Q&A With Rien Fertel Of 'The Barbecue Bus'

The last time you stopped in a town populated by just fewer than 500 people, it probably wasn't so you could grab some barbecue. You probably just stopped for some gas, and moved on.

But The Barbecue Bus is on a mission. It's been travelling all summer through exactly these sorts of barely-on-the-map towns, spending days in each place as it follows a barbecue trail through South Carolina.

The drivers, food historian Rien Fertel and his best friend, photographer Denny Culbert, aren't just in it for the tasty perks. Their mission is to document and share the rich historical culture behind these storied barbecue destinations to reveal just how essential barbecue is to the Southern tradition and identity. Along the way, they've had some pretty amazing 'cue, but the stories they hear are the real treat.

The Daily Meal chatted with Rien about the project's background and the duo's mission. Here's what he had to say. For more stories and photography, check out the Barbecue Bus blog.

Tell me a bit about how this project got started.

I started working with the Southern Foodways Alliance in the summer of 2008. I went to Memphis and did a barbecue trail in west Tennessee, documenting 24 barbecue places.

Then, they offered for me to do some more barbecue trails in North Carolina, and I wanted to bring Denny because he's my best friend and I wanted someone to capture some really great photography.

We were originally going to drive one of our cars and stay in cheap motels and spend as little money as possible, but my parents offered me the use of their RV, which was brand new. And then I took it, and it worked out. It gives you a place to live and gives you a sort of identity.

After North Carolina they offered us the chance to do South Carolina. The assignment was eight barbecue establishments, and we took it because we wanted to explore a new part of the country and a new barbecue culture. 

Are there major differences between barbecue in North Carolina and South Carolina?
North Carolina has two very, very separate barbecue cultures: In west/central North Carolina, they cook shoulders and they chop the barbecue really fine, and they have sauce that's ketchup-based. In east Carolina, they have a kind of spicy vinegar sauce and several places still do whole hog. And they still chop it very fine.

South Carolina is very, very different. There are four sauce regions: a mustard one, which is the most well-known, a spicy vinegar one, and a tomato-y one. It's kind of a patchwork of other barbecue cultures, except for the mustard one. That's all their own. 

I think a lot of people are likely to think of Red Hot & Blue when they hear "barbecue." Where would you say that style comes from?

I point to Memphis for that style. It's very, very spicy, tomato-y ketchup, similar to kinds you buy in the grocery store. In Memphis they do ribs, which is what we also think of when we think of barbecue. In the Carolinas, very few places will cook up a rack of ribs. 

Why is this project so vital, and what do you aim to add to South Carolinian culture through this project?

There are so many books out there that are kind of just a checklist format, like, "Eat at these places before you die or while you travel down this highway," and that's not what we do. We're not checking stuff off. It's only halfway — not even that — about the food. It's really about the stories behind the food, and the people cooking that food, and the history of that food. 

A lot of what we do is talking about everything but food. We talk about family — many of these establishments are multigenerational, and have been around for 80 years. We talk about history. We talk about the towns where these places are located, because barbecue in the Carolinas is very rural and these places have been open 50, 75 years, and the towns they're located in have seen a lot of changes. So I'm interested in looking at these changes and asking why, if so many other places have closed, do these barbecue places still exist. 

What have you usually found to be the answer to that question?
A lot of these guys talk about tradition — they're keeping the Southern/family/regional tradition alive. But they also speak about community, and I think that's the harder question to ask and to answer — what does a little restaurant in a town of 500 people mean to that community? 

We were at a place called Scott's Bar-B-Que, and it's been around for just 40 years in a town called Hemmingway, S.C., which has just more than 500 people, and this place is immensely important. It's put Hemmingway on the map, because of its barbecue.

If a lot of these barbecue places disappeared, it's kind of the last thread of the town's fabric. In a lot of towns, we see the public high school has long closed; the bank, diner, coffee shop have closed down — but the barbecue places still survive. 

What's one of the most interesting or exciting things you've experienced on the trip?

What thrills me the most is the most original form of barbecue, which is an entire hog cooked over hardwood coals, so it's really wood, smoke, and a whole animal. These places don't exist much anymore, so when we find places that still do this, like Scott's Barbecue, it's exciting and extremely romantic, the way they cook the food. It goes back to the beginning of man, a whole animal over the fire. They have to have employees stay up all night long. We've done this twice, stayed up all night to cook the pig. They fire them every 15 to 30 minutes, and you also have to watch for fire — if a fire starts in the pit, it will burn the whole structure down.

To watch this process and taste the meat coming right out of the pig after 15 hours of cooking... it was one of the most incredible experiences. 

All photos courtesy of Denny Culbert / The Barbecue Bus.