There are three main ingredients to barbecue: meat, wood smoke and flavoring (such as sauce and spices). Barbecue in its current form grew up in the South and went west with the pioneers. Many distinct traditions have been developed on how barbecue should be prepared. Some food critics list Carolina, Memphis, Kansas City and Texas as the major styles of barbecuing.
Somehow they overlooked Guinea in Gloucester, Virginia. Here you discover a style that must be added to the list. To prove it, the Guinea Heritage Association recently barbecued and sold, the day before the Super Bowl, pork butts on the grounds of the old Buck Rowe store at Bena. Today this 1880 building is Buck’s Store Museum.
William Ellis Hicks (known as Bill) is the main cooker. He and L.T. Wells, with the help of Rupert Thomas and Roy Snowden, began cooking pork butts of about seven pounds each at 6 a.m. By 2 p.m., 42 packages of barbecue and sauce were ready for pickup.
Bill has been barbecuing for many years, a ...