“When I see a customer coming back and a smile on their face and I see people coming around, it makes it all worthwhile. It sort of makes a person feel like yeah, I am doing something for the good of the people and I’m getting acknowledge back that I’m doing a good job and I’m not doing it just to be making a—you know I’m not out here to get rich. I’m doing it; my heart is in this.” – Ricky Parker

Scott’s-Parker’s Barbecue
10880 Highway 412 W.
Lexington, TN 38351
(731) 968-0420

Ricky Parker has been working sixteen to twenty hour days, six days a week at Scott’s Barbecue since he was thirteen years old. He never stops working, so it’s hard to tell if he is joking when he says he exhausts four to five pair of shoes each year. He is consumed by barbecue, famously repeating that he is more married to the job than to his wife.

Ricky cooks whole hog barbecue. He recognizes that he is “original,” that he is doing something “special,” and that he is “a dying breed.” This may all be true, but at the most fundamental level he respects the craft and tradition of the whole hog and his teacher Early Scott. It is very telling that only recently—after twenty years of owning the business—has Ricky added his own name to the signage, it is now Scott’s Parker’s Barbecue.

We first visited Scott’s Bar-B-Que in 2003 as part of our initial foray into documenting rural Tennessee ‘cue. Visit the original Scott’s Bar-B-Que page.

What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

EDITED TRANSCRIPT

Subject: Ricky & Zach Parker
Date: July 23, 2008
Location: Scott’s-Parker’s Barbecue
Interviewer & Photographer: Rien T. Fertel

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Rien T. Fertel: All right; so I’m going to ask Mr. Parker to introduce himself.

Ricky Parker: I’m Ricky Parker. I’m 46 years-old, born February 19, 1962.

What kind of hogs do you use?

RP: Half Duroc and half Yorkshire.

And where do you get them from?

RP: Roger Gill. … He grows about 10 miles from my place of business; he has a farm house that he raises them from ground up. What I mean—he don't go out here and select hogs. He goes and he raises them from babies up, which I’ve got a certain type of boar and a certain type of a gilt that he—he raises my hogs from. It ain't one that you go out here to a—what you would call a sale barn and buy. I don't do that.

And you were telling me yesterday that he feeds them a special diet that you pick? … What’s he feed them?

RP: Well that I can't say. [Laughs] Yeah; it’s just—it’s a different supplement. It’s—it’s about more than just corn fed.

And the three that we put on today we established how much they weigh; your son told us that, but how old were they?

RP: These hogs are approximately six months old.

Six months old, and you said that you can tell the difference between these and others after they’re butchered?

RP: Yeah; the hogs that we cook has got like a three-percent fat, all right. The ones that other people have they either have a 10-percent fat or they ain't got no fat at all. So the marbling of the hog has got everything to do with the cooking of the hog.

How long have you been here?

RP: Since 1976.

Since 1976 and how long have you owned the place?

RP: Since 1989.

Can you tell me how you met Mr. [Early] Scott?

RP: Yeah; basically I started pumping gas at a service station and he—I had met—I met him filling his truck up one day and me and my dad had—had problems and that’s when he throwed me out of the house when I was 13. And then when he done that then Mr. and Mrs. Scott sort of took me in and then that’s how me and him met. That’s how it got me started in doing this.

And do you remember why Mr. Scott got into this business?

RP: He traded two school buses for this business. … That’s what—that’s what he done; he drove school buses carrying kids back and forth to school. He got tired of driving; he couldn’t make—he said he couldn’t make a living at it.

Can you tell me about those early days—how hard it was? Do you remember your—your first day maybe?

