash. Do you know any hash makers in this area that cook in those old black kettles?
- No, sir.
- [Stanley] You don't?
- Well I know one over across the lake. He got that big old black pot. A great big one. Big old pot. Oh, that thing holds 50 quarts, I guess.
- [Stanley] Wow. And who is he?
- Bailey Riser.
- [Stanley] And who does he cook for?
- Well, he make for everybody.
- Is that right?
- Yeah. He does it on July, Christmas, stuff like that.
- [Stanley] So, where were you born?
- [Bailey] I was born right here on this place.
- Is that right?
- 75 years ago.
- [Stanley] And how long you been cooking hash?
- About 40 years.
- [Stanley] Who'd you learn from?
- I learned just on my own, I think.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- [Stanley] Your reputation extends pretty far across Lake Greenwood and over in Greenwood County.
- [Bailey] Oh yeah, I'm sure it do.
- [Stanley] What do you enjoy about making hash?
- I just enjoyed people that that liked it, saying it was good for them, I guess, the biggest thing about it.
- [Stanley] Now, tell me about this hash house you got down here. That's quite a setup. When do you cook in that?
- [Bailey] Just the 4th of July is all now.
- [Stanley] Did you used to cook more often?
- [Bailey] Yeah, we used to cook Labor Day or something like that, but we-
- [Stanley] Why do you cook just the 4th of July?
- Well, when I built that place, before I put anything in there, I went down there and there was a note there from somebody at the health department that I knew, and he was nice about it. He said, "You can cook one time a year," 'cause people in the country still cook 4th of July, but he told me all the things that I would have to do down there if I cooked any other times, which I would have to put a cement floor, put running hot water, and close it in, and put all kind of fans in one thing or other, and vents and all in, so it wasn't worth it to me.
- [Stanley] And that really takes a little bit of the country out of it.
- Oh yeah, I think it do. Yeah, sure do.
- [Stanley] Well, what's the future of this tradition?
- I don't think it's too much future to it. I think it's about gone, I think. A few years, you'll have to do all that if you want to cook.
- [Stanley] Have I got Ray Kelly?
- I'm Ray Kelly.
- [Stanley] Ray, how are you doing?
- Fine, how you doing?
- Stan Woodward. Some people say you are one of the best hash masters in the Greenwood area. You ever heard that?
- That's true, sir, 'cause if a man can't stand up for his own product, you know he's not much of a man. But I think we have some of the best. And this is our hash house right here. We've got stuff stacked up now because we've taken it out since we're not gonna get to cook Labor Day. This is one of our pots here, and it's an old syrup kettle that they used to make molasses in, syrup, back on the farm. And I picked it up. A farmer had quit making the syrup and molasses, and we've had it set up here for a good many years. We fire it with wood, But we usually cook on Labor Day. Here is Labor Day right now is almost within a week, but we're not gon' get to cook on account of that DHEC, they stepped in and gave us four days a year to sell, and that's it. But this year, I used up my four days in the 4th of July, so. The people are looking forward to it. I've had call after call, says, "Why don't you go ahead and cook?" Or "Why don't you go ahead and let me cook it in my name? You cook it, but say I rented the house from you or your wife or whatever," and says, "We'll go ahead and I'll stand the responsibility." But I said, "No, sir. That's not what the man said." I asked him about that, if I could cook it or lease it to somebody else, and he said "No, it would be the same operation." And that's why they wouldn't let us do it.
- [Stanley] Well, Ray, this is an operation that goes back to our people. It goes back to our farms. You're keeping alive a tradition that's maybe 300 years old.
- Yes, sir. It is. That's true, and I don't know. It's come up over the years like this. Mr. Woodward, I wish the people would get ahold of it, the right ones in our legislature, somebody, and leave it like it is and leave us well enough alone that we could keep cooking.
- [Stanley] I'm doing a documentary on hash in the Greenwood area.
- Yes, sir.
- Southern, but I have never put peanuts in my Coke.
- That's a redneck thing.
- [Customer] Sweet tea is the champagne of the South.
- [Stanley] The customers usually do serve themselves?
- If it gets in a rush, we really do.
- We cut it down real low. We put enough water in it so we know that it'll simmer and that's tenderizing the meat. And then we'll let it sit overnight and then we'll come in and start packing it the next morning.
- Can you all see? He's the one comes in the morning that does that. So, they've been in drought.
- Then we gotta dip it up in these containers. First we have to wait and let it cool down enough so you can handle it. It's not hash if it's made by a machine. Real hash is made by hand.
- That's good.
- What you got?
