Day 3- Hump day, more like rump day. Man, porkin’ sure ain’t easy.

It’s all copious.

This morning we awoke yet again to the aroma of various victuals of the breakfast variety. There are no words that can express our immense gratitude for the exquisite Southern hospitality on the road thus far (THANKS Mrs. Richardson, Mrs. Moon and Mrs. Harper!). It has been so refreshing and uplifting that people would go to such extents to fuel the fire of our desire for BBQ! Certainly, the groans of naysayers have been drowned out by such copious support.

After an evening of karaoke and me (Jared) getting to try white queso for the first time, we headed northeast to Colombia, SC, the home of Maurice’s BBQ, to begin yet another day of porkin’. This establishment was chosen after doing a little local research, and concluding that Maurice’s was a well-known restaurant in the region with the most “unique” story. There are 15 Maurice’s in the city of Colombia and we opted for the original (always the right choice). As we turned the final bend in the road a giant neon Hog welcomed us to yet another BBQ joint claiming to be the “World’s Most Famous”. This statue/sign/monument of Little Joe (Maurice’s mascot) was impressive to say the least. It was 50+ feet tall and certainly rivals all Wonders of the World, at least for BBQ lovers like us.

For a few moments we stood in utter awe mesmerized by its magnificence, but we soon remembered the more pertinent task at hand. No fancy man made construct can usurp the urgent beckoning of our BBQ mission. Upon walking through the door were slapped in the face by Dixieland pride and southern paraphernalia covering every wall. There were rebel flags, pictures memorializing Civil War battles, paintings of various wilderness animals, and a portrait of the restaurant’s namesake. Every stroke of Maurice’s likeness paid homage to the likes of Colonel Sanders and Stonewall Jackson.

What makes Maurice’s so unique is their sauce. Rather than being red like most, the sauce at Maurice’s is mustard based, so it has a dark yellow tint to it. It is somewhat offsetting to look down at a plate of ribs slathered in yellow “BBQ” sauce, but we all agreed that it was a nice little change from the sauce we had encountered thus far. As we began our taste-testing process, out of the corners of our eyes we noticed a little old man stroll through the front doors. We realized that the restaurant’s namesake, Maurice, had come by to check on things. Since he has fifteen stores in all, none of us expected to meet him personally, but this 78 year old man is still quite active in his barbeque empire, and while a little apprehensive to talk BBQ, we was more than willing to chat up the South.

Our conversation began like all previous talks with the owners of restaurants. We volley with an initial schmooze (i.e. “Wow, this sauce is incredible” or “We’re on a BBQ tour of the South and we heard that you’re the best BBQ in town”) hoping to entice them to talk shop with us about their product. This usually works like a charm. Owners are more than willing to talk about their business without revealing too much once they know that we are fans of their food. But this is not exactly how things in this case. On top of being a precious little Colonel Sanders replica, Maurice was incredibly self-assured, and whatever compliment we threw his way he devoured. Our persuasive tactics didn’t seem to work. Every time we would we tender an inquiry about his sauce or meat preparation Maurice would shoot it out of the sky like a clay pigeon, and it wasn’t until Jonathan touched on a rather sore subject that Maurice poured out his soul.

***Side note*** Our resident historian, Timmy Moon, has been doing most of the research for each of our stops, and has been guiding most of our discussions and helping us meander through the sensitive subjects surrounding highly secret recipes and restaurant backgrounds when talking with owners. HOWEVER, Timmy had not given us a pre-game warning about Maurice’s story.

Without realizing what he was doing, Jonathan asked Maurice, “How do you distribute your sauce or sell it in stores?” Now, it was not a mistake on his part to ask such a question, but Jonathan was not aware that Maurice had a grievance against the NAACP. You may be asking, “What does BBQ sauce have to do with the NAACP?” Everything. Absolutely everything. This here is a prime example of how complicated porkin’ really can be.

