Earl's Chicken Talk and Barbecue Sauce (Redneck Recipe # 4)

From Gus’s Redneck’s Kitchen (Specializing in Bait, Tackle and Haute Cuisine)

For folks who like funny country stories and great country food all on the same plate　

Earl’s Chicken Talk

Earl was a real redneck. On top of that Earl was a chicken farmer. Earl was smart enough to know that it was best to grow stuff that mostly grew itself. Chickens do that. Chickens suited Earl nicely.

He was of the bachelor persuasion for as far back as anyone could remember. Thus his attire never consisted of anything better than blue jeans and old shirts. His blue jeans ordinarily had frayed knees and a hole or two in the pockets. Those airy knees did not bother Earl very much. It was the pocket holes that bugged him.

He became a good customer for safety pins at the Crossroads General Store. They stocked lots of safety pins largely because of Earl’s constant need for them. Even so, those pocket holes were often not that well sealed by Earl’s constant application of multiple safety pins.

This was a little bit of a problem. Being a dedicated chicken farmer, Earl walked around his place carrying handfuls of chicken feed in his pants pockets. From time to time, Earl would call up his chickens.

When they gathered around, Earl would say something like "Bwaaack, cluck, cluck, bbwwaack!" Earl would then reach into one of his pants pockets, haul out a handful of chicken feed, and toss the feed to his happy chickens. As he walked on, the chickens would follow him. It was ordinary to see Earl walking around his chicken farm followed by a gaggle of poultry.

Every now and then, Earl would stop, do the chicken noise and feed thing, and then move on to his next stop. The pocket holes helped. The chickens understood that there was always going to be a trail of chicken feed behind Earl even when he didn’t say, "Bwaaack," or put a hand into a pants pocket.

Earl’s neighbors took note of Earl and his following of hungry chickens. They heard him as he called to the chickens and watched as chickens attended Earl wherever he walked. Folks talked about how Earl had a special gift; that is, he could talk chicken talk.

After many years of roughing it, Earl got married. Mrs. Earl took note of all of the pocket holes and stitched them up. She scolded Earl for carrying chicken feed in his pockets. Earl listened to his bride and obeyed, a not uncommon occurrence among recently subdued husbands.

Earl no longer called up his birds. The chickens no longer followed Earl.

Soon after, Earl sold off all his chickens and switched over to growing corn and hay. His neighbors wondered if the big change in Earl’s farming ways came about maybe because those chickens had cussed him out and made him mad.

Folks who like the Eastern Carolinas style of vinegary barbecue sauce might take exception to the following recipe. It can be pointed out that all one has to do to make the sauce vinegary is to double or triple up on the vinegar, if vinegar is what you must.

Mix together 1 cup of good ketchup, 1/4 cup of prepared mustard, 1/4 cup of molasses or dark cane syrup, and 1/4 cup of either lemon juice or cider vinegar.

Add 2 tablespoons of Redneck Rub® Spice Mix or the same total amount of a mixture of black pepper, salt, sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, chili powder, and cayenne pepper (in whatever proportion of those you like).

Some extra flavor can be included by mixing in ½ ounce of a good bourbon whiskey. If you add the whiskey, heat the barbecue sauce until it begins to boil. The alcohol goes away, but the flavor remains. No whiskey? You don't have to heat the sauce but you can do so if you like to show off with a little extra work.

Store any leftover sauce in the refrigerator.

This barbecue sauce is really good on meats, but it also does wonderful things to vegetable dishes and to baked beans.

More of Gus’s Redneck Recipes are here on Hubpages.