I Smell Barbecue

A couple of days ago I was walking around the picnic grounds out in Fancy Farm. Actually I was chasing my grandson. We were at a wedding and he needed to move. So we were walking around the picnic grounds and we ended up down at the barbecue pits. For those of you not from Fancy Farm, we have a slu-hoo (my mother’s term, meaning a lot) of barbecue pits. Of course, one weekend a year we barbecue a slu-hoo amount of meat. As I was walking along the pits, I smelled barbecue. I smelled our barbecue. I would dare to say that it is the best barbecue you can find anywhere in the world. One day a year.

The World Famous St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic is held on the first Saturday of August every year. There has never been a year that we’ve missed the picnic. It has been discussed that this year we miss the picnic. I leave that up to the powers that be. We haven’t missed a picnic ever, not since they began in 1880. This event is on a lot of people’s bucket list. There are a lot of people who are introduced to the tiny town of Fancy Farm, and to St. Jerome Parish, because of the Picnic. It seems though that once they come, they always seem to find their way back.

The Picnic begins each year with Mass on the picnic grounds on Friday morning. It’s early. But there is a lot of work that needs to be done. After Mass, we all go down to the barbecue pits to bless the meat before it is put on the pits. The families that are down there working, the ones who barbecue the meat, have already been busy for awhile. They have started fires in order to get the coals ready to begin cooking the meat. The delivery trucks are usually already there as they unload the mutton first, and then the pork shoulders. It is an assembly line and everyone has their job, and they do their job. The sheep quarters are prepared, salted and then placed on the pits. Next the shoulders are salted and placed on the pits. And then the cooking begins. The meat is cooked for 24 hours and by the time it is ready sometimes it just falls off the bones. The meat is “mopped” during that time, and turned during that time. The heat is kept low but consistent. There are those who stay the entire 24 hours while the meat is cooking but most everyone takes shifts. Around 8 AM on Saturday a lot of the families have gone home to rest up and clean up to come back to the Picnic later in the day. There is another shift there then. Their job is to take the barbecue off of the pits as it’s needed in the “meat by the pound” stand, the sandwich stand and the dining hall. There isn’t any fire left in the pits but it does stay good and warm for as long as it stays on the pits.

A lot of people say that you don’t have to come out to the Picnic to get barbecue. That’s true. In western Kentucky, in Graves County, there have been quite a few “stands” or restaurants, selling barbecue. But it’s not Picnic barbecue. Shoot, there was a guy once who opened a barbecue stand in Fancy Farm. It was good, but it wasn’t Picnic barbecue. And there aren’t too many places in the state of Kentucky that you can get barbecued mutton, ever. A lot of people come solely for the mutton. I know they take a bite or two of pork too.

My family sells barbecue by the pound. We get to the stand about 6 AM to get everything ready even though we don’t start selling it to the public until 8 AM. I will tell you this, as someone who has worked in the stand for years, the first taste of Picnic barbecue that morning is like heaven in your mouth. The smell is intoxicating. The flavor cannot be described. The warmth of the meat just melts your soul. The tenderness makes every bite a pleasure. Yes, there’s a little grease in that bite but that’s part of the flavor, and it is pork, after all. It is what keeps me getting up that early year after year.

I’m not sure if we will have a Picnic this year. If we do, I am sure that it will be a lot different than what we are used to. Maybe we’ll have a mini-version of the Picnic. I will bet you money, though, that the barbecue pits will have meat on them that Friday morning. I don’t know how much but I have a feeling that there will be something being barbecued in that 24 hour period. If so, I’ll be out there first thing on that Saturday morning to do my part for our community, and to sneak a bite for my memories.