Rodney Scott cooked his first whole pig at 11 years old, and that sealed his fate. He would become a barbecue pit master. Today, he runs the pit his parents — Roosevelt and Ella — opened in a converted garage in 1972: Scott's BBQ, in Hemingway, South Carolina, featured in today’s video from the Southern Foodways Alliance documentary series.
Scott’s is a purveyor of "real, pit-cooked barbecue" — an all-wood operation that cooks between eight and 10 whole hogs a night using logs they cut, chop, and split themselves. The pigs slow cook for eight to 12 hours, to imbue the meat with smoke and woody flavor and crisp the skin so it crackles (Scott's customers know to ask for the skin especially; it comes in sheets on top of the meat that sells per pound, and is included as a layer on the barbecue sandwiches). Watch the video above for a look behind the scenes at Scott's, and the work that goes into running a barbecue operation from the ground up.
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