- Oh, one of the boys, my love, my dear friend Shane from the Medallions, they always keep me in stock with their newest paraphernalia. They were raised in the hash house. ♪ Oh, I wish I was going to the Hash House ♪ ♪ At lunchtime, that's where I want be ♪ ♪ Something good is always cooking at the Hash House ♪ ♪ Ms. Ruth always takes care of me ♪ ♪ Ms. Ruth always takes care of me ♪
- I guess how we became close and how we first got involved with the Hash House, we were practicing in the building right next door to the Hash House. That was our original band, the Original Swingin Medallions, and we were there all the time practicing, and they would come over and hang out, and we ate there all the time, and we got to know Ms. Ruth and all of her family and everything. And it just became, it was almost like a second family to us. ♪ Oh, I wish I was going to the Hash House ♪ ♪ At lunchtime, that's where I want to be ♪ ♪ Something good is always cooking at the Hash House ♪ ♪ Ms. Ruth always takes care of me ♪ ♪ Ms. Ruth always takes care of me ♪
- [Stanley] How did Hash get started in the Greenwood area as far as you recall?
- Well, it originally came when the great crowds came to pay homage to Preston Brooks. Preston Brooks was a representative from the Greenwood County, which took care of Greenwood, Abbeville, part of Laurens, and part of Saluda Counties.
- [Stanley] Now, when are we talking about? What timeframe?
- We're talking about the period of 1856.
- Oh wow.
- Before the Civil War.
- [Stanley] Okay. That goes back a ways.
- Yes, and he had been a hero in the Mexican war, and he came back home and he ran for the State House of Representatives and won. Then two years later, he ran for the Federal State House in Washington and won. And so that's when he and Senator Sumner, who was a old senator from Massachusetts who had been making real hard remarks about the South and the South and the states rights, so he proceeds to go to the Senate floor and take his cane. He give Mr. Sumner a going-over. And so from then on, the people came, 10,000, six to 10,000 people came to pay homage for a big barbecue out at Star Fort, and they came by trains, by horse and buggy, by carts. The trains were backed up to Newberry, and they'd have to rent horses and carriages and bring 'em up. And when they got here, these people were having to try to feed them, so they were cooking barbecue and to keep it from spoiling, because back in those days, and on October the 2nd, there was no way to have kept food from spoiling, and so they put 'em in wash pots and syrup pots and they would barbecue and bone it, and then they'd stir, and add potatoes and onions and things to it and make it. And they kept stirring to keep from scorching the taste. And so they could feed all these people, and it became a favorite in this area. Mr. Brooks was reelected without any opposition. He resigned from the house, but he was reelected and he only lived three months afterwards. He died after three months going back to Washington.
- My dad and my uncle, they would cook hash at a cook-house on Grendel Mill Village in Greenwood and they would cook hash for the community every 4th of July. I have a clipping in my hand here from a local newspaper with my mother and my aunt dipping hash out of the pot here in this building, and also a picture of me stirring the hash, and they're doing the dipping. They are dipping the hash out to service to the community. This is my mother on the right, my aunt Ola Mabry in the middle, and this is me stirring the pot.
- [Jerry] Yeah, it's here. Somebody got the pot.
- [Stanley] Somebody got the pot.
- Mm-hmm, but that's the way it was. Pot sat in this stand here..
- [Stanley] Jerry, who are we going to see down there?
- This is Beth Rembert.
- I have a lot of memories of the hash house as a child, coming down when the men would be cooking and they would ask us to work and peel potatoes and onions. We'd play around for a while and then we would leave because the interest was there only for a short while when we had to peel potatoes or onions. But the community did benefit from it because the word got out that there was wonderful hash and stew being made.
- Right, this is my dad. He cooked the hash at Grendel Mill every 4th of July. And my father's name is Charles Flinn.
- [Stanley] And you have kept his pot out back.
- Right.
- [Stanley] Why have you done that? Why have you kept his pot?
- Mainly because it belonged to him, and it's very sentimental to me because he enjoyed doing it so much.
- And 'course hash was made in hash houses at all the textile plants, just about, and each one had to try to outdo the other on good taste and which one is the most popular. Every one of 'em had a hash house. And that was when we made hash.
- [Stanley] Where you gon' take me, Senator?
- I'm gonna take you to the Ninety Six Mill Village and show you the old house, the what they call the hash house. And then the young boy, he's really added to it, and that's his home now. And right here on my right, that's where the ballpark was. That was where the old fence was. Right behind the ballpark, there was a little run, and this was a hash house. And if you see right here, that section on the left, it was actually the hash house he's built on. Young boy's built onto the right of this house, but you notice how the chimneys-
- [Stanley] So, the left side would be the old hash house.
