Of the stops the four college students from Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama made for their study of Southern barbecue, one was in Hemingway on Jan. 15.
They toured the pits at Scott’s BBQ in Brunson, recorded video for YouTube, then tasted the Lowcountry picked pig and pronounced it the most authentic of all they had tasted in their tour.
Art Richey, one of the students, said it was the best sandwich he’d had.
“Too bad it’s so far out of the way, so many people can’t experience it,” Richey said. “It had a perfect spicy flavor, and heat that you could feel in your mouth for several minutes. This will be the standard against which all the other barbecue places will be judged.”
The students’ 17-day excursion through the Southern states was to sample barbecue for a course they are taking at Birmingham Southern University. Hemingway became one of their two stops in South Carolina.
They’d planned additional stops, but time was running out, so they bypassed Florence and Lake City. They stopped at Scott’s on the advice of a relative, then visited one more place in Holly Hill before departing for Georgia.
Scott’s was pronounced authentic, with “nothing flashy. This is as country as country can be. This is it. Scott’s is one of the few places where you can still experience and taste the real South, the South that writers romanticize about and cooks try to imitate,” they reported.
Richey, along with fellow students Will Foster, Jeff Vaughan and Matt Lee, call themselves the “Southern Barbecue Boys” and have a Web site at www.southern bbqboys.com, as well as a blog and a series of YouTube videos.
Owner Rosie Scott was disappointed he was away when the students visited. He’s been cooking barbecue at the same spot since about 1973, with hand-built pits and an old-time recipe that’s come down in his family.
“I just watched my uncle do it to learn how,” Scott said.
“We do it the hard way,” he said. “We still use hardwood to cook ours; a lot of others are using gas to do it.”
Richey agreed the wood made a difference.
“You can sure taste it,” he said. “It was a really neat experience.”
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement