Carol’s Home Cooking, Fountain, North Carolina

After a breakfast as delicious as it was excessive at Flo’s Kitchen, I was filled with the biscuit of human kindness. I set my mind to a good deed. Serendipitously, one was at hand.

The Campaign for Real Barbecue North Carolina page lists, along with scores of places that cook barbecue exclusively with wood and charcoal, a half dozen places that, despite sedulous efforts, neither Dan Levine (“Chief Smoke Detector”) nor John Shelton Reed (“Eminence Grease”) have been able to check and certify. Why not give them a hand and go to Carol’s Home Cooking, just down the road across the Pitt County line.

Pitt County, North Carolina, has a special place in my heart — or stomach — as home of four of the eight barbecue places on my list of the Ten Best Barbecue Places in Eastern North Carolina. I never was very good at math. The idea of five great places in Pitt County was exciting, so I drove over and waddled in.

Carol’s is in a pretty house in a pleasant residential neighborhood.

I looked around back and noted a good-sized wood-fueled smoker that looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. I walked back and entered a very clean and tidy space with dark wood paneling in a room set with seven tables for five.  It was early, but four of the tables were occupied. One appeared to be an ad hoc community table, with a diverse group of six.

I looked at the white board menu and didn’t see barbecue. I did see that the pork chops and fried chicken are cooked to order at Carol’s, and that they take 12-15 minutes.

To me that meant pan-fried, which is the best possible way to fry chicken, and the only way to get pan gravy. That’s how Dear fried chicken, and how most places fried chicken in the South 60 years ago. I was sorely tempted, but I had another stop to make. Also, after the two cat head biscuits at Flo’s, I decided that discretion might be the better part of valor. Since they didn’t have barbecue, I ordered a vegetable plate, with butter beans, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, and slaw.

I love butter beans, and I hardly ever see them. When I see them, I order them, and these were excellent. The okra was good, but would have been better with a cornmeal batter like the fried green tomatoes, which were excellent. The slaw was very good, nice and refreshing with all the fried food. As you can see, the plate came with some good corn muffins.

It was a good, satisfying meal. There’s so much to be said for a plate of Southern/Soul Food vegetables. Afterwards I asked about the barbecue situation. At present, it’s available on an uncertain schedule, and cooked off premises by someone who’s “certified.” I suppose that the certification was from the Health Department, but when have I ever cared about that? The off-site cooking did mean that Carol’s, at least at present, does not qualify for Campaign for Real Barbecue certification, and I so advised the Eminence Grease. Carol’s is, however, a lovely place to have lunch, with good food, nice people, and a real community feel. I left Carol’s happy. You should go there, and do try the fried chicken.

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