Barbecue

The Smithsonian says:

“If any gastronomical treat could give the proverbially American apple pie a run for its money, it might just be barbecue. The culinary tradition of cooking meat low and slow over indirect flame (the true definition of barbecue – imposters who grill, take note) has become so prevalent over the years that BBQ itself represents a sort of pop culture.

Barbecue belt residents would argue that the beef-based BBQ of Texas doesn’t constitute authentic barbecue. To be real barbecue, purists argue that the meat must be exclusively pork, because the original BBQ-ers of the southern colonies depended on the cheap, low-maintenance nature of pig farming. 

The original styles of barbecue are thought to be those that originated in the easternmost colonies, like the vinegar-based “whole hog” barbecue found in Virginia and North Carolina. The technique of adding sauce to the meat as it cooks came from British colonists. North Carolina’s vinegar-based sauces are also a remnant of these Briton’s penchant for the tart sauce. In South Carolina, which housed a large population of French and German immigrants, a mustard-based sauce was born, again, a reflection of the immigrant populations’ traditional preferences.

In Memphis, the regionally unique sweet, tomato-based barbecue sauce was born from the city’s status as a popular port along the Mississippi River. Memphis residents could easily obtain a variety of goods, including molasses, which provided the region’s sweet barbecue taste. Out of Memphis’ barbecue genes, the last of America’s four main barbecue styles – Kansas City barbecue – was born.”

I grew up with fake barbecue. The only “BBQ” I experienced as a child in the Great Lakes area was really grilled meat, usually chicken. Toss some Kraft BBQ sauce on it, and it magically became “BBQ chicken.” Sometimes we made “BBQ hamburgers” too. I don’t recall stumbling upon pulled pork until I was an adult, and learned what “real” barbecue was. Low and slow, with smoke involved. (Yes, I know pulled pork does not necessarily = BBQ, you can make it in a crock pot, but what I find here is smoked barbecue pulled pork.)

In the South (we don’t count Texas and their beef) ‘real’ barbecue is pork, just as the Smithsonian says. In a restaurant you can find both brisket and chicken, but if you are with friends pulling out the smoker (or better still, if you can get to a real BBQ pit) , it will be pork down here. When we have barbecue brought in at work, it is so yummy that I don’t use sauce of any kind. I just love the tender, smoky flavor. 

Grilled chicken with sauce can be yummy, but just don’t call it barbecue.

Trees

Trees are very different in the South. Up north, we have red and white pine; balsam fir; bur and pin oaks; silver, Norway and sugar maples; horse chestnut and Eastern hemlock; white, black, and blue spruce; paper birch, and quaking aspen.

In the south, there are live and water oak, bald cypress; slash and scrub pine; royal and palmetto palm; river birch, flowering dogwood, southern magnolia, shagbark hickory, sweetgum, sassafrass, basswood, pecan, black walnut.

Yes, of course there is overlap – you can find some maples in the South, and the North has some varieties of magnolia, etc. I’ve even seen palm trees in Victoria, BC (Canada). But overall once you get into the Deep South, you know you’re not in Kansas anymore.

What I miss about northern forests is the fall color. Birch and quaking aspen trees turn bright yellow, oaks turn golden and red, and of course maples are known for their spectrum of red through orange through gold to yellow. My favorite of all is the sugar maple, which has dark branches and the leaves turn from gold to red on the outside, while pale green hangs on inside the crown. In the sun it gives off a luminescent glow that is impossible to capture in a photograph. Even if you live in a cave (like I do) it is impossible to miss fall in the north.

On the other hand, the south stays green overall. Many trees are not deciduous, so they keep their leaves year-round (live oak, southern magnolia, etc.). And I do love a nice palm tree. If I must live in Florida, the least I can do is have a palm tree. My new house has a nice landscaping collection of Pygmy Date Palms, which are not native (most palm trees in Florida are not) but are cute nonetheless. A landscaping ad says “This wouldn’t be Florida without the waving fronds of the tropical palms. Palms are the easiest way to “tropicalize” your garden and give great shade but also allow the breeze to flow through.”

I’ve learned that some palm varieties are self-cleaning, meaning when a frond is dead it will fall off on its own. Other types of palms retain the dried fronds as a "petticoat" under the green fronds.

Live oak trees can also be very majestic looking (as oak are wont to be) and when dripping with Spanish Moss, are the poster child for the Deep South overall.

Wading Birds

Anyone who knows me knows I like my birds. There is quite a change from north to south.

Up north, we have lots of wading birds - killdeer, plovers, sandpipers, etc. There are also large wading birds here and there - egrets and herons (great blue, black crowned night, and little green).

Down south, there are a lot more big wading birds. I see the smaller birds as well - the killdeer, etc., but it's the big ones that get the attention. One is the wood stork. It is beautiful in flight - bright white with black wing edges, but up close its head is grey and featherless, reminiscent of a vulture. 

Egrets and herons abound here - great, snowy and cattle egrets, great blue, tricolor, green, little blue herons, among others.

One bird you don't see is an icon of Florida - the flamingo. They are not native to North America, and if you see one it is an escapee from the zoo or Disney.

The large pink bird you do see in the South is the Roseate Spoonbill. I spotted a flock of them flying overhead when I was near the Gulf coast in Louisiana. I nearly drove off the bridge trying to figure them out. It was obviously not a flamingo (which I did not know were not native at the time) but I'd never thought that spoonbills *were* native. You can also occasionally see a red or pink ibis, but typically I see the white ones.

Wood storks, spoonbills, ibis, and cattle egrets tend to be seen in flocks, at least in my experience. The other large waders can congregate (such as in a nesting site) but don't fly in flocks normally.

The variety of large birds is one of the benefits of living in the South.

Water

I’ve been to the South before, when the kids were young. We had a trip to Disney World, a camping trip in South Carolina, and later I had a business trip to Orlando and other parts of Florida, plus a good deal of time spent in Charleston. Often I was driving, or flying in the dark or into less coastal areas.

When I took my ‘find-a-house-in-three-days’ trip to Jacksonville, this was the first time I’d had a daytime flight to a coastal area where I was looking at the landscape through the eyes of the soon-to-be resident.

There are rivulets, brooks, creeks, streams, and rivers, creating marshes, swamps, and deltas. There is little like it in the Great Lakes area. Now there are rivers and swamps in the north (we call them ‘wetlands’) and there are lakes in the south, but the coastal marsh-y swamp-y areas are unique in the south. They make the bayous and the Everglades. If you go to a lake up north there is often a clear delineation between land and water. Often the border is muddy, but it is far less clear in the coastal South, where you will have spongy wet areas for miles between solid ground and a definite body of water.

 

Lakes up north tend to be created by glacial action – they are distinct, carved by rock and ice, and scattered about in clumps.  Lakes in the South more frequently form in a low-lying area, like a marsh that has sunk. There are also many springs in the South, more than I recall knowing about up North.

Water defines both the Great Lakes Region and the Coastal South. But it has shaped life in very different ways. Living in the coastal areas often means dealing with brackish water (salt) whereas if one is lucky enough to be far enough north to be away from towns, one can often drink straight from the lake (yes, filters are advised). 

Water is one of the first differences I noticed about the land itself from North to South. There’s lots more to come.