Chapter 25
Greet and meat

Email To: Leslie Ann
From: Jack
Date: 4 July
Subject: Come home!

Dear Les,

All right, a joke is a joke, but it’s time for you to come home. You should be back on American soil celebrating July 4th with us. Be warned that the CIA might accuse you of hobnobbing with foreigners. If you don’t return soon. you’ll end up drinking ale and speaking like a limey with a well-developed sense of irony. Then it will be too late.

Kissy, kissy,
Jack

In America, the word ‘barbecue’ is both a verb and a noun. As a noun, ‘barbecue’ conjures up wonderful memories for me of family backyard gatherings where a fattening assortment of simple yet time-honoured family recipes were paraded. Aunt Betty could be counted on to prepare her famous devilled eggs and Mom could be persuaded to bring a steaming tureen of slow-cooked baked beans with molasses, a family secret that everyone seemed to know. Potato salad tossed with onion, celery and sweet pickle and a tub of roasted, tender summer corn-onthe-cob filled out the menu. If you were lucky Ann C’s version of Hoppin’ John, a mixture of black-eyed peas and rice, might be on offer. Meats invariably included slabs of 5-centimetre thick, marinated prime beef and plump, white chicken breasts for the squeamish.

As afternoon drifted into evening chilled chunks of watermelon, banana pudding topped with mountains of stiff, whipped cream and homemade vanilla ice-cream with warm fudge sauce made their appearance. Each of these dishes came with a tale or two as they had all been passed down through the years. It’s a funny thing how old recipes can almost bring loved ones back to life. Barbecues like this just can’t be exported.

Used as a verb, ‘barbecue’ has an entirely different meaning. As all North Carolinians know, we take the art of pig-on-the-grill cooking very seriously. In fact, the state is proudly known as the ‘cradle of American barbecue’. Here the meat oinks, the cooking is low and slow and the sauce is peppery hot or molasses sweet. Spit-roasted pork, served sliced or shredded on a plate or in soft, warm buns comes with equal portions of crunchy coleslaw and deep-fried hushpuppies, walnut-sized cornmeal balls. This ceremony is performed without deviation all over the Carolinas. Loyalties run deep in this part of the South. It is both the symbol and sustenance of our state. In fact, a claim that another area could possibly serve up a better barbecue is akin to fighting words on the scale of disparaging someone’s mother.

By contrast, British barbecues are often spur-of-the-moment gatherings, mostly due to the unpredictability of the weather. Raised on a diet of drizzle, Brits will break out a rusty grill at the first indication of sunshine or, in some cases, snow. I think it is a ritual performed as an act of defiance against the weather gods. When an invitation comes in the mail for an outdoor party my antenna always goes up as I know the chances of it occurring on a sunny day are next to nil. In fact, overcast is often preferable to sunshine as the sight of pale British legs and shoulders roasting in the heat while wasps attack every morsel of food on the table can fill me with dread.

What the British typically call barbecue is sliced roasted pig served on a bun with apple sauce and stuffing. Not memorable and not, to my taste, very flavoursome. On the other hand, you can’t beat the combination of hot coals and sausages. It is rumoured that the Brits consume two-and-a-half jumbo jets in weight of sausages each year. You can’t blame them when you can choose from a selection of Lincolnshire, stuffed with pork and herbs, Cumberland Ring with black pepper and sage, wild boar, venison, beef and apple, chipolatas—the list goes on.

With our packets of pork purchased from the local butcher and with fingers crossed for favourable weather, Bill and I joined our neighbours to host the first Stocken Hall barbecue party at the end of the summer. Our venue was the lush, tree-framed side garden with room for all manner of picnic paraphernalia. Realistically, we were expecting a modest turnout of about twenty as the party coincided with the last summer holiday of the year. Traditionally, families take this opportunity to visit warmer ports of call such as Madeira, Cyprus or Crete hoping to get one last look at the sun before it disappears for the winter.

Our community, consisting of residents from the Hall and the Mews, now numbered over twenty families. In the course of the year, however, Bill and I realized certain stereotypes were floating about regarding those who lived in the ‘big house’ and those who lived behind it. There was an unspoken hint of class divide, snobbery and one-upmanship. Demographically speaking, our Hall neighbours were well-heeled city exiles, young married couples and divorcees. By contrast, the residents of the Mews were primarily families with small children and the obligatory dog. They were a more visible free-range group of people who enjoyed getting together on a regular basis, either in their private gardens, in their homes or, more often than not, casually chatting on a warm summer’s evening in the lane over a shared bottle of wine. They had few prejudices, were fun loving and open-minded. Bill and I enjoyed their company immensely.

Some said it was the loveliest night of the summer, others simply mumbled ‘how perfect’ and ‘let’s make this an annual affair’. The smell of fragrant, mown grass and the tinkling sound of the fountain provided an unbeatable backdrop for the occasion. Our social mission was to bring together families who were our geographic neighbours, not necessarily our speaking neighbours. Ever mindful of the pitfalls a Yank might encounter when trying to show others how it’s done ‘over there’, I have discovered it is best to go slow and let events unravel without too much organization. This has been one of the most difficult lessons for me to learn, and learn and learn.

Bill, on the other hand, was in fine form arranging the most important party detail—beer. The Jackson Stops provided us with a keg which Bill iced down and chained to an ash tree. Next to the keg was a container with a sign that read, ‘Honour Bar, £1 a pint’. This was also chained to the tree. Brits love irony and this was irony at its very best.

Thinking we would be under supported by a sluggish RSVP from our community, Bill and I made a last-minute decision to invite some of our friends from Stretton. We later found out that many of these folks, despite having lived nearby for years, had never taken the opportunity to wander down the lane for a peek at the Hall. The crackling sound of tyres on the driveway announced the arrival of those who came by car. Soon ingenious portable banquet tables with linen cloths and candles were popping out of car boots onto the lawn providing sophisticated dining for some, while others were content to hold a wedge of pork pie in one hand and a pint in the other.

As dusk fell, the children began to dance around the garden carrying small torches in their sticky little hands, giving the appearance of fairies alighting from the undergrowth. Social barriers finally collapsed as mingling replaced feelings of uncertainty. Our intimate soirée had blossomed into a party for fifty or more of our nearest and newest friends. The myth of the ‘big house’ was finally dispelled, the virtue of the ‘Honour Bar’ remained intact and our diaries were marked ‘same time next year’.