We drove two hours from Nashville to Helen’s in Brownsville to catch her in pre-lunch preparation mode. On a very grey day we drove through the middle of endless cotton fields; spiky brown branches with bright white tops, a little darkness lingering behind their fluffy exterior.
Helen’s ‘Bar-B-Que’ is operated from a 100-year-old dark red wood-panelled shed in the middle of a parking lot. She’s one of the few female pit-cooks in the country and by lunchtime trucks were whipping into the lot for her pulled pork and coleslaw, baloney sandwiches and beans. What looked like the smoking remnants of an arson attack was actually Helen’s pit room, built onto the back of the shed. The room was entirely filled with smoke; you couldn’t see 30cm (1ft) in front of you and we were all crying immediately, Helen with a little more composure.
