Barbecue homecoming

I was barely 2 when my grandfather died, so I never really knew Bob Auchmutey (or "Daddy Bob," as the family called him). But I knew him by reputation, and an important part of his memory was a July 1954 article in the Saturday Evening Post titled "Dixie’s Most Disputed Dish." The story was set at the Euharlee Farmers Club barbecue, where my grandfather oversaw the pits and stew pots. I’ve mentioned it a few times since "Smokelore" was published.

   Well, Trey Gaines, the director of the Bartow History Museum, saw one of those interviews and invited me to come to Cartersville to speak. Of course, I said; it’d be like going home.

   I was expecting maybe 40 people to show up for the lecture late last week. There were more than twice that many  — so many they had to move the talk next door to the much larger auditorium in the Booth Western Art Museum.

   It was a pleasure to speak about barbecue history and my family’s connection with it in a place where some people had personal memories of my grandfather back when he ran community barbecues in the Etowah River valley. See that second photo below? I’ve always wanted to identify all the men in this portrait of Bob Auchmutey’s pit crew from about 1956. That’s my Uncle Earl on the left and Daddy Bob second from right, holding the butcher knife. I don’t know who the three others are, but I have some good leads now from people I’ve met in person and online in Bartow County. (If you think you recognize one of them, please contact me.)

   My talk in Cartersville was one of the most personal and memorable evenings I’ve spent in promoting "Smokelore." Many thanks to the Bartow History Museum, Scott’s Walk-up Bar-B-Q (a great barbecue place in Cartersville that catered the event) and the Booth Western Art Museum. I think Daddy Bob would have been proud. I’m proud of him.

Pat Conroy and me

I’ve owed Pat Conroy lunch for some time, so I was happy to more or less repay the debt last weekend by speaking about my barbecue history, "Smokelore," at the Pat Conroy Literary Center in Beaufort, S.C. I’ll explain.

   Thirty years ago, after I wrote a series of articles about discrimination in private clubs for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I answered the phone at my newsroom desk and heard laughter. It was Conroy, then living in Atlanta and basking in the glory of his best-known novel, "The Prince of Tides," soon to be a movie starring Barbra Streisand and Nick Nolte. The man was at the peak of his career, and he had time to phone a reporter and tell him he liked his story.

   He was laughing because I had quoted a member of one of Atlanta’s most prestigious clubs as saying that he liked Jews OK but wouldn’t want to invite one into his home.

   "How’d you get him to say something like that on the record?" asked Conroy, who knew the guy.

   "I called him after 5," I replied. "I think he’d begun happy hour."

   Conroy laughed again and said he’d like to take me to lunch. And so we met over a meal, the famous novelist and the unfamous reporter.

   Thirty years later, the Pat Conroy Literary Center invited me to South Carolina to speak about my new book, "Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America." Conroy died in 2016 of pancreatic cancer, and his family and admirers founded the center, a museum and institution that promotes reading and writing, as a way of continuing his passion for storytelling. I readily accepted because, well, I owed him lunch.

   It was a great weekend in the Lowcountry. The Conroy Center partnered with the Anchorage 1770 inn to host a barbecue talk and meal in their historic perch  overlooking the waterfront in downtown Beaufort. Chef Byron Landis smoked some pork, brisket, chicken and snapper and made six sauces from the book for guests to sample. I spoke while everyone nibbled and tippled. Then we signed books and aprons.

   Many thanks to the Conroy Center (Maura Connelly, Jonathan Haupt and Kathy Harvey — Pat’s younger sister), to the Anchorage 1770 (Amy and Frank Lesesne and Chef Landis) and to Debbi Covington, a Beaufort caterer and cookbook author who helped out with the meal. It was fun.

   After the talk, there was just enough daylight left for my wife, Pam, and me to drive to neighboring St Helena Island, where Conroy is buried in a church graveyard near the Penn Center, the Gullah cultural center that was the site of many retreats and meetings during the civl rights movement. Conroy’s marker wasn’t hard to find under the branches dripping Spanish moss; his signature is engraved in the tombstone, and his plot is covered with pens and pencils and tennis balls and other tributes visitors have left. 

   As I stood there, I thought about a Conroy quote I used in "Smokelore." It comes from the mouth of Tom Wingo, the protagonist of "The Prince of Tides":  "There are no ideas in the South," Tom says, "just barbecue."