Maurice looked at Jonathan with an expression that screamed, “You must be a #%$@&%$ moron,” and what came out of his mouth was, “I’m not going to talk about that… you don’t know my story do you?” What Timmy had failed to tell us was that our little buddy Maurice and his staunch Southern pride went to war with the NAACP over his zealous affection for the rebel flag and everything it represents when he insisted upon including it’s likeness on the label of his BBQ sauce (also, a rebel flag flies in front of all 15 Maurice’s BBQs). Maurice adamantly claims that the NAACP (something he insists is a terrorist organization) stole $50 million dollars from him when all major distributors refused to sell his BBQ in their stores because of their protesting.

Who would have thought that something symbolizing ignorant hatred and subjugation wouldn’t be welcomed in the public square? But I digress.

As Maurice ranted on for about 15 minutes about his grievance with the government and the NAACP, his monologue wandered in various directions typical of a “Southern gentleman” in which he talked at length about his feelings on the Civil War, or what he calls, “The War of Northern Aggression.”

Rather than write at length about our conversation, I’ll just give you a couple potent quotables:

“I’m a Christian, born again, I ain’t backing down from nobody.”

“Abraham Lincoln was the worst terrorist of them all”

“The liberal media tells the wrong story.”

“If a man can’t stand up for what he believes in, he’s not a man.”

“Winn-Dixie might as well be called, Winn-Yankee”

By the time Maurice had finished talking to us we had finished eating, but before we left he was kind enough to take a picture with us.

Here’s our review of Maurice’s BBQ – Colombia, SC:

Meat - 4 - very unique smoky flavor, cooked on coals
Sauce - 2.5 - extremely distinct, but it tasted too much like honey mustard
Sides - 3.5 - Hushpuppies were delectable; hash (not the illegal kind used for medicinal purposes) and rice was very unique.
Sweet tea - 3.5
Atmosphere - 4 - Very patriotic for a Civil war Vet, Steeped in southern garb, and a stack of witnessing tracks were set out by the t-shirts… praise Jesus.

We drove away from Maurice’s in disbelief over what had just transpired. It was such a surreal experience to finally find what we had been searching for: the truest embodiment of the South.

Thank you Maurice!

Our next stop was Lexington, NC. This small town of about 20,000 people claims to be the “BBQ Capitol of the World” with 21 different BBQ restaurants (in case you’re slow, that’s 1 BBQ joint for every 950 people). As well, Lexington is the “Inbred Hillbilly Capitol of the World,” (evidenced by our sighting of Sloth from The Goonies) but we don’t think these two titles are related.

Because Lexington is such a big deal in the world of BBQ we decided to sample 2 different restaurants, which will take the total number of BBQ joints visited on our trip to 13. Our first stop was a place called Lexington BBQ and our second was Bar-B-Q Center.

The thing to know about North Carolina BBQ is their take on sauce. Rather then having a base of tomato (or mustard) like Maurice, their BBQ sauce is made with vinegar base. This makes their sauce taste completely different than any other sauce that we had tasted prior. When we asked for sauce to pour on our sandwiches at the BBQ Center, the waitress asked if we wanted any “dip.” I was thinking to myself, “Self, what the heck is dip. Does she mean cheese dip?” But this is how they refer to their sauce. I said that I would in fact like some dip, and when she brought it out, it was in a container that you would use to serve maple syrup on pancakes. This was a very interesting experience.

Here are our reviews:

Lexington Barbeque No. 1 – Lexington, NC:

Meat - 3.5 - very moist for chopped pork.
Sauce - 2 - worst sauce we’ve had thus far.
Sides – 2 - we suspect that beans were Van Camp with onion bits added in.
Sweet tea- 3.5
Atmosphere – 2 – it felt like we were at a catfish restaurant (wooden walls).

