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David Gelin (say it JELL-in) sounds like the kind of guy who never meets a stranger.
"I'm a Jew from New York raised in Washington, D.C., who went to Atlanta to attend Emory (University)," and that's where he discovered barbecue.
"We don't have... this where I come from," Gelin says when we finally connect by phone. "I thought it was the most fabulous stuff - " His voice trails off, and we know he is lost, at least for a moment, in the reverie of recollection.
And so began Gelin's journey to collect information that he hopes will guide lovers of "que" - that's what he's likely to call it in print - to barbecue joints all over the South.
John T. Edge, director of Southern Foodways Alliance and a widely respected author/foodie, contributed the foreward to Gelin's book, and Edge takes exception to Gelin's loose definition of the South, though not enough to find fault with the exploration and exposure of joints most of us might never find otherwise.
Says Gelin, "I'm not a religious person by any stretch, but my life was miserable," and then he discovered that someone actually would pay him to do what he's done in "BBQ Joints, Stories and Secret Recipes from the Barbecue Belt" (Gibbs Smith Publisher, $15.95).
His initial tale is an unhappy one of failure - business, marriage, life. A serendipitous event having to do with trying to market a children's calendar happily turned things upside down and led to Gelin's three-book deal to write barbecue books. Good thing three, too, since he laments the limited space in the first one and says he has joints galore to help fill books two and three.
Gelin's definition of "real" barbecue is meat cooked for hours over hardwood coals, but he confesses, "It's all good. Just do it." To that end, he even includes instructions for making your own pit, passed on by a Kentucky teacher; materials list, drawings and complete instructions included.
Truth is Gelin admits to being a pretty mediocre barbecue chef, but he shares some insight worth heeding: "Just because someone has an expensive piece of equipment does not make them a great chef," he says. "That said, barbecue, to me and many others, means cooked with wood or charcoal. Gas just doesn't cut it. Save the gas for burgers and weenies."
His yearlong trek involved driving from state to state, city to city in a pickup with only his canine pal Buddy for company. They'd stop wherever the spirit moved them to eat and meet the real people who made real barbecue.
"If you think it's a great gig, living on a shoestring and sleeping in the back of a pickup truck, hoping to find a spot for the night where the cops won't bust in on you - then you and I are in complete accord. I absolutely love it," Gelin says.