- [Senator] The left side was what they called the hash house, and...
- [Stanley] Do you have any idea why hash had such a large role to play in the mill villages?
- Well, I believe, you know, a lot of folks raised hogs around. They came in from the country and raised hogs, and they didn't have a place on the mill villages for 'em, and so Mr. Self said, "Well, we have a little piece of land back here off the outskirts of the village, and you can build your hog pen and raise hogs up there." And then, of course, at hog-killing time, it was kind of a big event for the families. Everybody would remember those big old pots where they would skin those pigs and start dressing them out, and that could be a beginning, you know, start on the hash business, I don't know.
- [Stanley] Well, that would've brought a tradition off the farm into those villages.
- I think it would. Think it would.
- [Joe] Or less this general area. We're gonna travel down 25 South, down to Kirksey, which is way out south of Greenwood, and right about there I think is where we're gonna find the original location.
- [Stanley] Now, down this road, we're gonna find what, hopefully?
- [Linda] The old chain gang camp.
- [Stanley] You think that's part of the camp right there?
- This is it, I think, right here.
- [Joe] Yeah, right here.
- [Linda] Or part of it. It's still standing because it was fixed for people not to be able to get out.
- [Joe] That's right. That must have been where the inmates, that must have been the barracks or something.
- [Stanley] So, one thing we know for sure is that one of the hashes that Greenwood grew to love, started down here on this chain gang camp.
- That's about right.
- [Stanley] And Les Devore was the stewmaster.
- Yep. He was, well I guess the lead boss of the camp down here, and he was also, in effect, the stewmaster.
- Here at the chain gang camp, from what my aunt told me, the ladies came. She remembered this as a small girl herself. Came and brought cakes and pies here to the chain gang camp after the hash caught on so good, and people kept wanting to buy some, and this, that, and the other, so they came and had a 4th of July ball here. They just had a big time on 4th of July day, and it turned out to be a community festival, and you know, which went on for several years.
- Les Devore's recipe migrated to the Greenwood Fire Department, and then possibly it is the basis of the foundation for the recipes that the volunteer fire departments use now.
- Should have been on the top. We are looking for a picture of the pot. Pretty sure it's the original pot. Oh, here it is.
- [Stanley] Let's see.
- [Joe] Ah, it looks like on the top picture there, they're stirring the hash, and you can tell that it's a really big operation, and I think all the shifts on the fire department force worked on that hash.
- [Stanley] Can you read for me what that article's saying is there, Linda?
- Okay, it says, "Hash, a firehouse tradition on the 4th. Hash has been a Greenwood Fire Department 4th of July staple for the last 34 years." Now, this was in 1981 that this paper was printed. "The first batch of hash was cooked by Les Devore, who passed on his hash-making secrets to Battalion Commander Grady Hill, who still supervises the seasoning of the hash."
- [Joe] And that's Grady on the right there. Grady Hill knew Mr. Devore pretty well.
- [Linda] Mm-hmm. Very well.
- And I think he knew him well enough for Mr. Devore to pass on that big iron pot up there.
- [Linda] There you go.
- [Joe] Well, Grady Hill's probably your link to the old-
- Probably is.
- Soup tradition.
- Probably is. The fire department started off originally with just one pot. Not sure about this one... but I'm not sure.
- [Stanley] Who would know the history of that one? You gonna call that fella about the pot?
- Yep. There's some guys over here that's doing a documentary film on hash-cooking, and the one who knows most abouts you and they're wanting to know about the where the pots came from and everything. They want to know if you know where the Les Devore pot migrated to. The little pot that's turned over in the corner of the hash house back there? All right. Bye. Interestingly enough, the little pot in the corner is Grady Hill's personal hash pot.
- [Joe] And that would be...
- So, that's probably what you're looking for, right.
- [Joe] That's right. If Mr. Devore handed off his original cast iron pot, then that's probably the one sitting out there in the corner.
- [Stanley] There it is.
- [Fireman] Rust has gotten better that thing, but...
- [Joe] It can be brought back up.
- [Fireman] Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
- [Stanley] But that may be a very historic pot for this area, right, Joe?
- I think so. This hash house contains all six of the original iron pots that the Greenwood Fire Department used way back when to cook hash. So, we've also found what is presumably the Les Devore pot that started all of this sitting in the corner upside down in the hash house.
- Come on in. Let me introduce you to my dad. This is my father, Bryan Dorn.
- [Stanley] Hi, how are you, sir?
- Fine, thank you.
