America's Barbeculture: Who Owns It?

[stephenc]

NORTH CAROLINA owns it.

[Suzanne F]

Every state in the South, and certainly particular regions of some states, have distinct ideas about what real barbecue is. Although the Methods of Cooking -- slow, long, and smoky-- are common, pieces and parts or which meat is acceptable, and yes what sauce is acceptable vary greatly. To someone from Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and the Carolinas beef is not a bbq option. People in TX and in Kansas don't know how to bbq because they think that beef can be bbq'd -- that was made clear during many a bbq discussion with fellow grad students while in AL. We were all from different states in the South with me from TX and another woman from Kansas. And when can't you get your mouth around actual food then the next best thing is to talk about it. I think all our hunger discussions were over bbq, we never tired of it for two years.

. . .

And that's another reason why I'm glad to be from a region that has no barbecue traditions (since according to Colman Andrews, pastrami is not considered barbecue): I can eat -- and love -- ALL OF THE DIFFERENT STYLES without prejudice.

I'll be in Louisville in the fall, and am sooooooooo looking forward to mutton barbecue!

[Robb Walsh]

The Bar BQ ranch story appears in the book titled: Finger Lickin' Rib Stickin' Great Tasting Barbecue by Jane Butel, Workman, 1982, New York, page 6.

Peter Workman is also responsible for renaming Raichlen's book--It was supposed to be called Global Grilling. Workman coined the title Barbecue Bible, because he used the term barbecue for weenie roasts and didn't see why everyone else shouldn't too. But mainly because he thought it would make him more money. Raichlen objected because he didn't want to come across as somebody who didn't know the difference, but Workman's cynicism prevailed.

The publishing industry is located in New York, hence New York tells the rest of the country what barbecue means. (Seen this month's Bon Appetit barbecue issue?)

Thanks to all of you who came out to the seminar--I wish we had been given more time--45 minutes barely scratched the surface.

Edited June 16, 2004 by Robb Walsh (log)

[robyn]

We were all from different states in the South with me from TX and another woman from Kansas.

Is Kansas in the south ?

So did people just talk at the function which is the subject of this thread - or did they eat ?

For what it's worth - at my local BBQ place where I lunch at least once a week - the owner is from Texas - but he's kind of ecumenical when it comes to BBQ. Which is why he offers no fewer than 10 different sauces. He'd rather sell a lot of good BBQ than argue about the origins of the stuff and the PC way to prepare it. Robyn

P.S. We all know that chicken isn't really proper BBQ - but it's served at all except the most hard core of places because it tastes good and because some of us like to keep our girlish figures .

P.P.S. I don't think that anyone has mentioned pit cooking yet. It's a popular way to prepare things like whole pigs here in Florida (particularly when you have a lot of free time on your hands). Deep south whites cook pigs in pits. So do Cubans. Probably other people too (although not many Jewish people I know ).

[Suzanne F]

Well, after all, Florida is The South in the northerm part of the state, the Midwest in the central part, and the Northeast in the southern part (Sorry, Jamie ) So I guess Robyn's local BBQ places can be forgiven.

But Robyn: how about having a look at the rest of this thread, and at "Live from the BABBP thread, about the actual event we're discussing. Then you'd know how this panel was set up, as well as the whole rest of the 2-day event.

P.S. We all know that chicken isn't really proper BBQ - but it's served at all except the most hard core of places because it tastes good and because some of us like to keep our girlish figures

Girlish figures be damned, and you know it. For this, have a look at this lovely piece (breast or thigh??

[jhlurie]

We were all from different states in the South with me from TX and another woman from Kansas.

Is Kansas in the south ?

I don't think Kansas is the south, but it's neighbor, Missouri, often is very southern in certain parts of the state, where, basically, you might as well be in Arkansas.

P.S.  We all know that chicken isn't really proper BBQ - but it's served at all except the most hard core of places because it tastes good and because some of us like to keep our girlish figures  .

Yes, but as soon as you slop the wrong kind of "BBQ" sauce on it, that advantage goes away.

P.P.S.  I don't think that anyone has mentioned pit cooking yet.  It's a popular way to prepare things like whole pigs here in Florida (particularly when you have a lot of free time on your hands).  Deep south whites cook pigs in pits.  So do Cubans.  Probably other people too (although not many Jewish people I know  ).

