I ain't but a few years from retiring. I think I been around since Moby Dick was a minnow.
When I was a boy THIS time of year was when you started to smoke and barbecue. The reason we waited so late in the year to start was because refrigeration was not yet available to most of the mountain folk here in the mountains of NC.
We started killing hogs right after the first frost of the year. It being cooler during the day gave you more time to safely ''work up'' the meat with a degree of safety. The woman folk were just as busy or more so than the men folk. I remember Mama cookin up the liver mush and stiring that
big old pot over the open fire. all the neighbors helped and got a small portion to take home.
And WE helped them..
Smokers, as such, were not introduced there yet as I remember. We had smoke houses
to ''hang'' meat in . The reason that it was smoked was for preserving it. Not for taste so much as now.
Ma used to boil the country ham to get rid of as much of the salt and smoke taste as possible because she wanted it to taste as fresh as she could.
Now it is more desirable to taste the salt, cure and smoke in the ham. When we cooked a hog
or quarter of beef was when it was chilly.. November ? December.. thereabouts..
[no refrigeration again..] Had no way to measure the temperature of the cooker.OR the meat.
Pop would lay his hand on the tin used to cover the meat and gauge the heat by feel.
I guess it was a wonder that more people did not get sick. When we got a Buck or killed a hog or a beef it was dressed and hung in the wood shed with a clean sheet wrapped around it for at LEAST a week to ''hang'' [tenderize] as long as it was below 40 deg.. No body ever got sick at one of his cookins' just drunk.. or from overeatin. A black bear came in for a visit one time..
In short order he was being ''processed''. We never used charcoal because no one could realy afford it. We used most any kind of seasoned hardwood. We burned it in a burn barrel or
on a piece of sheet metal and fed the hot coals under the rack with a long handled , square shovel. Ever so often pop would wander over and lay that big hard hand on it and check it.
The reason that it was so safe to eat was because everything that came close to the cookin was kept as clean as a hound's tooth. Everything was cooked for 12 hours. 12 hours PERIOD.
It was considered a ''special request'' to get invited to help cook . The folks would get together
and the men would sip a bit now and then and mind the cookin. The wimmen would get together
and gosip [mostly about the men]
No one got drunk. no one got mad or hurt feelins.
So yeah.. Cold weather is for cookin.
When we killed an animal to ''put up'' it was cold weather.
BUTT.. Even now I do most of our smokin and outdoor cookin after it turns cooler. NOW
is the time we enjoy it. Hemi..