By Mt. Zion homecoming. The annual gathering, my shoulders, the fellowship hall, the community coming together. This year I smoked six shoulders, as usual, and pulled them in the church kitchen, and served three hundred and twenty people, and the young man from last year — the teenager who asked me to teach him — came back. His name is Jerome, like my butcher, and he is seventeen and he has been coming to my house every other Saturday for a year to learn the smoker.
Jerome is good. Not great yet — great takes decades — but good, the way I was good at sixteen when Uncle Clyde said my shoulder was "acceptable." Jerome can build a fire, manage temperature, and mop a shoulder without being told when. He can't yet read the smoke — can't look at the color and thickness and know whether the wood is too wet or the temperature is too high — but that comes with time, and time is what we have, and having time is what it means to be a pitmaster and a teacher.
I let Jerome pull a shoulder at homecoming. He stood at the table with gloves and paper towels and he pulled the meat by hand, the way I showed him, the way Uncle Clyde showed me, and the meat came apart in his young hands the way it comes apart in mine, and the tradition — the actual, physical, hand-to-meat tradition of pulling pork — passed from my generation to his in a church kitchen in Orange Mound, and the passing was as sacred as any sermon I've ever heard.
After Jerome pulled that shoulder — after the meat came apart in his hands the way it was supposed to — we set it on the table next to the slaw, and that’s the way it has always been: pulled pork doesn’t stand alone, it needs something cool and crisp alongside it to cut through the smoke and fat. This Easy Peasy Slaw has been on our homecoming table as long as I can remember, and I make a double batch every year because it disappears just as fast as the pork. If you’re feeding a crowd, or just feeding a family that eats like one, this is the recipe that belongs next to your pulled meat.
Easy Peasy Slaw
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 15 min (plus 1 hour chilling) | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 6 cups shredded green cabbage (about 1 small head)
- 1 cup shredded red cabbage
- 1 cup shredded carrots (about 2 medium carrots)
- 3 green onions, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon celery seed
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Combine the vegetables. In a large bowl, toss together the green cabbage, red cabbage, carrots, and green onions until evenly mixed.
- Make the dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, sugar, celery seed, salt, and black pepper until smooth and well combined.
- Dress the slaw. Pour the dressing over the cabbage mixture and toss thoroughly until every piece of cabbage is coated.
- Chill before serving. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour to let the flavors come together. Toss once more before serving. The slaw will keep refrigerated for up to 2 days.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 130 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 11g | Carbs: 8g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 220mg