Unique chopped barbecue adds kick to special occasions

The taste of a particular dish can bring back a flood of warm memories. WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk is asking New Yorkers to share what comes to mind when thinking about a favorite meal.

Patrice Coleman is a lifelong resident of St. Albans, Queens. WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk talked with her as part of a collaboration with the Queens Memory Project.

The transcript of Patrice Coleman's story has been lightly edited for clarity.

My name is Patrice Coleman, and I live in St. Albans all of my life.

My favorite recipe is chopped barbecue. My aunts made it, my mother never made it, but as a kid, when we went south on the Greyhound bus, my Aunt Lillian always brought chopped barbecue on hamburger buns, and that was a big treat for us. It was like room temperature, you know, after the trip, but it was still good even though it wasn't hot.

I always look forward to having that. At that time, my Aunt Mabel was the one that made the chopped barbecue. And I watched her. She had no real recipe. She cooked the pork and then cut it up, added vinegar and hot sauce, and cooked it some more until it fell apart. So I got tired of waiting for her to make it when I wanted some, and I learned myself.

And so I do it now. I only make it about twice a year now. New Year's Eve, and when we have company up from the South. We always put coleslaw on top of the barbecue. It's sort of like a thing with our family. Kids enjoy it, too. One of my aunts just recently told me, "Don't put too much hot sauce in it." She's gotten older now, can't take that, that stuff like that anymore.

I just put hers to the side. One thing that comes up is, who made the coleslaw? Cause sometimes, depending on who made it, it's not always that great. Which reminds me, my aunt, the same one that said, don't put too much hot sauce in it. She made coleslaw. My mother had company; I made chopped barbecue for her company, and my aunt made the coleslaw.

But it was awful. It was really, really bad. So, my daughter and I took it back off the table. And added some more ingredients and things to it, and then we put it back. And everybody started raving about it. And my Aunt Sadie said, "Oh, they just love my coleslaw!" She said. "Everybody's really talking about it."

But it was my daughter and I that had fixed it up.