Open Pit brand barbecue sauce is so good it's drinkable. Ran out of meat? Mop that maroon gold up with your index finger.
If you treat yourself to barbecue sauce on a regular basis, you've probably tasted this awesome condiment dozens of times. The original recipe is that relatively thin sauce that packs an aroma of zing and an after-musk of perfect heat.
The brand was the sauce of choice for such Long Island staples as Pudgie's Famous Chicken and Fireside Delicatessen. Kitchen Kabaret, a culinary LI landmark for deli patronized by thousands of the stereotypical Long Islanders UB Buffalonians often resent, burns through handles of Open Pit.
I mentioned Open Pit to my best friends who are thoroughbred Buffalonians. They agreed open pit barbecue sauce is absolutely delicious and a key component to life as we know it, but after a brief communication breakdown, I realized these men were referring to the literal translation of open pit barbecue sauce, not the brand (notice the absence of capitalizations).
It turns out the open pit sauce Buffalonians know and love is an ultra-thick sauce that's gooey enough to provide a no-drip glaze to their chicken wings when they exit the fryer. Quite the opposite of the Open Pit sauce, I, the part-Long Islander part-phony, open pit sauce tourist, was willing to defend.
We're sure Open Pit brand barbecue sauce is delicious, but it is not open pit barbecue sauce - it's imitation, these Good Neighbors would argue to defile my sacred sauce.
I began thinking this dispute was actually less of an argument and more of a looking glass into two separate American regions, a metaphor for two different ways of life. As I prepare for my permanent departure from The Spectrum tonight, the first step toward my likely return from the City of Buffalo to my island home upon graduation, I'm entertaining the idea more and more.
Are Long Islanders pretenders with their bottled, brand name alternative to a real life style of saucing? Quite likely. And with our proclivity for extra makeup and strict attention to fashion's latest look, can you call us imitators? Go for it.
It's true; just like what the shiny mass-produced bottle of Open Pit brand barbecue sauce on the supermarket shelf represents, Long Islanders will board the train to Manhattan six days a week, be too tired to stand at a RUSH concert at Jones Beach, and transform themselves into a mass marketable commodity molded to make a dollar.
But let's not forget how delicious that shelved product is. Long Island, for all its pretention and workaholism is a beautiful place with beautiful people. The end result is a flavor everyone can savor so long as they're willing to see through a tough plastic front.
Buffalo's penchant for employing a sticky, no frills, profit-lethargic sauce couldn't be a more perfect illustration of the Queen City itself.
Sauces of Buffalo are relaxed and applied when the wings are good and ready. Fry 'em a drop longer, make 'em right-it's cold outside and I just ordered another pitcher.
The drums of open pit barbecue sauce behind the kitchen doors of Buffalo dives, like the city itself, aren't mass marketable. In most cases, they're not even known. But the product is effective, delicious, and real.
What other city can revel in such unsung glory? Buffalo gets hit with one bereavement after another and yet the recipe stays the same. Why? Because the recipe is genuine.
Cold, tough, and often poor may be the Buffalo setting; but the sauce is warm and gooey. A definite realness exists here.
While the money and a certain brand of spoils have surely flocked to the Southeast, an admirable, unabashed adherence to a wholesome, unconcerned tradition exists here that will continue to make this city a mouth-watering nutrient.
It is the reason I feel such affection for this fair town and expect to miss its wonderful people so much.