RP: Yeah; it was different. It was nothing I wasn’t never used to but I’ve always—my dad and mother has always been like sharecroppers. My dad always got us up. There was five of us kids—always would get us up and we would go—this is when we was living in Florida. We moved back and forth—Florida to Michigan. And we’d have to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and go out and pick oranges or pick apples, whichever place we was at, until it was time to go to school and then we’d go to school. And when we’d get out of school we’d go right back to the field again. So the work wasn’t—wasn’t a big thing to me; I was—that was—my dad bred that into me. The work wasn’t so much as being hard that it was the hours was the biggest thing ‘cause when I started helping Mr. Scott I was a sophomore in high school. I would work 80 hours a week and go to school too. And that was tough, but there again, I—you know I had—I had to get immune to doing that. And at the age of 17 and a half, I was three months graduating from high school and Mr. Scott told me, he said why don't you just quit school and you come to work? He said you done learned all you going to learn in school. He said now let me learn you about life. So I just—that’s where it all really began right there, and he taught me a lot about living. He taught—he’s got morals. He had morals about him—very common, common sense; he’s got a lot of common sense, which he didn’t have but a third grade education. But he had a lot of common sense. … I didn’t run around; I didn’t get out here and party like a lot of kids do or anything like that. When he was here I was here. When he went home I went home and that was basically how that is, so I mean I’m married to this place more than I am my wife. And the kids will tell—my—my two kids will tell you that—them two boys there.

The process of cooking a whole hog here, did you keep it the same from Mr. Scott’s process or did you change it?

RP: Yeah; I didn’t change a whole lot. I learnt more about it far as—we talked about the genetics of the hog. All right; the—far as the—the insulation of the cardboard, I—I changed that up a little bit. All right; the amount of fire that I put up under the hogs and the timing with the hogs—.

Did he used to do more or less fire?

RP: He would do a lot more.

So they would cook faster?

RP: No, not so much as faster but he was—how would you say—he thought if a fire—if you didn’t have a fire burning then them hogs wasn’t going to get done, all right. So that’s—all right now I seen what he was talking about in one—in one sense, but there’s another sense where I found out you build a big enough fire all right; when you’re firing them hogs out there if the pit is too hot and you done fired off them—them coals you can leave them coals right there and cover them up with ashes, all right. Then if you—when the—the pit cools down, you can go back and you can rake the ashes off the top of them coals and the coals are still there. So then you’re cutting back on your cost of the wood. You ain't having to burn as much.

So there’s a science to keeping the ashes and the coals—?

RP: Yeah; everything that we—everything that we do it’s—it—it’s all common—common sense but a lot of people don't—a lot of people think that you can learn it out of a book and—and you can't do it. You can't; there’s no way. We got—I got a good friend, who—Don and I can't even think of his last name; he tried to get me to go in business with him in South Carolina. … Right; but he cooked in barrels and he—he stayed in business about a year and a half there and he tried to duplicate what we do here, the flavor, the taste, and he’s a well educated man. I mean he’s got degrees you would not believe, but after he closed, he come back to Lexington and he said there’s no way that you can duplicate what you do. There’s nothing you can build, no kind of electric stoves, no ovens; he said you cannot get the full flavor of what you’re doing. … It’s simple in one—in one aspect and then in another aspect all right, the—the blocks that’s cut out where we fire at, all right that—that’s called—that’s like a draft. You’ll get a wind draft going through. All right; and this goes back to your common sense. If anybody has ever cooked on a charcoal grill at home, you shut your lid; the coals that you got in there it’s going to—you’re going to—what you might say—it’s going to cool the coals down. No air can get to it. All right; you open it up and when you’re cooking a steak or something and it drops on them coals it—the air is getting them coals hotter and you get a fire, so that makes them that much hotter. So all right then there again, this is going to gain you two or three hours of firing time on your hogs. If you understand what I’m saying; once—once you all right—if you had for instance if you had maybe you can word it anyway you want to; if you—if I had a fire in here—this is on fire. All right; if you open that door, air gets in here—what’s going to happen? It’s—it’s going—that’s going to get hotter than a firecracker; it’s going to burn up that much quicker. That’s—that’s the basic idea on—on them air pockets that’s in that pit.

You’ve been known to work all day long. How many hours a day do you work average?

RP: Anywhere from say 16 to 20.

When do you get a chance to eat? When do you get a chance to take a break?

RP: Well like last night I went home for—I went home about 10:30 and took me a shower, ate supper, and then I come back about two and a half hours later. … I eat on the run. [Laughs]

How do you eat your sandwich?

