by Melanie McGee Bianchi
photos by Matt Rose

Barbecuing may be the most macho form of cooking there is.  Evidence the overwhelmingly masculine world of celebrity meat-smokers—Bobby Flay, Paul “Baron of Kansas City BBQ” Kirk, the Cajun Chef Justin Wilson—or, closer to home, the Confederate flag-waving, mustard-based sauce man himself, Maurice Bessinger. Even if women prepare meat all week long, when summer weekends roll around, it’s men who wheel out the grills and start grunting over charcoal, flame height and secret sauce ingredients.

In Western North Carolina, then, where barbecue is king (or, in this case, queen), professional women barbecuers should be big news. But for chefs like Melanie Talbot, who runs Green River Bar-B-Que in Saluda, the coup is more subtle. Barbecue restaurants, especially those that appeal mainly to tourists, tend to turn over like pigs on a spit. But Green River has been in business since before this year’s UNCA grads were born.

Talbot admits she married into barbecue and learned what she knows at get-togethers thrown by her husband’s family. She and her now-ex opened Green River together, “but when he left,” Talbot says, “I took it over, and people were impressed by that. They cheered me on.”

From pit to patio, her devotion to memorable food is clear in her command of the entire restaurant. There can’t be many barbecuers of either gender willing to spend long hours bathed in 225-degree grime, only to emerge fresh and cheerful to greet customers. Sure, Talbot could hire a hostess for that job. But “I don’t choose to run my restaurant that way,” she says. On a recent Thursday night, Talbot was also filling in as a server (she has a total staff of 15 in summer). Wearing crisp summer whites, her cropped hair sleek as chrome, she might have been playing doubles tennis that morning instead of heaving 90-pound pork shoulders into a mesquite-wood-filled pit. “It’s very hard, sturdy work, and I think that’s why more women don’t do it,” says Talbot, her reasoning as old-school as her cooking methods. Asked how many other female barbecuers she knows, she just laughs, which seems to say it all: none.

In fact, women who do ‘cue are rare enough that two from barbecue-obsessed Kansas City—Karen Adler and Judith Fertig—published a book in 2005 defending their cause. According to a passage on their website, The BBQ Queens’ Big Book of Barbecue blossomed from the salvo of a local radio DJ who’d snorted on air: “Women can’t barbecue!”
Barbecuing for a crowd does require some muscle. The pork shoulders Talbot uses at Green River are so heavy she has to have others help her load them into a cooler at the market. Then when she smokes the meat, she takes it to the pit where it has to be trimmed, barbecued and chopped.  Afterward, she says, the cookers have to be cleaned “and that is dirty work. That’s the hardest part. Everything is black and greasy, and after taking care of the meat I have to work the front, too. I have to do all that and also try to look nice.”

Her side items are less messy and include such unimpeachable Southern favorites as fried corn-on-the-cob and black-eyed peas. Her head-swimmingly rich tomato pie is her “signature side,” and a request for the recipe was cut short by a sing-songy “No!” House platters include a moist and generous pulled-pork plate, a Texas-style beef-brisket dish and a site-smoked turkey entree; a thick list of sandwiches is highlighted by the “Hog Trough,” a whole loaf of Italian bread “trenched out” and stuffed with pork.
Ever the entrepreneur, Talbot doesn’t tout any particular regional style. Her sauces include a tomato-based pair in hot and sweet, a South Carolina-style mustard sauce and a vinegary option for adherents to the Eastern North Carolina school of ‘cue. “We get people from all over,” says Talbot, who knows it’s smarter to act like a businesswoman than a barbecue snob. “I serve my sauces on the side. Unlike some restaurants, I don’t choose their [flavor] for them.” She expresses similar indifference to those who would turn the art of barbecue into a chest-thumping competition. “I’ve been here so long, I don’t have to feel that way,” she says.

The line outside 12 Bones Smokehouse easily rivals the one at the Orange Peel that once formed for Bob Dylan. Distinguished by curious hours (just weekday lunch) and arguably the most eclectic clientele in Asheville, the River Arts District hotspot is co-owned by a woman who rejects the hierarchal structure of the average restaurant kitchen. “When you’re as busy as we are, you run out of energy,” says Sabra Kelley, who makes 12 Bones happen with her husband Tom Montgomery, kitchen manager Kim Austin and muscle man Steve “Grande” Mutter, who smokes the meat. “Everyone has their niche. But if you actually have more than one person who’s willing to come up with new recipes, it’s wonderful,” she says. “Everyone tastes everything...and once you get the right [cooking] procedure down, almost anyone can do that, too. It means you’re sharing duties instead of henpecking each other.”

According to Kelley, an air of collective experimentation reigns behind closed doors. “We have no egos here,” she says—though bragging rights for 12 Bones’ blueberry-chipotle ribs, which won Good Morning America’s “Best Bites in America” contest last year, go to Montgomery. Despite the occasional arty innovation (smoked mushroom salad is among the sides), 12 Bones mostly serves traditional barbecue fare. All entrees run a couple bucks less than one might expect in a trendy district. Platters of pulled pork ($6) and beef brisket ($7) share menu space with a rare dark-meat chicken dish ($5). “That,” Kelley reveals, “was a very calculated thing.” The River District is populated with just as many industrial workers as artists and she knew going all bistro wasn’t going to suit every taste. “We wanted the guys who come in covered with concrete to be comfortable here, too. That’s who we set out to please from the get-go.”

Such a sentiment might suggest that, despite all evident progress, barbecue is for the boys after all. But Kelley won’t cop to that. “As you see more women owning restaurants in general, you are going to see more women barbecuers,” she says, agreeing that their rise is inevitable. Step aside, Bobby Flay. Melanie Talbot and Sabra Kelley are coming through.    

 
SOME SMOKIN' SPOTS

Green River Bar-B-Que
131 Highway 176
Saluda
828-749-9892
www.greenriverbbq.com
 
12 Bones Smokehouse
5 Riverside Drive
Asheville
828-253-4499
www.12bones.com