My reference point for BBQ is from Payne’s in Memphis. The one that matters is in the 1700 block of Lamar, just West of where Lamar crosses McLean. It’s been in that spot, in a converted gas station, at least since the mid-to-late 70s (after moving about a block or so up the road from an earlier location), and I’ve been eating there since soon enough after the move that the “we’ve moved” signs were still in the old location.
Payne’s fails one purist test: They use charcoal, not hardwood (you possibly can smell it when you come into the place) but they pass the most important one: They slow cook the shoulders over the coals in a pit. My experience with barbecue cooking and eating has convinced me more and more that the slow-cooking-mass of a brick or block pit is critical in producing great barbecue.
Payne’s offers the sandwiches chopped or slices (pulled? what’s pulled?). I highly recommend sliced. They offer the sauce hot, mixed (which is simply mild and hot mixed) and mild. Please don’t get mild. The sauce is a very simple one, I think four ingredients, and none of the things like liquid smoke or even Worchestershire that gunk up a lot of barbecue sauces. The slaw matches brilliantly with the vinegar/sweet/pepper sauce– it’s got a lot of pickle, and a ferocious amount of yellow mustard. The bright red sauce/bright green and yellow slaw make for a neon sandwich.
So what I’d get is a sliced shoulder with hot sauce and slaw. Don’t bother with the beans. If you want to explore, they take a smoked sausage, fry it, put it on a bun and slather it with sauce and slaw. If you don’t want to just overdose on barbecue, split one of those with a friend. There’s also a rib sandwich on the menu, and who knows– if it was in Oxford, perhaps someday I’d get around to it.
I used to often stop at that one on my way out of town. Love me a neon sandwich.
pulled means, literally, the meat was pulled off the bone by hand and torn to separate lean meat and fat.
Thanks for the information. I will try ‘em. I usually eat at the rendezvous since its near the bus station. Moses forbade eating that meat but he was not from the south… Mohammad also. Jesus said eat what is set before u. Meat really is not that good 4 1s GI tract tho, Mr. Freeland.
BoyNamedSioux, I know what pulled means. That was a joke.
But the one thing I cannot stand is “wet bread” which is what that pic looks like at the bottom. If you can get the sauce on the side I will definitely try it, especially after watching the Food Network’s BBQ contest coverage yesterday.
The sliced meat keeps the bread from disintegrating, OWIL, and the sandwich pretty well holds together. It gets wet some, though.
Barbecue question for anyone: Johnnies Drive In, out in Elvis Presley Heights in East Tupelo, has been selling barbecue sandwiches since 1945. They are my favorites, though they taste so different, I put them in their own category.
It’s the only barbecue sandwich I’ve ever seen that is dressed with lettuce, tomato and slathered with yellow mustard. I’ve been telling them to hold all that since the early 1960s.
Has anyone else seen a barbecue sandwich treated so?
Sounds pretty dubious to me, Chico. I also see they have their own version of the slug burger, which I once described as a Southern “regional specialty one could live forever and not eat” (I had one once in Corinth and can assure you that’s so).
But then there are a lot of people advocating for truly bad or mediocre barbecue (e.g. Handy Andy’s, Abe’s).
On a more positive note, I’ve had reasonably decent barbecue (particularly for North Mississippi, which is not known for decent ‘cue) at Lep’s in Pontotoc.
Oh, and to directly answer your question: I’ve never heard of a “dressed” barbecue sandwich. In places in North Alabama, I’ve encountered a dill pickle as a garnish– e.g. at the Green Top between Jasper and Birmingham. It seemed to me that someone thought the sandwich missing something (from a bland sauce with inadequate vinegar) and tried a pickle as a solution. And then in the Piedmont in South Carolina there’s that yellow mustard sauce, but I’ve never encountered a dressed sandwich with mustard, although it’s possible I have been in places that offered it and just ignored the offer (who wants a dressed bbq sandwich?).
In the 70s when I was first eating barbecue in Memphis, things were not quite as standardized– there were some places that were obviously serving throwbacks to the early days (20s and 30s). One was I think called Lambs, in an odd little 30s enclosed mall in midtown. What you got there was what amounted to a sliced roast pork sandwich. I think I remember it being sauced with a slightly dark cumin-y sauce, but I’m not as sure about that. It was good but not what you’d expect from a barbecue place (although it made at least a couple of Memphis magazine top ten lists in the 70s). Looking at Johnnie’s Drive Innn online, I see it claims Elvis connections and to be Tupelo’s oldest restaurant. So I gather it’s version of barbecue may have been “set” before things got relatively standardized.
Did the version sold by Leonard’s in Memphis (chopped with sauce, slaw on a hamburger bun) conquer the rest of the MidSouth?
Are you not a fan of the slug burger, Mr. Freeland? I stopped in a BBQ stand one time in Warrior Alabama, just north of Birmingham, where they put pickle and chopped onion on their BBQ. It was quite delicious and I have been eating them that way ever since. I concur, Mr Freeland, Lep over yonder do have some good BBQ.
