When was your first taste of BBQ?


 
C

C Lewis

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Can you remember, was it long ago, or are you new to the wonderful world o' smoke?

For me, it was many moons ago, when I was a young and dumb early-teen something or other, at a step relatives house for a cookout that I didn't want to be at. While we did burgers and steak at home once in a while, and occasionally some form of something that they called bbq chicken, we never had anything else grill/bbq at my house. Having discovered a fair amount of early natural talent at pitching horseshoes, the "old men" there allowed me to throw some with them. We were near an old cinderblock pit, where someone was cooking up ribs. I found myself fascinated by both the cooking process, and the food itself. I had never had ribs before, and was entranced by what Homer called "a wonderful, magical animal" :). It would be many years before I cooked them myself, but that day stands out to me as my first bbq experience. You know, you never forget your first. ;)

How about you, when was your first recollection of experiencing the fruits of wonderful hobby?

Charlie
 
We had a local place that does pit beef that was most likely my first bbq. The place is still still around but the owner got divorced and the wife took the restaurant now serving sizes are small and the service sucks so I don't go much.

My most memorable spot was a place called Georgia Pig that we would stop at every time on the way to North Carolina. Its been closed for years but I think it was off I-95 shortly after going over the GA/FL line if I remember right. It was an old log cabin sitting right next to the interstate gas stations with long tables everyone would sit at together. I remember the last time we ate there my wife and I got their sweet tea and I remember the guy warning us it was made from well water but we still went with it. The entire rest of the trip from there to NC we were constantly stopping for bathroom breaks. Good times...
 
From as early as I could remember my Dad always grilled on a cheapo charcal grill. My first experience with BBQ was going with him to help cook on open pits for church picnics. In high school some buddies and I would get a case of chicken quesrters and go to someone's farm and start bbqing chicken on a pit and have a little beer.
 
First bbq for me was probably a "BBQ Pork Steak" which has been a tradition in the St. Louis MO region for years. Dad made it on something that might have been, or at least looked like a Weber Kettle - he made a big pile of charcoal and used a lot of lighter fluid to get it going. (My dad was a lot of things, but a pitmaster he was not). Anyway, when the pork steaks were done, we used a lot of tomato-ee/sweet bbq sauce. Mom made home-made potato salad and other sides. Most of these memories are from before I was 10 years old, and after that, dad got so focused on his work that I don't think I ever saw him light up a grill after that. I still make pork steaks once in a while, and usually direct grill them and use a bbq rub and maybe a little sauce near the end. Pork steaks are still a tradition here and I make them 2 or 3 times a summer. I'll be thinking about dad next time I cook up some pork steaks. Pork steaks may not in the works for this father's day weekend, but maybe next week end we'll cook em' up.
 
Wow... that's a long time ago.
My Dad worked late most nights and Mom didn't care for starting or standing in front of the grill. I loved bbq back then and still do. I think I was a bit of a pyro. I remember an old flat, $15 charcoal grill from when I was approaching 10 years old. Then we had a gasser that died in short order. Most of my early cooking was on one of those tiny split grate Hibachi grills. When I left home, and got my own place, I bought a boat and had a stainless Magma gasser (that I still have and use to this day... that's about three decades old). Once married, I bought a monster Lynx gasser, also about three decades ago, and still in use today. A few years ago I reunited with charcoal. My wife prefers the taste, and I prefer the experience. Still use the gasser for rotis, for some LNS and when we have a time crunch, otherwise it's one of the Webers. I have all I need/want at this point and can't see adding any more.
 
Good thread CL.
On the beach in Cyprus, 1971. Dad was in the Royal Air Force and stationed out there, he had one of those charcoal open grills, sans lid. It had a type of wind-break around half the grill that had slots in it to put skewers across, (think a half stacker). I was mesmerised with all the paraphenalia and theatre of getting the thing together & fired up, face and hands covered in charcoal dust....& the smell!
I was handed a burger and a chook drummer. Never had a legit burger before. Mmmmm!! That was an epiphany moment. I think the bottom got burned out of that grill as we had our Dad fire that thing up at every opportunity......& other times too! My job was to carry the big bag of lump and then clean all the utensils in the sea afterwards. Happy Days at the beach fishing, swimming, grilling & general tomfoolery.
In about '74 we lived in the middle-east where I met American people for the first time! We lived in a compound with lots of other families and there was always a cut-in-half 55 gallon drum grill on the go over the weekends. That was the first time I ever had a steak 😲, corn-on-the-cob........& Dr. Pepper pop!! That's over 45 years ago.
 
