Page 27 - July 2020 Barbecue News Magazine

attention to detail from
start to finish was what set
his barbecue apart from
most others at the time. If
he were hired for a big BBQ,
preparation would begin
weeks earlier. Some ingredi-
ents in his recipes required
compounding and cooking
themselves before being in-
corporated into primary the
sauce or rub formula. This
could take multiple days
just to prepare these raw
materials. Additionally, few
knew that even back then,
he sourced his hickory wood
from an incredible 100 miles
away. He would hitch his
horse to his buckboard
wagon and drive/ride it from Kewanee, Illinois, into Iowa to col- lect hickory from a specific set of woods he had passed through decades earlier on his first trek to freedom. As crazy as it sounds, Arthur appreciated that there were more than a dozen different varieties of Hickory trees that grew; Each offering a subtle differ- ence in flavor. Even further, he also understood that many fac- tors, including the soil that his favorite tree type grew in, would impact the character of its smoke. Thus, he made the requisite multi-day journey west and back across the Mississippi river to procure the wood of his choosing when he "meant business."
Arthur was intensely proud of his recipes. He was also quite pro- tective of them as well. The more popular his barbecue became, the more interest others had in how he did it. He took great care to safeguard the secrets of his craft from all others. When he was
commissioned to do signifi- cant events, he recognized that he could not pull these massive barbecues off by himself. He would bring in help from within his own extended family. However, he was still quite secretive. To supply sauce for a city- wide festival, Arthur would need to make as much as 100 gallons of sauce, not to mention blending and ap- plying a dry rub to one or more tons of pork shoulder. For the sauce and rub prep, he would divide his recipes into halves, and then por- tion each recipe half out to two different members of
his family. The family members selected were chosen independ- ently of one another because they each lived almost fifty miles apart in opposite directions from Arthur's home in Kewanee. In an age without telephones, this lessened the chance that the two halves of his recipe could quickly be brought together. He would have family in one town create half #1, then family in another city would combine the ingredients to create the 2nd half of his recipe. They would then haul their separate batches to the desig- nated barbecue site at the predetermined time, where Arthur would bring them together and blend them into what he called his "Red sauce" and spice. But, no one ever got the complete recipe unless he wanted you to have it. Those recipes were only ever shared in their entirety with his children. In fact, we owe it to his children that we have his methods today!
JULY 2020
BarbecueNews.com - 27