The Masked Author

I did my first socially distanced book talk this week — mask and all — and it was fun … but a little different.

I’ve done online talks during the pandemic for both of my last two books — “Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America” and “The Class of ’65: A Student, a Divided Town and the Long Road to Forgiveness.” It can be strange. I remember one Zoom session where I did a version of my barbecue slide show and heard nothing but the sound of my voice for half an hour and saw nothing but my images on the screen. It got very uncomfortable. Felt like I was giving a speech in a closet.

So when Johnny and Sally Darden invited me to speak to their book club in Gainesville — in person — I was intrigued. The Dardens come from Sparta, Ga., and are neighbors of my mother’s family, the Yarbroughs. Sally assured me that the club would meet outdoors, in a park, and would take precautions against the coronavirus. Johnny is a medical doctor, a retired surgeon, so I figured they would have a proper respect for the virus.

We met under a picnic shelter in Riverside Park on the north side of Gainesville, 20 or so people well-distanced at tables and on folding chairs. Everyone wore a mask — some of them quite interesting. Wilson Golden, a politically active friend of mine from Mississippi, wore a mask that said: “Vote” (which played well with the topic of my talk: politics and barbecue). One woman sported a mask with big red lips. Another wore one with the Rolling Stones’ tongue-stuck-out logo. She asked a question after the talk. I have to admit that I couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying as I looked at that tongue and tried to suppress a laugh.

Many thanks to the Dardens and their book club friends for a pleasant experience that proved therapeutic for me. After all these months of online encounters, seeing half a face in person felt almost normal.

Lights, camera, smoke!

A Netflix series based on a barbecue competition is debuting this week, and if you can believe it, they hired me as “culinary historian” to advise them on authentic pit traditions.

The American Barbecue Showdown, an eight-part reality TV series, begins streaming on Netflix on Friday, Sept. 18., exactly a year to the day after I visited the set outside Covington, Ga. The producers contacted me after I was the subject of a cover story in Georgia State University Magazine, my alumni mag, prompted by publication of my book Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America. James Brooke, who teaches TV production at GSU and also works as a production liaison for All3Media America (which creates shows for Netflix), saw the piece and recommended me.

As a consultant, I spent hours on the phone with the producers talking about barbecue history — the strange critters we used to cook, the evolution of smokers, why a Boston butt comes from the pig’s shoulder and not the rear end, etc. 

I was surprised when they asked me to come to the set to tape an interview last September. I was shocked when I got there and they had a dressing room in a trailer with my name on the outside, like I was “talent” or something.

This was not a small production, as I describe in my story about it in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The show, originally called Smoked, was shot on a cattle ranch south of Covington, where the owners have built a huge special event barn that served as the main backdrop for the competition. The property was buzzing with crew and thick with production trailers, film equipment, and scores of cars parked on a pasture. You can get an idea of what it looked like if you zero in on this Google Satellite view.

They asked me to bring several changes of clothes so they could figure out what would look best on camera. Naturally, they chose the schlumpiest thing I brought. I guess they wanted me to look like a historian.

They filmed me talking about barbecue for maybe two hours, looking at the camera solo and then in conversation with Kevin Bludso, a Los Angeles barbecue restaurateur who was serving as one of the principal judges along with Melissa Cookston, one of the stars of the barbecue contest circuit. I really enjoyed talking with Kevin, whose family is rooted in Texas barbecue.

I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised when I screened the series recently and saw that none of our footage made the final cut. The show rightfully spotlights the judges and the eight contestants who actually did the sweaty work of cooking a wide variety of barbecue and side dishes on tight deadlines.

Three of the contestants are from Georgia: James Grubbs of Blairsville, Tina Cannon of Newnan (shown in photo), and Rasheed Philips of Winder. They’re the stars: Grubbs with his “grillbilly” barbecue, Tina with her culinary training and bright personality, Rasheed with his gentlemanly manner and analytical approach to cooking challenges. When they aren’t on TV, Grubbs cooks for community events in the mountains, Tina creates dishes for Meals on Wheels of Coweta, and Rasheed is starting a career as a barbecue caterer, relying heavily on the flavorings of his childhood in Jamaica. 

The American Barbecue Showdown is a lot of fun. I think you’ll enjoy it, especially in this year when the pandemic has forced most in-person barbecue contests to cancel or postpone. As you watch, notice the bits of barbecue history that pop up in the show like cracklin’ in cornbread. Your obedient consultant might have had something to do with that.

Barbecue haggis -- seriously

My last name is Scottish, so it was only a matter of time before the Robert Burns Club of Atlanta asked me to come to one of their monthly dinners and speak about "Smokelore" and the history of barbecue.

I went to the Burns Cottage in southeast Atlanta, a replica of the great Scottish poet’s home in the old country. It was a chilly, rainy evening fit for the occasion, and the club members greeted me with a dram of Scotch whisky, which warmed my soul and loosened my tongue.

In all the things that have been written about Burns, the bard best known for "Auld Lang Syne," it has never been suggested that he was a barbecue man. He did plan to relocate to Jamaica in 1786, for work, but he never made it. If he had, he doubtless would have encountered New World barbecue near its very birthplace. 