RP: [Laughs] Not anyway that—I mean anyway that you fix it. … I’ll let Zach fix me a sandwich. I’ll let Matt [Ricky’s eldest son] fix me a sandwich and I do this for a reason. Make sure they stop on top of their game. Now if they make a sandwich and I can eat it I know that anybody else can eat it that comes through the door. And I may get particular; I may tell them I want a middlin’ sandwich or a shoulder sandwich or a ham sandwich or tenderloin, you know. I’ll tell them what kind of sandwich I want and I—they know that I know. I can bite into it; I can tell where it come from.

I was talking to your son, Zach earlier and he says he wants to do his own barbecue. How long does it take someone to learn this?

RP: He is well on his way. Now Zach is—Zach has been by me ever since he was big enough to walk. He has started cooking a lot more like when he was 12 and 13 he got to helping me more, but right now I wouldn’t be—I wouldn’t be afraid to put him in any contest with anybody of my stature that’s how confident I am of him. … ‘Cause Zach—Zach looks at it in the same perspective that I do—don't sell anybody something that you wouldn’t eat yourself. And then he is—he is one of these—he likes his stuff perfected and that’s a good—that’s a good thing in him; I like that. Even he’ll tell me if—if I have him down there doing something for me, he’ll call me up and he’ll say daddy I don't know about this hog; you need to come check it, which see, he’s not got—he’s not that—he second guesses his self a lot of the times. And that goes along with him not being in it—not doing it as long as I have which a lot of time he—he guesses wrong. And I’ll tell him; you look at it—don't second guess yourself, just do it. If you mess up that’s—that’s one you mark up; that’s an area that you know not to do the next time.

So you’ve got a lot of attention the past couple of years; why do you think that is?

RP: I don't know. I’m being just as sincere as I can be; I don't know. I don't know if—I think myself, I think that I’m just an ordinary guy trying to make a living and I am good at what I do. … Now I don't sit behind a desk; I don't push a pencil and I don't like answering the phone. I’d rather work a 15—16 hour day and work my ass off—than I had to do what I’m doing right now. No disrespecting you. [Laughs]

Do you think it’s special what you’re doing?

RP: Yes; I do. … ‘Cause it’s—it’s a dying breed; there isn't—if it—now if it wasn’t for Zach wanting to take this over when I quit there probably won't be no more of what I do. I know you’ve been to other barbecue places; if you talk to them and you was to ask them how long they have been in that certain place they’ll tell you how many times it’s changed hands. This place ain't never changed. … Everything is original. Like I said, Mr. and Mrs. Scott adopted me and I’ve been with them so you can pretty much say I’ve been in this all my life. If—if you compare when he started and then when I took it over I have put in more years at this than Mr. Scott actually has, which I’ve been—he started—he started this business when he was 54 year-old. All right; he retired at 65. So how many years is that? He stayed in it 11 years. I started in ’76 helping him and I’m here and this is 2008. … I’m the oldest. I’m the oldest at this kind of business in West Tennessee if you—if you count years to years.

Well what makes it all worth it?

RP: When I see a customer coming back and a smile on their face and I see people coming around like you and John T. [Edge], it makes it all worthwhile. It—it makes—it sort of makes a person feel like yeah, I am doing something for the good of the people and I’m getting acknowledge back that I’m doing a good job and I’m not doing it just to be making a—you know I’m not out here to get rich. I’m doing it; my heart is in this.

When are you satisfied? Is it the food; do you taste the meat from every hog or is it the whole process?

RP: Oh yeah; there ain't a hog that don't go through here that I don't try. And that’s why I got a gut on me. [Laughs] That’s when I’m satisfied. When—when we put that sell-out sign on the door every night that’s when I’m satisfied ‘cause I know tomorrow I got fresh meat. And as long as you got fresh meat every day and it’s cooked right to my expectations I’m going to have satisfied customers and they’re going to be back. I piss a lot of people off when I sell out but I—I have to tell a few of them. I said this ain't like flipping a hamburger. You can't throw one on the grill and flip it over and then put it out the window. It ain't like that. I’ve got to guess and give a good estimation of how much meat every day that I’m going to sell. And it’s hard to guess the public. You can't look at somebody and guess what they’re going to do today and what they ain't going to do. But it’s—it’s a prediction. I mean and like I said I try to get as close as I can to selling out every day.

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To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

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