Allen & Son Bar-B-Q

While back home I had to make a pilgrimage to one of the great Bar-B-Q restaurants in the country. True Eastern North Carolina pork barbecue, hickory smoked and filled with a flavor that you just know doesn't get any more authentic. It's food that is timeless and unchanging. It's hard to describe, and most people probably don't usually think about food so nostalgically, but it's like food for the centuries. There seem to be so few American foods that taste so purely good as this kind of real barbecue: meaty, gamey, earthy, tangy, peppery, spicy and sweet.

Allen & Son was featured on the front page of the Los Angeles Times the week before we headed back home. I couldn't find it on their site, although there is this photo of Keith Allen. The article was a good background on why Allen & Son is the real deal.