carolinahash

MUSTARD!

Mustard-based barbecue and hash is unique to South Carolina and is woven into the history of the State. When the Lord's Proprietors of the South Carolina Colony conceived the settlement of this rich and fertile forested land, settlement of the Colonies by England was well underway. What marked South Carolina's Colony as "different" - a moniker stubbornly and pridefully distinguishing it's people born of South Carolina - was the Lord's Proprietors decision to open South Carolina to all religions, welcoming all who were being persecuted in Europe for their religious beliefs to come to the South Carolina Colony where opportunities for work in the "New World" and a new start were the attraction. The result was the arrival and mixture of the most diverse population in all of the Colonies. Most notable for our purposes were the German's, who were "recruited" for their backbone and grissel earned by the work on their small farms, and the French Huguenots, who poured into Charleston from the religious persecution in France. Already in place were the African slaves who had endured the Diaspora and ended up in the rice and indigo plantations up the rivers from Charleston. This mix, an accident of history some say, would have a profound effect on the establishment of a root foodway based on the raising of hogs and the technique of barbecuing (a Carribean method of cooking and spicing) and hashing (the cooking down of the less desireable portions of the hog and cutting the remains into a fine hash which made all parts unrecognizable- a kind of heavy, highly spiced meat gravy that was spread over rice to make a high protein meal for the slaves working the ricefields.) In a letter from a Charleston French Huguenot to people in his village in France, he wrote that the black Africans prepared "hashiers" - a foodway not unlike, he noted, the stews cooked back home.

Hogs were raised by German families when they arrived in Charleston. In the early days of this port city, when the Germans were mixed with the French Huguenot immigrants who had a sauce tradition and with the African American slaves who brought the Carribean method of barbecuing to America, that wonderful diversity of human beings and tastes came together to yield what is today eaten as mustard-based barbecue and hash. Nowhere else in the Colonies did this combination of ethnicity and foodways occur, leaving mustard based barbecue and hash uniquely a South Carolina foodway. It's cultural roots are discussed in this re-edited version of CAROLINA HASH.

The filmmaker interviews a source he established while making the original version of CAROLINA HASH - Rodney Long - whose farm family in Newberry County carried on the tradition of mustard based barbecue and hash from their German ancestors, with Herman Wise being the legendary hash master who taught the Long's their tradition. Rodney's father and his uncle would cook a hash on the 4th of July in big black cast iron pots on the Long farm, and at first the extended family and some friends were invited. The hash grew to have a reputation and was cooked at the homecoming of the nearby Lutheran church every year. The 4th of July hash on the long farm began to draw more and more people until one year when 5oo people came to eat and fellowship, the brothers decided that they should get out of the farming business and open a barbecue restaurant. The restaurant was located in nearby Clinton, SC. The brothers split and Rodney's father opened a restaurant in Greenville, SC - with the idea of bringing the mustard-based barbecue and hash tradition into the Upcountry, where red sauce or a concoction that was called "white hash" was well established. Soon after, Rodney's brother-in-law and sister opened a barbecue restaurant below Newberry in a small town called Prosperity off of Interstate 26. The Long family farm tradition of the mustard based hash and barbecue sauce had extended into the 21st century in the form of these restaurants.

Mustard-based hash and barbecue is exclusive to South Carolina as a root folk heritage foodway. It is virtually unknown across the borders of North Carolina and Georgia, which have their own wonderful barbecue traditions. There is some "spillage" into Georgia along the border, but beyond that, nobody who hasn't eaten barbecue in South Carolina has heard of hash. The "mustard streak" runs from the Charleston coastal plain up the two main rivers - the Congaree and the Broad - and into the center of mustard-based barbecue and hash - the region around Columbia, SC, and historically, the Dutch Fork region. With the construction of Lake Murray, Rodney's relative, Charles Fulmer told me, "...the German clans moved on up into Newberry County. He noted that the most pure mustard based barbecue in the area - that is the one with the most untampered-with ancestral recipe from Herman Wise and the late 1800's - would be found at Wise's Barbecue between Clinton and Newberry on the State road that parallels I-26."

 Barbecue and hash were products of the small farms that made up the bulk of the agriculture business in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. It came from the slaying of hogs in the cold weather months at "hog-killin' time". The two became synonomous - so closely associated that many South Carolinians wouldn't eat a plate of barbecue without their "barbecue hash." Food artisans in the central midlands and Lowcountry today maintain recipes handed down for generations from their original German ancestors. One of the most prominent of the German family mustard based barbecue traditions is that of the Bessinger brothers. Maurice Besinger has what has been called "the citadel of mustard based barbecue" in Columbia, SC. But the Dukes family also has many barbecue restaurants run independently by family members and all maintain the ancestral recipe of their forefathers, with a few twists and turns in seasonings "to make it our own."  Other more outstanding restaurants to mention a few are "Big T's" in Columbia, "Bobby's Barbecue" in Aiken, Antley's in Orangeburg, Goodlands Barbecue in Williston, Laird's barbecue in North, Lone Star Barbecue in Santee, and the classic Sweatman's barbecue in Holly Hill. All of these are cooking with mustard-based sauce handed down generation after generation. There are many more wonderful restaurants, and many are included in my documentary, Barbecue and Homecooking: Foods That Make You Smile, and there is a brochure listing 48 of these - designated as Folk Heritage Foodways Restaurants - available from the Barnwell Arts Council in Barnwell, SC and the SC Heritage Corridor Region 3 Visitor's Center outside of Blackville, SC.

                                                                                                                     - Filmmaker Stan Woodward, from his Book-in-Progress,

                                                                                                                                     "Barbecue in the Eye of the Beholder"