Celebrating Family Traditions: IT'S IN THE SAUCE!!!

The A.J. Sauce – Back Story

[Reprinted from the Family Stories of Alfred L. Harris, Sr]

 

For those of you who didn't know my father, Alfred Jacob Harris (A.J.), you missed an interesting character.  Unlike his own father (Jacob), he was not an exceptional businessman.  He could be a very nice guy, but he just wasn't a good businessman.  Even though Daddy ran "Harris Grocery and Meat Market" from the time Papa Jake died in 1948 until his own passing nearly 35 years later, it was clear that his talents lay elsewhere.

A.J. in his hey day styling his Happy socks

A.J. Harris was an amazing cook and baker.  His understanding of spices and how to use them was uncanny.  I have known some outstanding cooks in my life, but he was the best of the bunch.  With his devilish sense of humor, he found great entertainment in feeding family and friends something they claimed not to like such as opossum, raccoon, rabbit, deer, mutton and mountain oysters. 

 He baked beautiful big cakes with thick rich icing that kept the cake fresh until time for it to be cut.  He was also well known for his sweet potato pies, but it was not as well known that his pumpkin, pear and white potato pies were just as good.  His peach cobbler was awesome!  If he was cooking chicken and dumplings, you had to stay close and eat before the "samplers" started coming through.  As you might have guessed by now, my Dad had a full service kitchen inside his store - where he canned exquisite tasting fruits, vegetables and fish.  Yes, fish!

A.J. in his store circa 1972. Warren Morton sits to his right.

There was always a gathering of old men around the store, waiting to be invited to taste whatever he might decide to cook.  Frequently, our regular customers were treated to a full meal.  The aromas permeating the store, whenever he went into one of his cooking fits, kept me closer to home than the threat of being paddled for leaving.  Dude could burn!

Well, one of the other familiar aromas in the store was bar-B-Q sauce.  The smell was commanding and inviting. His sauce was a beautiful, brown, smooth, sweet sauce that was so hot, it could almost make you cry.  It was too hot to eat and too good to quit.  One of my favorite things to do was to sop the big dishpan used for cooking it, after the potion had been poured up for storage.  Right, I just sopped the pan with "light" bread - no meat involved.

Well, everybody wanted his recipe.  He wasn't having it!  Even though I use to hang around and help him make the sauce, I knew he had a secret ingredient.  It was fun to try to catch him adding it behind my back.  Because I spent time watching and helping him, I knew more about his sauce than anyone else, yet I could not replicate it.  If my dad had been a great businessman like my grandfather, he would have sold the recipe to the Campbell Soup Company when they offered to buy it from him.  Better still, he could have done his own thing and become rich and famous like the Gates family of Kansas City or the Neely family of Memphis.

Instead, the old man took the recipe with him when he passed away, but he left me with this opportunity to share the back-story about his locally famous bar-B-Q sauce.

 

In honor of Black History Month, I will be providing to my beloved family interesting  facts and amusing anecdotes regarding family traditions. If you would like to include some of your own please send my way.  Sharing these stories are a personal joy and so needed during these troubling times when family values and their contributions are vastly being diminished!

Your Family Griot,

Carolyn Harris Betts