South Carolina-style barbecue in Wiscasset

Fri, 12/08/2017 - 8:15am

Anyone up for barbecue? If the thought of a warm bun stuffed with barbecued pulled pork, topped with some fresh homemade cole slaw and a few Morse’s sour mustard pickles, makes you yearn for a real southern-style barbecue sandwich, you should head over to Wiscasset this weekend.

The Fahrenheit 225° food trailer will be in town serving its “low and slow cooked” smoked shoulder pulled pork sandwiches, smoked sweet and Polish sausage, homemade mac and cheese, and brisket chili with a side of fresh warm cornbread on Friday and Saturday, during Wiscasset’s Holiday Marketplace.

Al and Linda Clark, who base their business in Lewiston, are the brains behind the “barbecue and blues” business, and they’ve been driving around Maine cooking and serving their barbecue sandwiches and accompaniments for almost three years.

Most of  Fahrenheit 225°’s food is made or produced in Maine. The sausages are made by Tranton’s Market in Kingfield. “They make the best sausage,” Al said. “I wouldn’t get it anywhere else.” The sour mustard pickles are from Morse’s Sauerkraut in Waldoboro, and the cornbread, slaw, beans, sauces and rubs are freshly made by the Clarks.

They cut their own Maine-grown oak, maple, cherry and apple for smoking their meats.

Because Maine doesn’t have a barbecue style of its own, they adopted the Carolina-Memphis style for theirs.

Al said barbecue has always been a passion of his, and in 2014 he and his wife decided to leave the corporate world behind and follow that passion. Previously Al had spent 25 years operating a mobile disc jockey business around New England, spinning tunes, especially his favorite genre – blues. He said it was fun, but something was missing.

The Fahrenheit 225° website states, in part: “... out of hundreds of functions I performed I can't look back and say I remember any of them having barbecue on the menu. I thought, what if I could combine the two? Music and barbecue? So now I get to search for smoked perfection, meet lots of interesting and hungry people, and do it all with the strains of the blues in the background.”

“We’re blues aficianados, and blues tie in with southern-style barbecue,”Al said.

The Clarks spent a lot of time working the Midcoast this past summer, in Rockland, Rockport, Camden and Bar Harbor, and have served their barbecue at Boothbay Railway Museum.

If you don’t make it to their food trailer in Wiscasset this weekend, the Clarks said they may be back next summer for the Wiscasset Art Walk.

The Clarks will cater weddings, class and family reunions, and other events. Call 207-577-7261 or 207-577-7273, or visit www.225bbq.com