As many of you know, I’ve been searching for the perfect barbecue dish for decades. Several years ago, at a blues festival, I came across a food vendor selling something he called the Red Piggy-Back Dog. It consisted of a Carolina red (lots of red food coloring) pork and beef hot dog, topped with pulled pork BBQ and a good vinegar based slaw. It absolutely satisfied the essential requirements for a meal worth remembering.
During a recent vacation to Holden Beach, NC I picked up several packs of Carolina red dogs and brought them home. Earlier this week I conjured up some tasty pork shoulder meat in a crock pot with honey-mustard marinade sauce, guava nectar, and chipotle adobo chili sauce. We used this shredded concoction for the base of some great grilled quesadillas.
Thinking about lunch today I did an inventory of the fridge and saw a small container of the left over bbq and immediately thought of those red dogs in the freezer. So, I tossed a couple of dogs and some bbq into the microwave, thawed out a couple whole wheat buns and built me two piggy-back dogs. Not having any slaw I opted for some Tony Packo’s Pickle and Pepper Relish and I think, topped what I had at the blues festival.
I’m calling my version Chapman’s North of North Carolina Red Piggy-Back Packo Dog.
Arf, arf, y’all!
The NC red hot dog used to be full of red dye 11 and the powers that be decided we were turning red from the inside out and the meat packers had to remove it. But a safe? Red dye was substituted and us tarheels got our skinny little red hot dogs back. Most visiting Yankees mistaken them for Southern RED HOTS and want nothing to do with them. They are the only hot dogs my little Southern wife Ruby will eat.
I found a nice write up about the background of the Carolina red dog. Apparently, almost all hot dogs were once bright red but when the “red dye scare” of the 60s made the news packers removed the dye except for a few in North Carolina and other parts of the Southeast. One article spoke of the North Carolina style hot dog consisting of bun, beef & pork dog dyed with the same bright red coloring agent used in cherry cough syrup, chili, onions, slaw and sometimes mustard. I think my sister in law, Ruby, introduced me to my first North Carolina hot dogs at a place called Cubbie’s in Beaufort, NC. Cubbie’s is where the Freedom Fry was born when France refused to support our involvement in Iraq.
Larry, with all of your food creations on Facebook the past few weeks and months, combined with all your talk of restaurants, I think it may be worthwhile to ponder for a few moments on some sort of a restaurant enterprise. Now, don’t jump to any sort of work-related conclusions, as I know you’re happy in your state of retirement. But, perhaps, one of your favourite local restaurants could have a Larry Chapman night once a week or month where one of your creations is available. Again, don’t be thinking, “Work,” as this could be as simple as you giving them a recipe a few days in advance and letting them prepare it entirely, or – yes – sometimes you might be there in person that night, and – of course – get to eat free, and – only if you wanted – you might even be the chef for your creation some nights, providing that there’s enough room in the kitchen for another person. I’d be willing to bet that lots of good things would come from such an endeavor, such as:
* More patrons would visit the restaurant those days,
* Your available menu items would sell out,
* With attention like this your favourite local restaurant(s), new and/or old, would be sure to stay in business longer, having a fighting chance, so to speak, and
* Other traveling people, who visit places other than McDonald’s on their travels, might not only come to sample your delectables, but may eventually have once a week or month menu submission nights of their own to the point that the restaurant would first have to have people apply by bringing samples by the restaurant a few weeks or months ahead of time.
I don’t wish to insult you by not recommending that you considered starting your own restaurant with yourself merely as a consultant and occasional chef trainer, so – again – to keep a safe distance between you and anti-retirement, but I feel obliged to make several assumptions along those lines, as follows:
— You wouldn’t want to work that much, even as a consultant, and
— You wouldn’t want to compete against these new promising restaurants that you’ve been sharing with us about for fear of them closing their doors.
Also, before you scold me for once again suggesting something that even smells like work, note that, in a sense, I was just trying to accept your challenge to leave a non-Facebook comment, but since I’m leaving a comment here, rather then the aforementioned Facebook, I wanted to be sure to leave a comment with more mouthwatering substance.
I’d give it a whirl! Sounds interesting to say the least!