Bar-B-Q Center - Lexington, NC

Meat – 4 - very delicious
Sauce - 3.5 - This was a good representation of Carolina, Lexington-style sauce – horrible.
Sides - N/A - We were too stuffed from just having eaten another meal. Give us a break, we’re only human.
Sweet tea – 5 - It was really sweet and smooth.
Atmosphere – 3 - The diner was cool looking, but the locals stared us down pretty hard. In this instance, kissing your cousin (3) shall be changed to kissing your sister. Yikes!!!

What was weird about our experience in Lexington was how the locals responded to our presence. At each location it was pretty obvious to everyone that we were not of their kind, and they were much obliged to make us aware of this fact in the way they stared at us. At the BBQ center there was this woman who would not stop looking at us. Either she had a thing for Trey (which older women are prone to do) or she wanted us to know that we weren’t welcome. After finishing our meals we made sure to leave Lexington as quick as possible.

Which brings us to the freakiest encounter we had with a North Carolinian… enter Timothy Moon.

Before I, Timmy, delve into this scary story, I must comment on our own mental state at this point in the trip. If there was one night during the trip that we all “lost it,” it was this day. After our experience with Maurice, getting lost in Lexington (because the city was so backwoods that google gave us inaccurate directions) and the tension of spending three days in the confines of a 2005 Chevy Malibu we had all became rather delirious. We were at the apex of our journey and the furthest point away from the loving embrace of Waco (1400 miles). Understandably, we were a bit out of our element. For the past few days, we had been staying at my house, Stan’s house, and Trey’s house, but on this day, we were in uncharted territory. On this particular Wednesday, I liken our travels to those of the late, great Christopher Columbus. We were explorers learning the ways of a foreign barbeque. On this day, I like to think of us as the “Christopher Columbus’s of Barbeque.” In North Carolina, we were seeing unusual people in unusual places and we were experiencing atypical BBQ. This strange mix of circumstances was the perfect ingredients to challenge our mental states.

It is in this context that I share this story. As we are traveling down I-40 West towards Asheville, I passed a pair of State Troopers pulled up next to each other. While I am known for my ability to have a lead foot, I was not speeding on this particular occasion. After passing these troopers, one of them turns on his signal and pulls onto the interstate. He approaches us with lightening quick speed, so I just assume that he is after another car that was actually breaking the law, yet it seems that he has his eyes on me. I move into the right lane to get out of the way, but he pulls up on my left to check out my plates. After doing this for about three miles, he pulls up even with me and stares me down. Finally, he slows down and then pulls in behind me and tailgates us for another 3 miles. In total, this crazy copper followed us for about ten miles before he pulled off at an exit. Now, you are probably wondering what was going on in the car. As I said earlier, we were exceptionally delirious at this point. When this trooper began following us, Jonathan and Trey starting laughing. Now, this wasn’t the kind of laugh you experience when you hear the punch line of a joke. This was the delirious, freaked out, I’m beginning to lose my mind laugh. As Trey and Jonathan’s cackled in a way that was creepy to the core and indicative of losing one’s mind, I obviously kept a Cool Hand Luke attitude. Not really, I was freaking out on the inside. While the policeman continued to stare us down, we refused to give him the satisfaction of staring back at him. He must have been hoping that we would give him reason to pull us over, but we, the fine Christian soldiers that we are, resisted the temptation of staring back at him. As if this entire day had not been creepy enough, this officer of the law certainly put the icing on the cake. Officer Hillbilly McGee gave us our final interesting experience in the Carolinas. But to be honest, I feel that our perseverance on this day truly made us men. You should no longer consider us amateurs in the ways of the BBQ road trip, we have earned our spots as “Men of Barbeque.”

That's all from us. Sorry that these posts are so long and behind by a couple days. It's hard to fit in all of our experience on the road and post them. Tonight we are at Jonathan's house in England, AR and make our way home tomorrow. But don't worry we will have posts to finish things up.

Things you should be excited about...

Camping in the Smokey Mountains and Memphis, TN.

Don't forget. Porkin' sure ain't easy.

Boys of the BBQ Tour.