This is the second stop on the “Tour d’ BBQ.”

If barbecue seems be identified with the South, it’s no surprise. For most of Southern history, pork was a mainstay of the Southern diet. Easy to keep and maintain, pigs could be let out to root in the woods and then gathered when needed. Swine are so maintenance-free that Spanish and Portuguese explorers would “seed” uninhabited Caribbean islands with wild pigs so that shipwrecked mariners would have a food supply. This ease of maintenance meant that before the Civil War, Southerners ate pork at a rate of five pounds for every one pound of beef.

Farmers would round pigs up in the fall and then gather for a communal hog slaughtering. Lack of refrigeration meant that some parts of the animal would be reserved for smoking, others for salting, still others for pickling, and so on. During these communal gatherings, farmers would feed the laborers by stewing the tough, stringy wild hog in a sauce in order to make it more palatable. The type of sauce varied by area, and thus both barbecue and regional variations came into being.

This area of Kentucky tends toward tomato-and-brown-sugar-based sauces, although other varieties are found. As well, Southerners now barbecue everything from hogs to beef to lamb to venison, and most varieties can be found around town.

Hog Wild has been around a while and currently sits in front of Hobby Lobby facing Scottsville Road. I settled in for a BBQ plate special, a pork shoulder plate, a loaded potato and sides. Despite a recommendation from a friend, the food here was not that good - nothing stood out and much of it was sub-par.

The BBQ plate special was pretty ordinary, with a decent helping of shredded pork on a bun, with either hot, medium or mild sauces. Each of the sauces was fine, and the hot sauce was notable in that while it was fairly spicy, the heat didn’t linger on the tongue. But the meat, while tender, was not all that tasty. It certainly didn’t stand out. The shoulder plate consisted of several thin slices of grilled shoulder meat with a pepper-based rub. This had a slightly better flavor than the barbecue sandwich, but was quite tough.

The loaded potato came with butter, sour cream, nacho cheese and bacon bits. This part of the meal stands out in that it seems representative of many of the preparations at Hog Wild. Many of them seem to come from a can. The cheese, for example, seems to have come from one of those big cans one gets at Sam’s Club, which is hardly cheese at all. It shouldn’t be that much effort to use real shredded cheese on a baked potato.

Yet the canned food tradition continued with the sides of cole slaw and potato salad - both of which tasted as if they had been purchased at Kroger. The sweet potato fries were fine, but lacked the kind of crispness that one would hope for. My partner called them “soggy.”

Finally, I also tried the burgoo, a dish with a rich Kentucky history. Originally, burgoo was a “communal dish” for which the guests each brought an ingredient, and the base meat was possum, squirrel, raccoon, bird, venison or some form of wild game. In that sense it fit the tradition of an old-time pig pickin’. Today the main ingredients are usually pork or mutton, and it should contain Southern vegetables such as okra, corn, limas and potatoes. At Hog Wild, the burgoo contained potatoes, carrots and peas, and tasted like generic, canned beef stew. There was none of the nutmeg, cinnamon or other spices one expects in a burgoo.

In all, this was not a great dining experience. One bright, shining spot is that the entire restaurant is nonsmoking - something that should bring diners to Hog Wild at least once. But the food is definitely not on the top of the Tour d’BBQ list of places to eat again.

— Our anonymous food reviewer gives new restaurants a six-week grace period before reviewing. To comment, contact Managing Editor Mike Alexieff at 783-3235 or via e-mail to malexieff@bgdailynews.com.

Hog wild

1755 Scottsville Road 393-4471

Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Specialties: Barbecue

Libation situation: Beer

Smoking: No