The Dancing BBQ Man

He shows up in Richmond at least twice a year. His setup smells like heaven. He’s the man dancing to his Irish music, spraying your mouths with Irish whiskey, and then wielding a knife as he passes around samples of his glorious smoked pork shoulder. He’s an English born, African-raised, Irish-bred, and now a full-fledged American BBQ man. He is Peter Baker, owner of Sneaky Peat -the foremost Irish peat business for US homes since 1998, and he is the man who helped me finally understand BBQ as it should be.

You will generally find Peter at Irish and Celtic festivals. He is present at the Irish Festival in Church in March and at the Richmond Highland Games in the fall. He advertises his product as IRISH BBQ and his method for making IRISH BBQ is with peat- yes, the same stuff that is used as a heating source in Ireland. He freely admits that he gets some chuckles from BBQ purists and that if you were to talk about Irish BBQ over in Ireland that the people would think you were bloody crazy. Yet, he would be quick to remind you that BBQ was a way of survival in years past. It was about using the hearth with peat to heat one’s home. While heating the home, people would store/cook/preserve their food using that same hearth. So while the Irish would never claim to own the BBQ, they were using the BBQ process years before America existed.

What you can’t help but notice as you walk by Sneaky Peats is the wonderful sweet earthy smell of peat. No sooner do you stop to take a look at the product when Pete graciously hands you a slice of meat. He might have sprayed your mouth with whiskey, he might dip the meat into his sauces, but the when all those flavors roll away; the rich, smoky flavor of peat persists. That was the exact experience that hooked me and made me decide I was going to make this myself. What I didn’t realize going in was that I didn’t get it when it came to smoking meats. I have several outdoor methods of cooking and possibly smoking. My often-used implement for BBQ was my little electric bullet smoker. So my first go around, I soaked me some chuncks of peat, and laid them near the coil. I filled up my water basin with beer. I rubbed my pork shoulder with salt, pepper, sugar, and dried mustard. I served it with a mustard-beer sauce. Honestly, it was a hit. The taste was great, but not because of peat, but because I could flavor food well with spices and sauces. I was disappointed because I wanted a wonderful smoke flavor, but that just didn’t happen.

When I cornered Peter in October and in subsequent conversations, he proceeded to teach me the basics of BBQ. He taught me that if I separated the elements, then I could truly understand and appreciate BBQ and subsequently Irish BBQ. He also taught about how peat works. The trick to peat is to give it a slow burn, but not too slow because that chars the product and traps the oils that produce the wonderful aroma and flavor. As such, it is important to select the appropriate size of peat to the heating element that you would be using. He said that water is essential to backyard BBQ because it helps transfer the flavor to the meat. He also told me to never, under any circumstance, soak the peat in anything. There were several conversations like these over both phone and email. Honestly, we didn’t have success I was looking for that next time around. Finally, after more talk and a little trial and error, we found the system that worked.

Needless to say that this homage is a way of saying thanks to the person who literally gave me hours of his time to help me refine my technique in the art of BBQ.