The Southern Foodways Alliance presents a barbecue sides bracket for their contribution to this year’s March Madness. Vote now as we’re already in the Final Four, with the Championship tomorrow and the winner announced Friday.
Native News
If true, not a good look for Noble Smoke
The business is Good Life at Enderly Park owned by Robbie McNair, who's also the creator of the new Babe Cave you've heard so much about. https://t.co/zmgIBYSSje
D.G. Martin seeks input from readers on NC eateries off interstate highways for the next edition of “North Carolina Roadside Eateries”
COLUMN: D.G. Martin's updated revision of "North Carolina’s Roadside Eateries" will feature some big changes, largely due to the pandemic. 🍽 https://t.co/wCIL8wslzo
BBQ Fest on the Neuse wants to know: are you team slaw or not?
Non-Native News
Archibald’s BBQ is celebrating 60 years open this year
Since opening in 1962, Archibald’s BBQ has weathered three generations, a fire and the COVID-19 pandemic to retain its place as Alabama culinary royalty. https://t.co/AIP5alYqBZ
Adrian Miller on the dearly departed Boney’s Smokehouse in Denver
“Order anything but brisket”; Arthur Bryant’s pleads customers to not order their most popular cut due to rising beef prices
Franklin Barbecue’s new sauce is Spicy
Hot off the line and hitting the shelves of @HEB this week — have a gander at our newest BBQ sauce made from red hot chili peppers. (Red jalapenos, arbol, ancho and habanero to be spice-ific) It’s called Spicy for a reason, y’all. pic.twitter.com/cvGOg0VaKB
Recently, friend of the blog John Tanner (of John Tanner’s Barbecue Blog) ate his way across the piedmont of North Carolina while making stops on the NC Historic Barbecue Trail in honor of the late Jim Early. Early was the founder of the North Carolina Barbecue Society and driving force behind the NC Historic Barbecue Trail.
Notably, he makes a stop at our friends at Bar-B-Q King in Lincolnton where he delights in the “hollerin’ orders” system and has a great meal. Follow John’s journey below.
After checking out 411 joints for our upcoming Top 50 BBQ List, @BBQsnob can confidently report that our favorite smoked meat is so reliably excellent in all parts of Texas that it no longer feels like an achievement. Texas brisket has peaked. https://t.co/rAIcRCYnv3+
Husk Barbeque in Greenville, SC closed earlier this week
Is the Pivot to BBQ running out of gas (and hickory logs)? Husk Barbeque in Greenville SC, which converted from fine dining to a BBQ format in 2020, has permanently closed.https://t.co/elOWFcqBVD
Not that we’re anywhere close to being qualified enough to evaluate books but more so as a public service announcement we will periodically discuss barbecue and barbecue-related books.
Monk: Of the barbecue books we’ve covered over the past few years, “Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue” by James Beard Award-winning author and self-proclaimed “Soul Food Scholar” Adrian Miller may just be the most important of them all. In Miller’s approachable writing style, he looks to correct the decades of whitewashing the Black (and even Native American) contribution to the revered American institution of barbecue in a very detailed and heavily researched fashion.
In the first half of his book, Miller corrects the historical narrative starting with Native Americans who laid the foundations of the process of smoking as well as the apparatus to perform it on. Whereas Native Americans were not widely enslaved, that is unfortunately where the Black contribution begins. Miller traces from the slave origins to the rise of the Black barbecue specialists who sometimes did the work without the credit of white barbecue men all the way to the modern black restaurant entrepreneurs like Henry Perry, the “Barbecue King” of Kansas City, Walter Jones of Jones Bar-B-Q Diner in Marianna, AR, and Jack Patillo of Beaumont, TX.
While the first half deals with the past, the second half explores the current climate as it relates to where African Americans sit in regards to restaurants, sauces, competitions and also looks ahead to the future of black barbecue. Rodney Scott, former Top Chef contestant Kenny Gilbert, and Ed and Ryan Mitchell are profiled in depth while Miller takes a pulse of barbecue recognition today through the efforts of other historians and writers such as Michael Twitty and Howard Conyers. Ultimately, he ends in a hopeful place.
Speaking of in-depth profiles, a minor complaint is that they oftentimes come mid-chapter (some times even mid-sentence) without warning or color coding. Once I became accustomed to how they were used, I found that I usually just skipped past and then came back after I finished the chapter. They are important and oftentimes covered newly discovered Black barbecue figures (such as Marie Jean of Arkansas or John “Doc” Hamilton of Seattle) but I wish they were utilized a little differently.
Bravo to Adrian Miller on writing a comprehensive history of the Black contribution to American barbecue. “Black Smoke” is a must read for not only those interested in barbecue history but also American history.
This latest piece of controversial barbecue list content from one “chefspencil.com” has been rightly getting roasted online since the weekend, but perhaps that was the intent all along? I mean, who had even heard of “chefspencil.com,” an Austrialian website, before this list?
New Orlean’s at number 1? Red flag. No Texas cities on the list? Red flag. As for Charlotte’s rank of 3 on the list? I say this as a Charlotte resident, but red flag. I’m not the only Charlottean who feels this way. Enter Kathleen Purvis:
Let’s declare a moratorium on any further discussion or outrage on anything “chefspencil.com” related, particularly when it comes to barbecue.
Native News
Fighting words from the Hear to Say podcast host Tressie McMillan Cottom
We had @KosherSoul & @soulfoodscholar on @HearToSlay this week. We talk about race and culture and food and how Black people were erased from the food we perfected. But I started with this question to BBQ master, Adrian, because I’m true to this: pic.twitter.com/k1Y5dlQ4Yl
— Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd) May 18, 2021
An oldie but a goodie from Our State Magazine for National Barbecue Day this past Sunday
No matter where you stand on the great sauce debate, we can all agree that North Carolina barbecue is legendary. In honor of #NationalBarbecueDay, here are 26 essential NC barbecue joints. Which one will you visit next?https://t.co/eVfcMzRUGV
1. Jack's Old South 2. Hometown BBQ 3. Yazoo Delta's Q 4. Smoke Masters Championship BBQ Team 5. The Beached Pig 6. Pickin N Grillin 7. Dirty Old Basters 8. 3 Taxi Guys 9. Boars Night Out 10. Ubons BBQ
This #spicerub collection tells a story of culinary traditions that span from #WestAfrica to the American West. Includes an all-purpose rub inspired by the late John Frank Garth, one of my beloved church fathers, a #tsire rub, some #jerk seasoning, and a shout out to East Texas! pic.twitter.com/ME2UDouCwx
High on the Hog premieres on Netflix in one week on 5/26
Although it took five years to turn what is essentially the first half of her book “High on the Hog” into a documentary, Jessica B. Harris said the timing of its release is perfect. https://t.co/rgisl9z6Bu
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