Huckabee: Barbecue Expert?
LAKELAND, FLA. – A man, wearing a big "Uncle Chubby's" grilling apron handed Mike Huckabee a styrofoam box of beef brisket and ribs. Huckabee opened the box and stabbed his fork into the barbecue – lunch for breakfast.
"That really is good. Trust me, I know barbecue. You don't get to be an Arkansas politician and not go to a few of these things."
Huckabee made a morning campaign stop at the local pig fest, arriving before most stands had opened for business but not so late that he wouldn't get mobbed by supporters, onlookers, and members of the press.
"Did you see his apron?" a woman nearby pointed out. "Don't trust no skinny cook."
"I'm all about it," he said.
Huckabee, who is famous for dropping 110 pounds, still considers himself an excellent cook, having shared his methods to reporters since Iowa. When handed a bottle of barbecue sauce today, he announced, "Now I'm a connoisseur of good barbecue and good barbecue sauce. My own ribs – my family can tell you – are as good as you can have."
At another point, he quipped. "When God intended barbecue, he meant it to be pork. Texans go out, they burn a bunch of beef, and they call it barbecue.
Someone said, "I didn't think God's people ate pork."
Huckabee: "That's before they knew it could be barbecue."
Huckabee also stopped in the middle of the crowd to pet a talking cockatoo named Lucky. "Go ahead, Lucky," said Huckabee.
The parrot didn't talk. "He's a little nervous," the owner explained.
"I can imagine. I'm a little nervous too and I'm not even a talking bird," said Huckabee.
"He repeats almost everything he hears," the owner said.
"Well, don't ever let him get around a politician," responded Huckabee "You don't want him to repeat that stuff."