- [Stanley] You know, I heard some stories about you. I heard that you're pretty famous for hash. Is that true?
- [Bryan] Well, we had stump meeting for people to come and meet the candidates.
- [Stanley] And what did you serve at those stump meetings?
- Well, the principal ingredient was hash.
- [Stanley] And why did you pick hash?
- It was easy to fix and was commonly liked among most everybody.
- Stan, this is an actual shot from 1966, one of the barbecues here on the farm. You can see how the tables were just thrown together, old plank boards, and you can see the pickle jar here, and there's a man there with a black hat actually serving hash to these kids right here, of whom I'm one of. And so looking at my age there, I'm guessing I'm around six, so that would be 1966. And you can just see the long lines off in the background. There's a table back over here, and the folks would come in. That's out in the cow pasture. So, that's how they looked every time we did one. Daddy used to always tell me, though, when he was growing up, his father in teaching and training him in how to speak would say, "Bryan, when you're making a speech at these barbecues, you make your speech to the guy in the back who is stirring the hash." Said, "He's a paid guy. He's not there 'cause he wants to be there. He's there and it's his sole job to stir the hash."
- Guy that was cooking the hash, he had to keep stirring, because if he stopped, his pot was iron, it might stick.
- So, he's not interested in what's going on. He doesn't care what's going on. So, if you can start aiming your whole speech to him, and if you get to the place where the guy in the hash is doing this. He's sitting back there and he's stirring the hash round and around and around, and then all of a sudden, every now and then he starts looking up like this, he said, "You know you're getting somewhere." In my father's words, "You keep pouring it to him."
- So, I poured it to him, and stomped around on the platform.
- So, all of a sudden he gets slower and slower, and said, "You keep speaking to him. Just keep speaking to him, Bryan." He gets slower and slower. Then finally he stops.
- And finally, he just let the stick go, and go with his hands on his hips and start listening.
- You know, and his mouth hangs open, and all of a sudden you look up, and you know you're getting somewhere because, again, he's paid. He's not supposed to be interested. And then all of a sudden, he'll catch himself again. Said, "You know you have achieved your objective of making a great speech if the guy who's stirring the hash takes the big boat paddle kind of a stick out of the pot, taps it on the side, and lays the stick over to the side, and listens to the speech. You know you've done real well."
- It was quite a circus cooking it. Everybody talking and some would slip off in the woods to get 'em a drink of corn and come back and stir more vigorously.
- Stan, it's real interesting, as you and I have been walking around this morning on the farm looking for those black iron pots they used to cook hash in that were such an everyday part of my childhood, I mean those things are as etched in my mind as you right in front of me right now, seeing those things that now in the course of time, something that was so everyday. so part of the normal routine, has become lost to you, that has a real strange irony as we sit out here under these same oaks where 5,000 people used to gather, and you could smell the aroma of barbecue and hash and sweaty bodies all laden together here with colorful personalities up on the porch over here speaking and bands playing and all of that. And now that seems almost to be of another era. And that's real interesting to me.
- [Stanley] People don't think about these pots, do they?
- Not anymore. Not anymore. As you and I have discovered, you know, me being in North Carolina now talking to people about hash, they've never even heard of it. What in the world are you talking about? It's a strange kind of an oddity, almost, now.
- [Stanley] I think people take this for granted around here.
- You do.
- This is still a thing.
- You're right.
- [Stanley] This is a busy area for hash cooking and hash eating, but you ask people about it, and it's sort of like oxygen, you know?
- Yeah, it's so much a part of the air you breathe that you almost just have to stop and step out of yourself for a moment and go, "Hash, okay, pots," and "What's that all about?"
- Yeah.
- Exactly right. Yeah.
- And now it's my honor to present this year's Folk Heritage Award. I don't know too much about music, but I know a lot about eating. That's something I know about. Mr. Willie Lee Williams learned to cook Lowcountry hash in the early 1950s under the supervision of one of the region's best barbecue chefs. The Williams business is truly a family affair with brother John Perry= and son Darin assisting during the long cooking process. The Williams family has been making hash for years. They're known for generously supplying hash to community churches and other organizations to raise money for charitable causes. Make the presentation. Mr. Willie Lee Williams, McCormick. Congratulations, Mr. Williams.
- [Stanley] What do you feel the significance of this award to hash-making is?
- Well, I think it's part of South Carolina culture, and it's a tribute, and just like we award those in the arts and award those for the singing, I think hash is certainly an integral part of our culture here in South Carolina, and certainly we were delighted that Mr. Williams received this award for his tradition and his contributions to our culture.
