Now before you get all worked up, this post is about how our love of Low and Slow is being piggybacked by the big food companies. And I like it!
Burger Time
When you see products like the KFC Pulled Pork burger hit the shelves, you know the wanna-be hipsters will be falling off cheap eBay fixies left right and centre on their way to the colonel! 
The chains have seen the light smoke, and want some of the action that we, as lovers of smokey goodness, have enjoyed for ages. Yes, I know barbecue is way older than me and my merry crew of barbecue aficionados, but, I still feel like in australia, we were at least in the game way earlier than I normally get involved in anything. And KFC are not the only purveyors of shredded pork mixed with barbecue sauce and some liquid smoke. (I’m guessing, but it won’t surprise me.) The supermarkets also now stock, slow cooked meat, passed off as barbecue.
So Much Pork, So Little Smoke
Large scale, nationwide distribution of supposed barbecue can only really be prepared in large commercial kitchens for it to be commercially viable. So my guess that the smokey goodness may come from commercial electric smokers, or more likely the addition of smoke flavours from other sources are used. Which, as a business man, makes the most sense to me. And and barbecue fan, disappoints me as well.
Smoke that BBQ Joint
But, with wide spread acceptance, comes the opportunity for true barbecue to make inroads into the mainstream. Its not that I want Ray Junior’s BBQ Place (Fictional BBQ Joint) in every suburb like Macca’s. I would like though, people to visit our friends and fellow fiends, at pop-ups, comps and events around the country. Most weekends, and even some weekdays, in loads of cities and towns across Australia, barbecue catering is popping up. I’d really like it when the crews that I follow like Barbecue Mafia, The Beard and the BBQ, 4670 BBQ and Smoking Gun BBQ post pics of SOLD OUT signs on their social media.
No Way Josè
At no time soon, or ever really, are the Flamin’s Mongrels looking to cater. But we want people to try our barbecue. Mostly our friends and family and those who sneak a portion from the open aluminum tray that may have been left out at the six or so ABA competitions we do each year. So if KFC are the ones to do the marketing for our style, hmmm, so be it. Lets just hope that people don’t come to accept what you find at the fast food or supermarket as the best barbecue has to offer. I won’t be trying the KFC Pulled Pork Burger, but I like that it exists.