March 28, 2024

A 68-year Food Tradition

Posted on September 1, 2016 by in EdNote

Labor Day was intended as a day of rest, but my family clearly never got the memo. On the first Monday in September each year, while all my school friends headed off to the swimming pool, the beach, or to Grandma’s to celebrate summer’s last hurrah, our family headed to the corner of Mt. Meigs Road and Capitol Parkway to support the Greek Labor Day Barbecue, an event our church community  sponsored annually to serve Montgomery and surrounding areas.

It was, and still is, the largest Labor Day barbecue in the Capital City. Started in 1948 as a picnic for parishioners, by the 1960s “The Barbecue” was already a big citywide event. The giant cookout carried extra cache because many owners of Montgomery’s most well-known eateries — the Elite, the Riviera, the Governor’s House, Chris’ Hotdogs, the Sheridan Cafe, Tony’s Pizza, the Embers, the Ideal Cafe (just to name a few) — were all church members who spent untold hours seasoning, cooking, and serving barbecue that would live up to customer expectations and their own individual reputations.

Everyone in the church community had a Barbecue-related job, from the youngest child to the oldest grandparent. Throughout elementary school my cousins, friends and I would gather in mid-August to complete our assigned task of folding cardboard boxes for BBQ carryout. Well-before pre-folded styrofoam was a staple, we folded thousands of boxes in anticipation of large, hungry crowds.

While we folded box after cardboard box, the smell of freshly baked Greek pastries wafted through the community center, as our moms mixed, shaped and dipped the delicacies that represented the “Greek” part of the Labor Day event. It never seemed the least bit odd to me that we served barbecue alongside baklava. Only in the South.

When the big weekend arrived, preparation of the pork, chickens, lamb and camp stew was left to the experts. After the pork had all been cooked and the chickens were still smoking on the pit, just as the Labor Day sun was positioned to light up the sky, the restauranteurs would assemble in the BBQ pit, bringing their sharpest knives from work to slice the pork hams. These men were colorful, larger-than-life characters who loved the opportunity to contribute to their church and their city, just as they enjoyed the camaraderie of their common effort.

September 5 marks the 68th celebration of the what is now the oldest Labor Day BBQ in the city. Although many of the event’s pioneers are no longer with us, the pit-fired barbecue pork, chicken, lamb and slow-simmered camp stew will again be served, cooked the same way as it was by those legendary Montgomery restauranteurs who started it all so many years ago. After nearly seven decades, the event is a unique Montgomery tradition.

This year’s holiday will once again find my family (including my son’s non-Greek father-in-law, a pit master extraordinaire whom we’ve affectionately adopted) and many friends working hard for the event that provides major support for the local Greek Orthodox Church’s Christian ministry. We’ll be there, cooking and selling BBQ pork, chicken, lamb, camp stew, and Greek pastries to anyone who’s got a hankering for these great grunts. If your stomach’s growling and you’re anywhere nearby, come and get some. And look for us. We’d love to say hello – and thank you – for almost 70 years of valued River Region support.

Sandra Polizos, Editor primeeditor@gmail.com

Sandra Polizos, Editor
primeeditor@gmail.com

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