Margaret McLeod Leef 

     At Whitt’s Barbecue, the smell hits you before you roll down the car window in the pickup line — smoke, grease, and something sharp and vinegary from the kitchen.

    On Sundays in Alabama, our big Kingswood station wagon idled in the pickup line — my parents in the front, my four siblings and me crammed in the back. Sundays were workdays for my mom and dad, co-rectors at a small Episcopal church in Athens. Whitt's meant no one had to cook in our tiny, hot, unairconditioned kitchen.

    We left with chopped pork and smoked chicken in white paper bags. The chicken was coated in peppery white sauce that seeped into the skin, leaving only traces of cream and black pepper. Even at a young age I knew that red sauce sat on top of meat, but white sauce disappeared inside it.

    When I was ten, we moved to West Virginia. My mom slid John Denver's Almost Heaven into the cassette player, rolled down the windows, and we sang as we crossed the border: "Almost heaven, West Virginia…" The miles behind us stretched like the spokes of a wheel, radiating from Alabama. I wondered how far we would go.

    It was 1983, the farthest north I'd ever been. Hills and mountains rose where Alabama had been flat. Athens had been a small town — you could walk from our house to the courthouse square, and that was about all there was. Charleston had a downtown with mirrored banks and old buildings beside a brownish river. It felt like a real city, a place where things happened.

    In our new life, my mom made solid meals — baked chicken and rice, hamburgers, chicken baked with chipped beef and cream. We still had Southern favorites like fried chicken, fried okra, and banana pudding. I still crave those foods, but thinking of smoked chicken with white barbecue sauce still startles me, a kind of muscle memory.    

    The sauce itself is vinegary and thin. It's built on mayonnaise in a way that sounds wrong until you taste it. In Alabama, when people say white sauce, we know what it means - barbecue sauce for chicken or pork. White sauce could mean anything anywhere else.

    When I had my own kids, I made white sauce a few times. They liked it well enough, but they didn't crave it the way I did. My husband thought it was fine. My children are West Virginians, raised on different comfort foods.

    My husband digs ramps every spring. When he first told me about them — how his dad was once sent home from Richwood Elementary because he smelled so bad after eating a mess of them — I'd never heard of a ramp. When I read about pepperoni rolls, I had no idea about their invention by Italian immigrants making portable lunches for the coal mines.

    Now we make ramp dressing and sautéed ramps in our kitchen. I buy frozen dough balls and stuff them with pepperoni for the kids, brush them with garlic butter while they're still warm.

    Recently, one of my grown sons told his girlfriend about the white barbecue sauce — about the tang and bite, about the smoke in the chicken. I dug out my old, splattered recipe card. I'd tweaked the recipe over the years in search of the real one. My brother texted me a photo of Mom's version. I called Dad for advice. 

    "Go easy on the pepper," he said. I made a note to add all of it.

    The chicken was delicious. The skin was crisp at the edges but soft where the sauce took hold. I don't think I'll ever get to Whitt's white sauce exactly, but it was close. For my son, it tasted like he remembered — but his remembering was different from mine. Watching him eat it, I realized I'd been chasing something that was never really about the sauce. I'd been trying to give him a homesickness he'd never have, for a place that wasn't his home.

    My children never knew the slam of our Alabama screen door or the smell of my mother’s ginger cake after school. They know the white sauce, but it isn’t stitched into them the way it is into me. Their wheels spin from other centers, their spokes carrying different memories pressed into each bite.

 

 

Alabama White Barbecue Sauce

Most people credit Big Bob Gibson with inventing the classic Alabama white sauce, but I grew up on Whitt’s in Athens, Alabama. There’s no definitive recipe online - every family seems to have their own version. This one has been developed by taste, adjusting my mother's recipe over time.

This tangy, peppery sauce transforms ordinary grilled chicken into something memorable. The vinegar cuts through the richness while black pepper adds heat that builds with each bite. 
 

Make this early on a Sunday afternoon and let the chicken rest to room temperature - it's perfect for picnic-style eating with people you love. The sauce keeps for weeks in the refrigerator and improves with time, making it ideal for weeknight dinners when you want something that tastes like you spent all day cooking.
 

Serve with coleslaw, corn on the cob, and cold beer. Don't forget extra sauce on the side for dipping.
 

Ingredients:

2 cups mayonnaise

1 cup distilled white vinegar

1/2 cup apple juice

2 tsp prepared horseradish

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce 

1 teaspoon salt

3–4 tsp black pepper (my mom used one tablespoon, adjust to taste)

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or more to taste

A squeeze of fresh lemon juice (about 2 tsp)

Instructions:
Whisk everything together in a bowl until smooth. Taste and adjust the seasonings — more salt, pepper, or cayenne if you like more heat. Chill until ready to serve.

For the chicken:
Use your favorite smoked chicken method — bone-in, skin-on pieces work best. We often spatchcock a whole bird or smoke individual pieces. In the last 10 minutes, baste generously with the white barbecue sauce. Once the chicken comes off the grill, fold it into a bowl with more sauce so it seeps into every crevice. Save some sauce to serve on the side.

Tip: The pepper in this sauce tends to settle at the bottom, so give it a quick stir or shake before using to make sure every bite has the right kick.