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First barbecue ........... maybe mid 60's, hell I was maybe early teens. Dad would go to Bob's BBQ in Ada, Oklahoma. It was a 30 minute drive. Always had a line. That's where I had my first barbecue rib. Bob's was known all over southeastern Oklahoma. Its gone now, but its still a legend. I think the old brick pits are still there, but the building has been repurposed. Some former OU football players have tried to revive it, but it did not work.

My first grilling was on a hibachi while I was in college in the early 70's. Hamburgers and steaks.
 
I grew up with Catholic church chicken dinners. The churches that held them did them once per summer. The chickens were either halved or quartered and grilled over charcoal. Some pretty good food.

Dad..... did not cook, pretty much ever. Mom would use a gas grill, but AFAIK, never grilled on charcoal, and never smoked.
 
For me my first BBQ, other than burgers and dogs was in the early 70s when I was stationed in Germany, with a couple of new buddies that were from the south. But as far as smoked meats and fish, that goes back even farther. My dad built a homemade smoker out of an old refrigerator and fire bricks. I can still remember smelling that thing going a block and a half away when I was walking home from school.
 
For me, mid 60s. My favorite memory was being introduced to pulled pork in North Carolina in 77’. No one on the West coast had even heard of it…. I was hooked for life….
 
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Russ in CFL said:
We had a local place that does pit beef that was most likely my first bbq. The place is still still around but the owner got divorced and the wife took the restaurant now serving sizes are small and the service sucks so I don't go much.

My most memorable spot was a place called Georgia Pig that we would stop at every time on the way to North Carolina. Its been closed for years but I think it was off I-95 shortly after going over the GA/FL line if I remember right. It was an old log cabin sitting right next to the interstate gas stations with long tables everyone would sit at together. I remember the last time we ate there my wife and I got their sweet tea and I remember the guy warning us it was made from well water but we still went with it. The entire rest of the trip from there to NC we were constantly stopping for bathroom breaks. Good times...
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Russ, last week DH brought home dinner from the "Georgia Pig" down in Davy. Not the first time, he loves that place. He came home one time with an orange (my favorite color) pen with GeorgiaPig.com on it. Last week they gave him 2 more. Yipeeee!!!!! lol
 
TonyUK said:
Was this your first grill Bob?
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Oh I wish !
We had a couple charcoal grills. Neither were name brands. One was a 'garden variety' tan colored, square shaped grill. The other was round, covered with rotisserie and an variable height cooking grate.
Since we did so little (as in none...) rotisserie cooking, Dad borrowed the drive motor to animate the front yard Santa for the Holiday season :)
 
Bob Bass said:
Oh I wish !
We had a couple charcoal grills. Neither were name brands. One was a 'garden variety' tan colored, square shaped grill. The other was round, covered with rotisserie and an variable height cooking grate.
Since we did so little (as in none...) rotisserie cooking, Dad borrowed the drive motor to animate the front yard Santa for the Holiday season :)
Click to expand...
Yes! I remember now. The grill my Dad had the cooking grate could be rotated to various heights from the coals. You had to be careful not to rotate it too far anti-clockwise or else the cooking grate would screw itself all the way out with disastrous consequences. Happy days.
 
One of my first BBQ experiences was also at Bob's in Ada, OK. That place was a legend in southern Oklahoma.

But I think my actual "first" - where I fell in love - was at a little place called the Hilltop BBQ just outside of Sulphur, OK.
It was a tiny place that sat, oddly enough, on a hill just off the highway :giggle: and we ate there sometimes on the way back
from Platt National Park or Arbuckle Lake.
Looking back, I don't know if it was really all that great, as no one else seems to remember it, but it made a
lifelong rib lover of me.
 
