I was going to leave this suggestion for my friend Tony Bourdain on the Discovery Travel Channel, but as he likes the more foreign destinations and he's done BBQ before on another network, I think this may very well be a job for Mike Rowe.
There is a Barbecue Restaurant in Lexington, K.Y., that was recently featured in the subject of a film produced by Joe York and the Southern Foodways Alliance called "Whole Hog":
http://www.southernfoodways.com/films.shtmlThe film was recently premiered in NYC at the Big Apple BBQ Block party. I suggest that you get a copy of this film so that you can better understand just how filthy, how backbreaking, how tiring, and yet how satisfying a job this is for the people who do it. I'd be more than happy to provide you with a copy if you are interested.
Additionally, James Beard Award winning food journalist David Leite wrote an article about the place that you should read:
http://www.leitesculinaria.com/features/pdfs/fire.pdfSuffice to say that Whole Hog Barbecue is an art form that is dying out because nobody wants to do it anymore because it is so labor intensive and is such filthy disgusting work. Essentially, what you are doing is taking dozens of entire pigs (which weigh upward of 200lbs apeice, which you must carry into the smoke room) throwing them into large cylindrical barbecue smokers, and stoking fires for two days straight (essentially without any sleep) with hardwoods that give off insane amounts of smoke and heat and risking huge fires that could burn down your restaurant. The pigs render buckets of grease which gets all over you. After staying up for two days tending the fires and probably getting your lungs filled up with soot, you then have to pull apart entire cooked pigs and separate the meat into component parts -- and then further cook the pig's skin until it becomes tasty 'cracklin's. And then repeat this process for the rest of your life.
I guarantee you that you will experience absolutely NOTHING like it.
Jason Perlow
jperlow@gmail.com
PS: Here are some photos of the place:
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=81480&view=findpost&p=1210178
