“Hog Day In Hillsborough”

Out To Pastoral

by John Idol

HILLSBOROUGH, NC—(Weekly Hubris)—7/12/10—A crowd of an estimated 25,000 pork and fun lovers turned out in mid-June to celebrate Hillsborough’s annual Hog Day. No event sponsored by the town draws more visitors, the closest rival being a powwow hosted by remnants of the Occoneechee tribe, a branch of the Saponi of Virginia living alongside the Eno River when English traveler John Lawson passed through what is now Hillsborough in the early 18^th century.

The Tar Heel state ranks among the nation’s top hog growers, and pork barbeque sparks lively competition among gourmands from eastern North Carolina and the piedmont and western sections of the state.

Although scores of events now help fill up the day, competition still lies at the heart of Hog Day. Competitors begin arriving the day before, most of them pulling barrell- or box-shaped cookers behind their cars and trucks. Mostly coal black, these cookers take places along two of Hillsborough’s streets and preparations are begun to turn pork shoulders into pulled or chopped barbeque.

Savory smoke drifts up from the cookers in the early morning air on Hog Day as cooks begin readying barbeque for customers, offering it to them in sandwiches, boxes, small buckets, or on plates. Many cooks return year after year and build up followers happily ready to name their favorites.

Naming favorites plays a key role in picking winners of recipes for the best barbeque sauce. In the event just held, five winners were chosen. Winning recipes usually reflect competing tastes, that of eastern North Carolina, with ketchup and tomato sauce as prime ingredients; and that of piedmont and western North Carolina, with vinegar and mustard combined with a little brown sugar.

With savory smoke and piquant odors drifting skyward, onlooking and sniffing gods must surely think of Hillsborough as a most worshipful place. As a nose-witness to the event, I can testify to the pleasantness of Hog Day. What god would not be pleased?

I wonder, though, if two pot-bellied pigs I once saw on Hog Day would have been pleased to think of their cousins as the prime stuff on someone’s plate or sandwich.

Yet, here they were, doing their piggy thing, grunting and wallowing and fully enjoying having their tummies tickled.

One thing I regret about Hillsborough is its loss of a good barbeque cafe. When I moved here, there was one, run by a couple who chose retirement over serving up pork barbeque and winning recipes for sauce. As long as they ran the place, customers had the year’s winning recipes put before them in bottles and might experience the culinary adventure of sampling. How I miss those days!

For all its love of the hog, Hillsborough comes up short now if you’re looking for an everyday place to enjoy barbeque. A place on US Highway 70 calls itself a barbeque cafe, but it lacks a pit and hickory logs. Just down the road, on NC 86, towards Chapel Hill, there is the real thing, however: Allen & Son Bar-B-Que. If you’ve thumbed through some of those airline magazines out of boredom, you’ve no doubt come upon an article about where to find the best Tar Heel barbeque. This rustic, nose-satisfying place lies less than ten miles away and is well worth the drive from Chapel Hill or Hillsborough. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Or, say, barbeque turns you off. Hog Day is now practically a full-featured event. Oh, it lacks rides and circus-like contraptions, but if you’re looking for crafts and arts, you’re in luck. Potters, jewelers, wood and leather workers, silversmiths, and other artisans offer their wares as they engage in their mysteries. If you’re in the mood to have your face painted or a caricature drawn, artists are there for the job.

Someone will also be there to offer you flyers from the two major political parties, someone to enlist your support for civic projects, someone to ask you for blood, someone to encourage you to make a decision on how you’d like to spend eternity: in a coffin, urn, or eco-friendly burial spot.

And, of course, many people turn out to peddle sodas, ice cream, hot dogs, burgers, and fries. But not until this year could you slack your thirst with a beer.

Largely because of a city mother, a respected member of the city council, Hillsborough had thumbed-down a request for a beer garden. City-Mother lost this round, however, and a beer garden, positioned out of the main flow of events, became a part of this year’s attractions. No Carrie Nation showed up to smash bottles or barrels. But that didn’t signify a thumbs-up from all the town-folk. Dry forces in town still prefer wetting their whistles with water or sugary sodas.

Besides the beer and pork, no doubt the biggest draw is music. No big-name performers come to entertain, but those who turn up usually please the ears and put feet and hands in motion. There’s foot-stomping and hand-clapping to encourage performers when country and bluegrass bands play, and muted sing-alongs are audible when a pop or rock group takes the stage. And, generally, there’s a spontaneous show-stopper in the form of a cute little girl who swings and sways with every song.

An event growing in popularity from year to year brings owners of old or classic cars to town. Filling up most of the space around the Orange County Public School Headquarters on Hog Day are shiny Packards, Studebakers, DeSotos and cars less ancient, particularly ‘57 Chevies and needle-nosed ‘40 Fords.

Men and boys, and a few girls and women, wander among the cars, a few of the elderly men and women remarking, “My daddy owned a car exactly like this. I wish we had had the good sense to keep it.” Here, nostalgia is more filling than a heaping plate of barbeque. Some few cars sport “For Sale” signs, but most of them bear witness to days and months of TLC from proud owners seated in chairs near them who are eager to talk about the joys and tribulations of restoring an old car.

As Hog Day winds down, many people stock up on barbeque, buy bottles of sauce, sniff the air one last time and utter the hope that next year’s weather won’t be as scorching, for mid-June in Hillsborough often turns blue-blazes hot.

Except for a few vendors, lawmen, and musicians and their fans, few people make it through a full day: the place is just too damned hot! If Al Gore ever requires more, and solid, evidence about global warming, he’ll find it right here in Hillsborough, North Carolina, on Hog Day.