This former church draws flocks of barbecue fans
WEST HATFIELD -- The small church set in the picturesque rolling hills of the Connecticut River Valley is open to all on Sundays. It's also open several other days of the week. In fact, it's not a church, but an alter to pork.
This is Holy Smokes BBQ & Whole Hog House in a small Pioneer Valley town about as well known for barbecue as it is for shark fin soup. Unlikely as it is, in the two years since opening, the spot has become a beacon in a barbecue wasteland. Over boughs of fruit trees and hardwood, the kitchen smokes beef, chicken, and an astounding quantity of pork .
Lou Ekus is the pit boss and proprietor. He is also a food media trainer, the head of AirTyme Corp. He recalls the event that crystallized his vision of a barbecue restaurant. He was attending an International Association of Culinary Professionals meeting, which held an event at the Children's Museum in Atlanta. "These guys had smoked a whole hog. They bring in this 18-hour whole hog, butterflied, on this beautiful old pig-picking trough. I'm up by the neck, which is my favorite part, picking pig, and all of a sudden I hear this woman saying ' Oh, this is very good!' and there's Julia Child standing next to me. It was this surreal experience, standing in this children's museum picking pig with Julia Child." That was the turning point that "catapulted my interest . . . into serious barbecue."
Holy Smokes is a family business. The bespectacled, jovial, and solidly built Ekus presides over the meat-smoking operation. His wife , Leslie , is general manager, and Leslie's son Seth Crawford , a Culinary Institute of America graduate, masterminds the sides and special menus.
The three presided over a year of intense renovation to transform the former church into a commercial barbecue joint, starting with a deconsecration ceremony, at which the cross was reverently borne out the church doors. A wood oven capable of temperatures in excess of 1,000 degrees was built of concrete and composite stone. A stuccoed concrete "pig cooker" lined with fire bricks accommodates a whole hog, which Ekus cooks the third Wednesday of the month. He says his restaurant is the only one he knows of capable of cooking a whole hog over an open fire, indoors. Finally, a gas-assisted Southern Pride smoker occupies the space by the rear stairwell, its revolving racks slowly turning pork and beef ribs hour upon hour in a tightly controlled range between 200 and 210 degrees, like a twin Ferris wheel in a steel sauna.
Ekus's barbecue education took place over a vast swath of the South. "You talk to 20 different pit bosses, and they'll tell you 20 different ways that are the only right way to do it," he says. He's chosen different styles to suit different meats according to his tastes. They include a tender Carolina-style pulled pork ("a little sweeter because that's what people like here"); a slow-smoked southern Texas beef rib, and a Memphis-Kansas City pork smoked over applewood. "There's a lot of good barbecue out there," he says. "We just know our way is right." At the end, the smoked meats are glazed with one of five sauces -- chipotle is a brisk seller, as is black cherry -- and gilded in the fierce heat of the wood oven.
The styles may be pan-Southern, but the woods Ekus uses to smoke his meats are local, culled from western Massachusetts orchards. Oak gives the meat a "creamy, rich" flavor. Red oak is more aggressive, white oak more subtle. Apple, he says, is a very sweet smoke. At times he uses hickory, which is "pungent," or pear, which is "penetrating" and when combined with the apple gives the meat a reddish-gold tinge. Most nights, the mingled aroma of oak and apple drifts up from the infernal kitchen, past ravenous diners, past the stained glass windows to the vaulted ceiling. On the way it passes shelves and nooks decorated with any number of ceramic, metal, and fiberglass flying pigs.
This irreverent attitude pervades the atmosphere of the former church. The original pews provide seating; the pulpit is a wait station. Yet Holy Smokes has a sense of reverence, which gets expressed as a seriousness about food and community that few barbecue joints can match. Cabbage for cole slaw is hand cut. Fries are double-cooked and served with homemade ketchup. Macaroni and cheese is made with local Jersey cream. Beef ribs are cooked for 10 hours. Ekus imagines his spot similar to a hole-in-the-wall in the South. "The meats you get here are the meats you would get at the little shed made out of concrete block, two hours out of town, with the little old guy poking the fire."
On a Thursday night, Ekus might be found upstairs, playing the washtub bass and spoons with local bluesman Ed Vadas . He catches up with regular s, like the pilots who fly into Bradley Airport 50 miles away for a pilgrimage, the Canadians who drive down, and various groups of friends from the Berkshires who take a ride.
Conversation grows muffled as guests turn their attention to their plates. Evening light streams in the windows while the blues guitar preaches from the corner. And for a moment, in the least expected way, it feels a lot like Sunday.
Holy Smokes BBQ & Whole Hog House, 9 Church Ave. , West Hatfield, 413-247-5737, holysmokesbbq.com. 