   We definitely have barbecue in the South. But I think we have a few ideas, too. Look at the words of Pat Conroy.

Barbecue showtime!

This is my first post in a while, and I’m switching gears to my new book, “Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America,” which had its launch last night at the Atlanta History Center. What a great evening. A standing-room-only crowd came for a reception catered by Atlanta’s DAS BBQ (I’m sure it was tasty, but I was too busy to get any, dammit). Then the program began, with Sheffield Hale, the center’s CEO, introducing me.

The History Center started this book rolling a decade ago when they asked me to help advise on an exhibition about the great American institution of barbecue. Then they asked me if I’d like to do the companion book, to be put out by their publishing partner, the University of Georgia Press. I ended up writing the book and helping to curate the exhibition, “Barbecue Nation,” on view at the Buckhead museum through Sept. 29.

My talk was basically a slide show with a lot of anecdotes and funny asides. It couldn’t have gone better. Well, I do wish that picture we showed of Homer Simpson standing at a grill had more accurate color. On the projection screen, his skin was green, like he was a Martian instead of bright yellow cartoon character. On the other hand, when I showed a 1964 ad for Armor Ribs-in-a-Can (yes, they really sold ribs in a can, like dog food), no one who had just eaten the real barbecue barfed. For that, I am grateful.

Many thanks to the History Center, the University of Georgia Press, and the many friends (like Alice Murray, shown with me at the signing table), family members and barbecue people who came out for the debut event. It was special.

The church that stayed true

When I asked the audience at Central Presbyterian Church how many of them had ever heard of Koinonia, almost all the hands went up. 

No surprise there. Central has a long tradition of social activism. This was one of the downtown churches that welcomed the thousands of people who crowded Atlanta for Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral in 1968, in stark contrast to the State Capitol across the street, where Gov. Lester Maddox ringed the grounds with troopers and refused to lower the flag in respect for the passing of such a distinguished native son. The Presbyterians opened their sanctuary and offered shelter and sustenance to the throng of mourning pilgrims. In other words, they behaved like Christians.

Knowing some of that history, I was honored when Central invited me to speak about “The Class of ’65” at its summer studies series before the regular worship service this past Sunday. Gary Rowe, a former neighbor of ours and a veteran of church communications, asked me to come. One of the nicest things about writing a book is reconnecting with old friends you’ve fallen out of touch with like Gary (shown with me in the photo).

One of the other nice things is meeting new friends. One of them, Frances Padgett, said that her grandfather had arranged the sale of the farm property in Sumter County to establish Koinonia in 1942. Small world indeed.

Thank you, Central Presbyterian, for being such a warm and knowledgeable audience. That after-worship lunch was pretty good too.

Sacred ground

Many people don’t know that Jesus was born in Gainesville, Ga.

When I spoke about “The Class of ’65” earlier this week at the Cresswind community in Gainesville, I began my talk with this unusual bit of latter-day biblical scholarship. It comes, of course, from the Cotton Patch gospels, Clarence Jordan’s retelling of the New Testament in the Southern vernacular. Jordan co-founded Koinonia, where my story is set, so it seemed fitting that I tell my listeners we were on sacred ground.

In the Cotton Patch version, Mary and Joseph are headed to Gainesville to see about a tax matter when Mary goes into labor pains. The couple pull over at the Dixie Delite Motor Lodge, but there aren’t any rooms, so they take shelter in an abandoned trailer out back. The baby is born, swaddled in a comforter, and laid in an apple crate.

This was my first talk since November. I’ve been very busy the past few months finishing my next book, a history of barbecue for the University of Georgia Press. As I took the podium, I was afraid that I’d start blathering about wet ribs vs. dry ribs, but I needn’t have worried: I fell back into Koinonia and Americus High and Greg Wittkamper and his classmates like I’d never left them. 

It was a great audience: about 70 people representing the dozen or so book clubs that meet regularly at Cresswind. One of them, a group of men, call themselves the Curmudgeons. If I were writing a Cotton Patch translation of the New Testament, I would definitely include Paul’s Epistle to the Curmudgeons.

Many thanks to Wilson and Kris Golden (seen in the photo with Pam and me) for inviting us to Cresswind for a lovely evening.