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Lewis Grizzard, the late Georgia humorist and author, was the archetypical comic who wasn’t laughing on the inside. The hard-drinking Lewis died in 1994 of a congenital heart defect after a series of surgeries. He was 48 and had been married four times.

Like many white Southerners of his era, Grizzard was not fully comfortable with the changes, social and political, that came with the South’s new prosperity. He wrote fondly about the old days and the old ways, but he also wore Gucci loafers (always without socks) and was proud to have eaten caviar at Maxim’s in Paris.

Lewis riled many readers with the barbs he hurled at gays and feminists. But he was at his best when he stayed in safer territory. Take, for example, his discourse on Georgia barbecue…

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There was an annual Fourth of July barbecue in my hometown. The menfolk would sit up all night and barbecue hogs over an open pit, which doesn’t take a great deal of work once the hogs are cooking.

One year, a man from North Carolina was passing through and stopped in to partake. He asked for cole slaw.

“What for?” somebody asked. “There’s plenty of stew and light bread.”

“I want to put it on my barbecue,” the man from North Carolina said.

Somebody pulled a knife on the man, and he got in his car and went back to North Carolina.

After I left home, I roamed freely about other parts of the country, and I came to understand several truths about barbecue:

— The best barbecue is pork served in Georgia. In Texas, they barbecue beef, which isn’t barbecue at all.

— The best barbecue is found in family-run operations. Harold Hembree of Harold’s Barbecue in Atlanta can’t count the number of cousins and nieces and nephews working there. There are three generations of Sprayberrys cooking and serving at Sprayberry’s in Newnan. And it was Jim Brewer’s father-in-law who started Fresh-Air Barbecue in Jackson, Georgia, 51 years ago.

— If there are religious posters on the wall, you can usually count on the barbecue being good.

— Good barbecue restaurants rarely serve beer. “Mama won’t allow it in here,” is why Harold Hembree doesn’t serve it. “You’ll lose your family trade,” says Jim Brewer.

— The best barbecue restaurants are careful what kind of bread they serve with their meat. Normally, it’s buns for sandwiches and white bread for plates.

— Brunswick stew is too complicated to get into. Everybody has a different idea of how it should be cooked and what it should contain.

— Same with the sauce. There are hundreds of varieties of sauces. If the meat is good, the sauce will be, too.

— It is important to put up a sign in a barbecue restaurant that reads, “No shoes, no shirt, no service.” This will add class to the place by keeping out people from Texas and North Carolina.

Lewis Grizzard.