The Devil made us do it: Maurice's Gourmet Barbecue

South Carolina is too small to form a republic, yet too large to be an insane asylum.
- James. R. Petigru

Maurice's Piggy Park
Columbia, SC

When we turned our minivan off Charleston Highway and into the lot of Maurice's Piggy Park, I saw the two Canadian families right there ready to meet us, between the giant neon pig sign and the oversized billboard adorned with Bible verses. Hot damn, I slapped my knee in excitement:  I had no idea what the barbecue was going to be like, but I had successfully served my friends a big helping of South Carolina crazy.

Maurice Bessinger's restaurants are known for two things:  Great barbecue and loopy politics -- not necessarily in that order.    The barbecue is the very embodiment of that distinctly South Carolinian style, covered with a sweet, vinegary mustard sauce, and served with a mustardy organ-meat hash smothered over rice.  Maurice's politics, on the other hand, are the very embodiment of that distinctly South Carolinian type of, um, crazy person.

Most South Carolinians, if you ask them, will remember Bessinger as the man who ticked off the NAACP and got boycotted by the Piggly Wiggly, Walmart and Lord-knows-what-other-retailers in the 1990s and early 2000s.  After the South Carolina General Assembly  finally decided to remove the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina State House, Bessinger  decided to set up his own restaurants as centres of protest, with Confederate flags flying on the flagpoles, and pro-Confederate literature sitting on  the front tables.  This decision, as you can imagine, did not go over well, and before he knew it, he was a pariah.  Some state employees were being instructed not to be seen at the restaurant, and all the local grocery stores refused to stock his "Southern Gold" brand of barbecue sauce on the shelves.  About two years ago, without apologizing, Bessinger quietly removed the flags from his restaurants.  (You should know, by the way, that this was not even close to Bessinger's first brush with Southern racial politics.  In 1968, Bessinger had to be forced under the Civil Rights Act to desegregate his restaurant, and went all the way to the Supreme Court fighting it. He worked on George Wallace's Presidential campaign, ran an anti-integrationist organization during the 1960s and 70s, and even ran a flamboyant campaign for Governor, riding through campaign stops in a white suit and riding a white horse.) 

Walk into Maurice's, and the first thing you'll see is a table full books and pamphlets.   The infamous one that allegedly attempted to justify the institution of slavery is no longer there, but you'll still see a copy of  Bessinger's autobiography, Defending My Heritage. Based on our quick flip-through, the book expounds  Bessinger's views on states' rights (he likes them), civil rights (not so much), slavery (not as bad as you might think, apparently) and race relations (fine, he thought, until the rabble rousers showed up).  Up on the front wall is a big portrait of Bessinger himself  posing in front of (what else?) a big Confederate battle flag.  Adorning the other walls are Confederate memorabilia (such as a battle portrait of Nathan Bedford Forrest) and some signed photos of local dignitaries (notably, Representative Joe "you lie" Wilson has a photo with a long note).   There's some retro furniture, including, mysteriously, a vintage garbage can in the dining room, taped over and marked "for decorative  purposes only".  Not sure what that was about.

As I recount all these details of the Piggie Park's history, and the symbols decorating the restaurant, I'm feeling less and less secure, morally speaking, about our decision to go there.  If buying a barbecue sandwich in South Carolina has become a political act (as Jack Hitt once reported), then what does it say about me  that I brought a group of 14 Canadians into the restaurant to spend their money?  

I don't know.  All I can say for myself is:  Curiosity got the best of me.  I'm not totally sure I don't owe the world a tearful "I have sinned" confessional, like Jimmy Swaggart after the hooker episode.   It's just that for years, as I've heard about Maurice's, I've wondered what the pork was actually like.  At times, I imagined it as some sort of forbidden fruit, evil but too good to resist (the politician Alex Sanders once joked that he'd slip in the back entrance late at night, when no one was looking, like t was a strip joint).   Other times, I've suspected the clever marketing job could be a cover for a mediocre product.  The truth turned out to be somewhere in between.  The pork was quite good:  moist and tender, not overdone.  The sauce was ok, but not much to write home about,:  Mustard-based, a little vinegary, and a bit too sweet.  More importantly, it kind of overwhelmed the taste of the meat -- and all too common complaint about the South Carolina mustard style. Sides, as is typical in South Carolina, consisted of rice and a mustardy hash, made of organ meats.  In summary:  Good, but not 100-mile barbecue.

The Canadians with me seemed to agree, both on the culinary and the moral points.  The barbecue got a thumbs-up, for the most part, but not enthusiastically, and with a big dose of guilt.  As our resident diplomat on the trip put it:  "I've only felt this way once before in my life.  In Norway, I was was once served whale meat.  It tasted great, which made me feel all the more terrible"

Interestingly, not one member of our crowd of 14 reported tasting any wood smoke in the barbecue.  Once we were done, we even asked to have a look out back, to see for ourselves how it was done.  We were summarily turned away  ("insurance problems,"  the guy in the back told us).

Maurice says on his website that every one of his 15 or so locations, open seven days a week,  serves barbecue cooked over wood coals.  He also assures you that his barbecue is low in cholesterol.  You decide.