Golden Tangy and Sweet — South Carolina Style

Traveling in search of excellent barbecue give you a chance to experience different traditions and savor new flavors. When you stop for BBQ in South Carolina, be prepared to appreciate how a mustard sauce can add a tangy and tart flavor that matches well with the sweet taste of pork barbecue. At Melvin’s Barbecue on James Island in the Charleston area, I enjoyed a mustard sauce that has been celebrated since the 1930s.

Mustard Sauce

A mustard sauce is very prominent in the state’s Midlands region — specifically a belt from Columbia to Charleston — where German immigrants settled in the 18th century and brought their common use of mustard. At Melvin’s, the barbecue’s deep golden color and sharp mustard flavor tell you that the condiment is indispensable in preparing chopped pork that is slowly cooked 24 hours on live-oak coals.

The wood pile outside the entrance tells you that the meat has a smoky flavor.

Melvin Bessinger (a surname that has roots in Bessingen, a town near Hanover, Germany), whose name the restaurant carries, learned to make his family’s golden sauce — now marketed as Melvin’s Original Golden Secret Sauce — when he was 10 years old and he watched his father Joseph (1892-1949) prepare it. Success as a pitmaster led him to open a restaurant in 1939 that served only mustard-sauced barbecue.

Three generations of family traditions are packed in each bottle of Melvin's Original Golden Secret Sauce.

First Family of Mustard-Based Barbecue

After service in World War II, Melvin (1923-2012) joined his five other brothers working for their father in the restaurant business in Holly Hill, S.C., before each left to start his own BBQ business in South Carolina’s lowcounty. Melvin moved to the Charleston area where he worked with brothers J.D. and Thomas in a series of BBQ restaurants. Then in 1978 he ventured on his own and opened Melvin’s (not affiliated with any restaurant owned by other Bessinger family members), which now has two locations. When Melvin was 86 in 2009, his son David took over the business.

The signature chopped pork is moist, tender, lightly smoked, and flavored with Melvin's proprietary mustard sauce. This plate includes two sides (slaw and mac 'n' cheese) and cornbread.

The Bessingers are South Carolina’s first family of mustard-based barbecue. The South Carolina Barbeque Association considers the Bessingers to be the most prominent among the families with German heritage who sell mustard-based sauces and mustard-based barbecue. (The family is not without problems. According to The New York Times, Melvin’s late brother Maurice was widely known for his racist views, which became nationally prominent in a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Melvin publicly disavowed his brother’s political and social views and quit speaking to him.)

Extra sauces are available on a counter in case more is desired.

100-Mile Barbecue

Concerning Melvin’s barbecue, the association endorses it as “100-mile BBQ,” or barbecue so good it’s worth driving 100 miles for, and the hash is “100-mile hash,” too. The recipe for hash — served over rice — is somewhat daunting. (It includes pig hearts, livers and kidneys, jowls, brisket, hams, beef shoulders, a hog’s head, and vegetables such as celery, carrots, corn and potatoes, all layered with black pepper and salt in a huge stainless steel pot.)

Melvin's ribs (on a plate with fries and mac 'n' cheese) have a crunchy crust but are tender inside.

Not limited to pork, Melvin’s also offers brisket, burnt ends, pulled chicken and smoked turkey. All regular plates come with two sides and cornbread. In addition to meat plates, Melvin’s also serves a hash and rice plate.

Ribs (this serving with sweet potato souffle and bread) are as popular as chopped pork.

Having more than a dozen Southern sides often causes a delay at the ordering line while customers contemplate the choices. I had to try the country hash with rice as well as the fresh collard greens. (Smoked ham hocks are Melvin's secret for flavoring the collards.) Other members of my family chose sweet potato souffle, homemade mac & cheese, baked beans and baby butter beans — all were good.

After the food has been served, getting everyone to smile for a picture can be challenging.

Four Sauces

A barbecue fan can actually find that mustard, indispensable for the Bessingers, is just one of four sauces that South Carolina BBQ houses may offer. The others are vinegar and pepper (the most popular style along the coast), light tomato (basically vinegar and pepper with ketchup added for sweetness that is popular in the upper middle and northeast regions), and heavy tomato (sometimes called tomato and sugar sauce that is popular in western and northwestern areas).

Melvin’s is a destination for travelers as much as locals. Its recognition by Travel + Leisure, Southern Living, Food Network, National Geographic, Eater and other foodie publications and groups has extended its renown across the country. When you visit, plan to encounter golden barbecue with a tangy and tart flavor.

Melvin's is popular throughout the day until closing time.

Mapping a Barbecue Trail

Imagine a state preparing a map of all its barbecue restaurants and making it available at welcome centers and through visitor programs. When I stopped at South Carolina’s welcome center on Interstate 95 after entering from Georgia, I was interested in getting only a few simple brochures and a state highway map.

Which South Carolina map connects to culture and history?

A mouth-watering
sandwich graces 
cover of trail map.

When I arrived at a stack of highway maps, my eyes were immediately attracted to a picture of a mouth-watering barbecue sandwich on the front panel of different map. About the same size as the highway map and folded into similar sections, this one is labeled “South Carolina BBQ Trail Map.” It also proclaims that it is “official” (which is missing from the front of the highway map that indicates “free distribution only”). 

Although the state highway map is a great resource to navigate through South Carolina and includes useful travel information such as road classifications, symbols, distances, and hurricane evaluation routes, it lacks a cultural connection. On the other hand, the BBQ Trail Map highlights the culture of the state as it brags that South Carolina invented barbecue and is the only state to offer the fourofficial sauces – vinegar-pepper, mustard, light tomato, and heavy tomato.

South Carolina offers four different barbecue sauces.

As the trail map describes the state’s sauces, it connects them to cultural history. For example, German immigrants with a taste for mustard who settled in the 1700s are credited with popularizing mustard-style barbecue in the middle of the state. (In fact, South Carolina is the only state where this sauce is found.)

Mustard sauce is popular in the midlands of South Carolina.

The trail map also explains how the roots of barbecue run “five centuries deep” in the state and date to the time when Spanish explorers observed “open pit cooking” by Native Americans on the coast of South Carolina. According to the map, the first pit-cooked barbecue in America was created when the Spanish, who brought hogs on their long voyages for food and even left some on coastal islands of the Southeast, cooked in the style of the American Indians. 

Which sauce would be your favorite?

Although BBQ trail maps of other states are available, in both online and printed versions, South Carolina is the first and only state to prepare a trail map and make it available at its welcome centers. Consider how much its trail map advances its reputation and credibility as a tourist destination, particularly for culinary travelers. Maps of other states, such as North Carolina, have been prepared by associations (trail by NC Barbecue Society) or by entrepreneurs (Great NC BBQ Map by Amanda Fisher and Paul Bright). However, the map of South Carolina includes all establishments and their sauces. It divides the state into three regions – mountains, midlands, and coastal – and lists all barbecue establishments, marks their locations on the map, and identifies which sauces they serve. The S.C. Department of Tourism deserves a round of applause for its initiative.

Finding barbecue in South Carolina is easy with the trail map.

When you travel, don’t travel with only a highway map – also take a map that includes cultural and culinary connections. If you are searching for barbecue, include South Carolina in your journey because it knows how to map a trail.

Pick up a trail map at a S.C. welcome center.