I have always stopped at Leonard’s. Their pork sandwich is almost identical to The Hut in Jackson, TN located in what was then called Hicksville. Not sure which restaurant opened first.
How does Payne’s compare to Leonard’s? I may give it a try next trip to Memphis.
WS
Leonard’s was the first place in Memphis to serve a barbecue sandwich, beginning in the 20s, and is considered one of the earliest in the country. Payne’s is my favorite in Memphis, and one of my favorites anywhere I’ve been. Possibly favorite anywhere, with the caveat that I’ve eaten a lot of barbecue in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, and even some in Oklahoma and Texas, but have only had North Carolina style barbecue cooked in Mississippi (by Ed Mitchell, twice, so I’ve had a good sampling). So I’ve tried a lot of barbecue, but not every-possible-where that has great barbecue.
Others I know with broader experience share my view of Payne’s.
oh, and, no, Bodean, I am not a fan of the slugburger, from my one trying of it in Corinth.
Lamb’s Eat Shop in Memphis. Close to the Sears building, down the road from Dyer’s. I last ate there in 1984.
I haven’t tried Lep’s but must.
I hold the Johnnies slugburger (the “Johnnieburger”) dear. I think it is far superior to those found in Corinth, Booneville and Amory.
Johnnies is across the way from the Presley birthplace and they have inside now a large picture of E in a booth eating a burger in 1956. It’s hanging above the same booth which looks identical 53 years later, as most the entire place does.
Ok, Chico: Was Lamb’s on Cleveland?
Mr. Freeland, Corinth has as many slugburger stands as Oxford has blonde co-eds. Some are better than the others. You must have went to a bad one
There’s an old pharmacy with a lunch stand downtown, which is where I had a slugburger.
I’ve confirmed that Lamb’s was on Cleveland, and there are folks recalling it and the odd mall on the Goner Records bulletin board, in a thread about Dyer’s burgers (and the omnipresent Chico Harris turns up in that three, too!). One writes:
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Anybody remember across from the old Dyers(and a little north) on Cleveland an area called the Curb Market?? It burned down in the late 80′s i think, but there was a place my dad used to take me to eat over there called Lambs Eat Place! They had kickass pimento cheese sandwiches and bbq. Some really, really old ladies owned it and you sat up at the counter old school style. Was there for years. I totally remember the old Dyers having 2 doors as well and a rickety ass window unit AC. Bottled cokes.
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Another responds:
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I can’t remember eating there as a kid, but did when I got out of high school and started running around with a bunch of jazz boys from the MSU music department. I just remember how tiny it was, with a counter running down one wall and a few tables down the other…almost touching. I seem to recall eating salmon croquette sandwiches there, but that may have been at Abraham’s Deli downtown in the Pinch. That was a great, kind of creepy, place where they still wrapped your sandwiches in waxed paper. It feel down in the 90s, and I scavenged a bunch of bricks from it.
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I’ve been in Tupelo for almost 10 years now, and I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never been to Johnnies Drive-In. I grew up eating slugburgers from Iuka, Corinth, and Booneville and love ‘em.
Thanks to Chico, my mouth is watering now. I’ll be trying the Johnnieburger very soon.
I am perfectly aware that the over is no proper place to cook barbecue. That said, I’ve bought a few boston butts lately for 99 cents a pound. The weather’s nasty, so I marinate them in Stubb’s Pork Marinade, then season and put them in a 215-degree oven early in the morning. I drop by a couple of times to slap on some Stubb’s Moppin Sauce.
Not going to win any awards, but makes for decent enough barbecue for supper. And it’s cheap.
Does anyone have an update on whether or not The Shed from Ocean Springs is still planning on opening up a bbq joint in Oxford?
At the Oxford bbq festival a couple of years ago, I read an article that it was “coming soon.”
I guess “soon” is a relative term?
Haven’t been to Payne’s since you first took me there xxx years ago – maybe when I am in Memphis next month we should make time for a revisit?
Baconnaise!
http://www.baconnaise.com/
The bacon-flavored popcorn also sounds good:
http://www.jdfoods.net/products/baconpop.php
And the bacon-flavored envelopes are enough to send me back to snail mail.
http://www.jdfoods.net/products/mmmvelopes.php
Mary Katerhine:
I’m always up for a trip to Payne’s.
Chico:
I actually saw a jar of baconaise at the house where I watched the Saint’s game (WHO DAT!) on Sunday, but didn’t take the time to taste or study.
NMC, I have been enjoying the bacon salt in various flavors for several weeks. It really perks up the taste of instant grits. (Don’t shoot me for using instant; I’m the only one in the house who will eat them in any form.) I have a jar of Baconnaise as well, but my wife won’t let me open it. She says that at 59 my heart attack risk would just be too high.
I remember the Harbour restaurant across the street from Sears Crosstown had THE best blue cheese dressing ever. Also, right down the street was the institution affectionately known as Lamb’s Eat Shop. Awesome ham sandwich piled high but it was the fried pies I craved. I recall trying to order 2 pies with one sandwich and got looks from the little old ladies behind the counter that would have made the “Soup Nazi” proud!!!