Growing up my dad always grilled on a gas grill and I can say I had some good steaks and burgers and other backyard staples from that grill. As a kid my favorite meal to order when we went out was bbq ribs, because that was not something we had at home. However, none of that was true wood and smoke bbq! The first time I had true bbq was able 15 years ago. It was a food truck from Hog Heaven and they were selling Carolina style pulled pork bbq sandwiches. My wife and I both got one and the smell was amazing. Then we went over to the sauces, tasted them, got what we thought we would like and then went to eat. That first bite was one of the most influential food experiences of my life. It was like nothing I had ever eaten in my life. Then about 12 years later (three years ago) my son had his first pulled pork sandwich from Hog Heaven and as an extremely picky eater he loved it, I mean loved this stuff, and that is what lead me to get into back yard smoking. I got a brinkman style smoker a few weeks after that meal, started to learn to use charcoal and got a my first pork shoulder from the butcher shop, I way over paid because I had no clue you could get them for a forth of the price at any grocery store. And from that it is all history of what I would call my biggest hobby. I keep Hog Heaven sauces in my house at all times. I just had two half gallons shipped from South Carolina to Pennsylvania last week. I made a pork shoulder last Wednesday as soon as I got home from work and I pulled it before I went to work on Thursday morning. My son had three sandwiches on Thursday night and he and I have been eating them for lunch since.
 
Wow, depends on what qualifies. My first tastes of "barbecue" were like an abusive relationship -- the stuff came out of a can. James River brand barbecue. It was naaaasty. Soft, clingy meat in a fake smoke flavored sauce that covered the taste of the inferior protein. But it is what mom splopped out onto wonder bread rolls when I was young. What can I say, it was the 60's. As I grew, there was the mis-titled BBQ chicken that was cooked on the grill at high heat, with Kraft sauce all over it both during the cook and at the table.

From time to time we were treated by going to Dunn's or Bill's, two local Richmond VA barbecue establishments. They served up minced pork with hot sauce and slaw. Way too little meat for the price, my dad would say. So it wasn't often that we'd go. And most of the time the grown ups would get barbecue and the kids would get burgers, dad made that decision.

I think my first real smoked meat was the chopped pork sandwich at Short Sugar's Barbecue in Reidsville, NC back in the 80's. A 60 year old establishment, it is still there in that small town, and in retrospect the Q is not outstanding. But it was a quantum leap above anything I'd had up to that point. And to this day, I like their housemade sauce. It is both vinegary and dark, sort of a cross between eastern and western NC sauces. I have yet to break the code on this one, after many years of trying. So I actually drive to Reidsville and buy the stuff by the gallon and my wife cans it for our future use. (If anyone wants to earn beer money, I'd gladly pay for your trouble if you want to reverse engineer this and save me the 6 hour round trip a few times a year.)

Then came Buzz and Ned's to town. Buzz actually beat Bobby Flay in a ribs throwdown. He knows his Q. Soon to follow were half a dozen other storefronts around town, and the Dunn's and Bill's and Virginia BBQs of the area promptly shut down, having been Darwin-ized. The smell, taste, and decadence of properly smoked meat changed my life horizons.

Now I eat barbecue as a hobby and as a passion. Wife and I have taken entire multiday road trips eating nothing for lunch or dinner but regional barbecue. I judge it, I make it, and I give it to friends. Not a bad way to spend my time, and it seems to make other people happy..
 
I remember my dad making "barbecue chicken" on a grill. It was always heavily coated with sauce, partly burnt and delicious. Other than that, living in Texas, I don't really recall a first time because it was always kind of around. My first time grilling would have probably been on my roommates grill in college. It was some kind of cast aluminum I think. The grate was long lost and an expanded metal one put in it's place. We'd go through cans of lighter fluid on top of what was already probably match lit charcoal. We'd flip the heck out of whatever we were cooking and mash down with the spatula on those burgers.
 
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