So I scrambled to think of Scottish barbecue connections other than the fact than many American barbecue lovers and practitioners have Scots-Irish blood. I thought of one: smoked salmon. While indigenous people in the Americas certainly smoked fish, it’s a thing in Scotland as well. Maybe that’s why we smoke salmon every year at my family’s Christmas Eve feast. 

Then I found another connection on the buffet table, where the potluck dinner that preceded my talk featured side by side trays of Southern pork barbecue and … yes, barbecue haggis (the darker stuff). Club member Jason Graham had made a mess of haggis — that hearty, stereotypically Scottish dish of sheep meat and organs — and smoked it on a Big Green Egg. I must admit that I preferred the pork, but I liked the haggis just fine and loved what it said about the mingled ancestry so many of us share.

Not that I expect smoked haggis to show up at many barbecue restaurants.

Thank you to the Burns Club for an enjoyable evening, to member Charles McNair for setting the invitation in motion, to member John Thrasher for meeting me with that dram of Scotch, and to club president Lee Landenberger (with me in the photo) and VP Scott McAlpine for their hospitality.

I’ll think of you all next time I raise a "cup o’ kindness," as Rabbie put it.

Kosher 'cue

The title really cuts to the meat of the matter: "No Pork on the Fork."

I had the honor of appearing in this short documentary, which premiered last weekend at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. The filmmakers apparently didn’t hold it against me that the cover of my book "Smokelore" contains some 50 images of pigs and nary a cow. 

Directors Adam Hirsch and Jacob Ross focused on the Atlanta Kosher BBQ Festival, one of many such contests across the nation, which takes place every October in Sandy Springs. Jody Pollack, the good-humored head of the event, is one of the stars of the show. (That’s the four of us pictured below, from left: Adam, me, Jody, Jacob.) I appear in the film a good bit as well, droning on about how barbecue has always been bigger and more diverse than its bubbas-and-boars image. Not that there’s anything wrong with bubbas and boars. I mean, those are my peeps! 

The kosher barbecue festival has a costumed cow mascot that looks like something out of the movie "Bull Durham." Teams with names like the Wandering Que and the BBQ’N Hebrew Hillbillies cook kosher briskets on smokers whose coals have to be fired under kosher supervision. It all adds a level of complication to the already complicated task of cooking good brisket. 

Congratulations, Adam and Jacob, for creating a fun and informative film. I especially appreciated the ironic quote you used to begin the documentary. It came from Lewis Grizzard, the late Atlanta newspaper columnist and well-known barbecue lover, who I’m pretty sure was not a member of the Hebrew Order of David.

"You don’t put coleslaw on [barbecue]," sayeth Lewis. "I think that’s in Deuteronomy somewhere." *

• People in Memphis and parts of the Carolinas would dispute Grizzard’s  interpretation. So it goes with barbecue’s many sectarian distinctions.

Did Brunswick invent stew?

I visited the Brunswick area recently to speak about barbecue history at the Firebox festival, a fun event organized by Southern Soul Barbeque in St. Simons. While I was there, I stopped by the Brunswick stew marker at the I-95 rest stop nearby and noticed something interesting: They’ve changed the inscription.

The old marker, as seen on Page 23 of "Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America," stated that the first pot of Brunswick stew was made on July 2, 1898, on St. Simons – a claim that I’ve always found charmingly suspect. First, there’s the specificity of that date. What’d they do: file for a patent? Second, people were probably making something like Brunswick stew many decades before 1898 in Brunswick County, Va., which also claims to have invented the dish. They’ve got a marker, too, also pictured on Page 23 of "Smokelore."

Well, I was looking at this photo of me taken recently at the Georgia marker and saw that the inscription now says Brunswick stew was first made in the Golden Isles during colonial days. I guess Georgia has back-dated its claim.

Whatever its origin, Brunswick stew is more likely to be served with barbecue in Georgia than anywhere else in the United States. In my view, it’s the most distinctive aspect of Georgia’s barbecue culture — the thing that sets us apart from all the other Dixie pigs you find across the South. While we were on the coast, Pam and I visited Southern Soul and discovered that it’s as good as everyone says. More to the point, they serve one of the best Brunswick stews I’ve ever tasted.

Many thanks to Griffin Bufkin of Southern Soul for inviting me to appear at their barbecue festival. Thanks to Robert Moss, barbecue editor for Southern Living (pictured with yours truly on the grounds), who appeared with me as part of a conversation on the history of barbecue, and to Stephanie Burt, host of the podcast The Southern Fork, for moderating.

And special thanks to our hosts in St. Simons, Phil and Leslie Graitcer, who also threw a book party for me and Pam the night before the festival. The party was co-hosted by my former AJC editor Hyde Post. Several former AJCers attended, including Bert Roughton, Jingle Davis, Kevin Austin and David Davidson. It was great to see everyone. And it was great to try some exceptional Brunswick stew in a place that might not have invented it but sure acts like it.