Bill's Barbeque and the Presidential Election

I was excited to hear Governor Romney's talking about Bill's Barbeque, which recently closed its doors in Richmond.  Back in 1990 and 1991 I ate at a couple of the Bill's locations.  This is yet another instance of how central barbeque is to American culture and in this case how close it is to politics.  All of which reminds me that I'm going to talk about a barbeque feast in George Tucker’s The Valley of the Shenandoah, just as soon as Doug Thie and I get our paper on probate in Rockbridge County in the pre-Civil War era finished.  The novel occupies a small but important place in that paper -- though more for what it says about trust law than barbeque.

Comments

[Howard Wasserman]

And don't forget Ollie' Barbecue.

[Alfred Brophy]

Yes, of course, Howard, Ollie's. One other thing that I found exciting is in the Romney-Ryan advertisement about Bill's Barbeque, they show Monument Avenue in Richmond. So this is about barbeque and monuments in some ways.

[Ralph D. Clifford]

I've also been to Bill's. I have to say that there is better BBQ in lots of other places, but what I will miss are the pies. Bill's had the absolute best banana cream pie I have ever had.

[Brian Clarke]

No one does barbeque like North Carolina. If anyone is looking for a funny and informative book on the subject, look no further than Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbeque by Prof. John Shelton Reed (Emeritus Prof. of Sociology at UNC). Takes our barbaric tradition back to its roots -- roots to which I try to cling (I dug a barbecue pit in my backyard to keep the process as low tech as possible). Barbaric, but delicious.

[Bill Turnier]

I ate at Ollie's several times when I visited at Alabama Law School in 1996. It was a large thriving operation with blacks and whites eating pretty good barbecue, side by side. When I went back for a second visit in 2001it had moved from Birmingham out to Hoover (an upscale suburb). I believe it died out there in the suburbs where there was no lunch time crowd and a population for whom such fare did not have much appeal. It was a thriving place in Birmingham with lines waiting for a table stretching outside the building. In Hoover my wife and I were the only two sit down customers at a bit after noon. They did have a few drive-ins. Someplace buried in our house there is an Ollie's apron purchased by me in 1996. It was part of a packet of Ollie's stash that I brought back for some Con Law buddies.