BARBECUE NATION: TEXAS TO NYC… AND BACK

Amidst pandemic surges and election fervour in America, two friends drove off from Austin in search of regional ’cue, savouring country-style cooking and confronting the land’s raw fault lines along their journey

- Julian Manning

“Y’all have sweet tea?”

The big-boned cashier from Butts County, Georgia, looked up from the register, his eyes twinkling. “Do we have sweet tea?” he said to himself, savouring each word, inchmeal, all the while his face scrunched up with jubilant bewilderment, like he had just seen a flying pig. “Man, this is the South. We might not serve it hot in a lil cup,” he tittered, pretending to take a dainty sip out of imaginary china, “but we sure do have sweet tea!” He broke out into a full laugh and looked over his shoulder at his staff, trying to catch an amused glance, and succeeding.

As the folks at Fresh Air Barbecue cheerfully clucked away like chickens at feed-time, I stood outside, awkwardly feigning laughter across the long table that socially distanced me from the ordering booth. I understood their bemusement, but didn’t get it. Yes, the proverbial drink of the American South (at least at lunchtime) is cooled tea poured over ice, so it was logical the barbecue spot would serve it, but quite a few old-school places only serve it regular, meaning unsweetened. My question seemed reasonable enough, I thought, and I had no idea how hot tea had become part of the picture, but I guessed it all had to with my accent, part Tamil hill station, part Texas hill country. I didn’t speak with the area’s Splenda-toned Low Country trill, so perhaps he thought he’d sugar up my meal with some patented Southern sass as a souvenir.