Above: A recently-opened mason jar of aged homemade BBQ sauce from a gas-station/BBQ joint in ruralish central Pennsylvania called Gio’s Roadside Grille. It is aged because we bought it at Gio’s in November 2008 (!!) during our Yanksgiving drive to Florida, and god only knows how long the sauce had been in the jar when we bought it. The jar has remained sealed and untouched these past three years in two different pantries, the one at Chez Tunis and the one here at the Hotel Fantod. Last night I finally pop the seal and open the jar to see if there’s any chance the stuff is still edible and has not rotted into a hideous putrefied ooze. It tastes fine, familiar, pleasantly lacking in rancidities, corruptions, or microbial befoulments. The two of us then consume half the jar’s contents, heated up, over plates of of local BBQ smoked pulled pork takeout and here on Sunday we are still alive and upright and feeling unpoisoned … so far. The ancient occult technology of mason jar food preservation appears to have served us well. The label shows no expiration date, just a command to Refrigerate after opening, which I obey.

The sauce, if I’m not mistaken, is done in the Eastern North Carolina BBQ style: thin, tomato-based, with vinegar and mustard and Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar and molasses. It’s entirely possible that if such a combination of ingredients did rot into a hideous putrefied ooze, we would not be able to tell. On reflection, also, it does seem a little strange to happen upon a BBQ joint in the PA backwoods that not only has outstanding southern BBQ, but whose sauce adheres to the Eastern NC recipe. Or maybe this isn’t surprising at all? What do I know. — The main mystery is how the chillaxing fireproof pig on the label keeps that glass of lemonade cold.