Maybe it hasn't been mentioned here in this thread, but this thread is more about the subject of that conference--the broad limits of the term "barbecue" and it's application across the country (and maybe the world). Certainly, pit cooking was more than implied by a group of folks who point out constantly that using a smoker is still a derivative of pit cooking.

Interesting that Paul Kirk's forthcoming barbecue place in New York will, according to the New York Post, offer, in addition to the expected Southern barbecue items, pastrami and Asian-style smoked duck. To a working pitmaster, perhaps these items seem more like barbecue than they do to the writers.

Yeah... more yakking on Paul Kirk and his plans here. Basically, I want to know what this dude KNOWS about Pastrami--although I guess I appreciate him trying.

[Pan]

Robb, I enjoyed your presentation very much, and it's nice of you to post in this thread. Do you have any take on the discussion so far? Have we described the panel discussion accurately? How serious do you think Lolis Elie was in his remarks about New Yorkers and barbecue, etc.?

[foodie52]

Oh for heaven's sake...

If you tell someone , "I'm firing up the smoker...bring the beer.", that's barbecue!!! No matter where in the world you are.

I'm off to get me some brisket and ribs at Barbecue World Headquarters up the road.

[phaelon56]

I grew up in the Northeast (Boston) but have roots and spent much time in two major barbeque epicenters (Texas and NC).  According to my childhood memories (the 70s), whenever I heard the word "barbeque" in TX or NC, it meant the real thing.  In Boston, when someone was grilling in the back yard it was called a "cook out."  I never heard the word "barbeque" in Boston.

I grew up in central NY state. The words "cook-out" and "barbecue" (spelled that way with a lower case "b") were used synonymously and still are. People have a "cook-out" or "barbecue" on the weekends, especially Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day.

For many years, apart from the local black churches with many Southerners among their congregations) that occasionally set up cookers in front and served real 'cue to raise money, we had no BBQ or "barbecue" available locally. The appearance of Dinosaur BBQ on the local scene changed all that. People still use the two words (one with lower case and one with a cap) but the meaning is based on the context. It simply doesn't get discussed - although you'll find few in this area who really know good 'cue, the vast majority of people recognize the difference between "barbecue" and Barbecue" without needing to discuss it.

[Jason Perlow]

By the way I met the owner of Dinosaur at the BABBP, he's working on starting a place in NYC. No exact timeframe yet.

[phaelon56]

By the way I met the owner of Dinosaur at the BABBP, he's working on starting a place in NYC. No exact timeframe yet.

As of about two months ago his target date was end of summer but the challenges of opening in NYC may push that out further than they are wishing for. I'm in periodic contact with his office manager/cohort and will keep things updated here as info becomes available. I'll also see if I can arrange an eGullet outing for the preview or soft opening once dates are established (asuming there's interest in such a thing).

Deep south whites cook pigs in pits. So do Cubans. Probably other people too (although not many Jewish people I know  ).

Yeah.... long standing tradition in Mexico, Polynesia, Hawaii etc. - the practice of pit cooking probably goes so far back that there's not a chance of tracing its origins. I imagine there are vairations of it throughout the world and in most cultures.

[Robb Walsh]

Our intention in doing a seminar on a contentious subject like:

America's Barbeculture: Who Owns It?

was to stimulate debates like the one taking place here.

I though Lolis was pretty funny.

He is also one of the smartest people who has ever written about barbecue.

He comes from a music background and he was among the first see that the African-American revisionist history of jazz and rock n' roll applied equally to food history and especially barbecue.

Like rock n roll, barbecue is essentially a product of black culture that whites repackaged and commericalized. Which isn't to say you shouldn't love rock n roll or white barbecue. But you should know where it came from.

For instance, some of the first barbecue restaurants in the South opened during the Jim Crow era when blacks couldn't own businesses that served whites. When whites took over barbecue, they created new forms.

There're some great interviews on that subject in Lolis' PBS documentary "Smokestack Lightning." I hope you will read Smokestack Lighting, see the documentary and consider Lolis' comments in the context of his body of work. He has been at this a long time.

New York's relationship to barbecue is new and fresh. We hoped to engage New Yorkers in the larger cultural debates that have been going on about barbecue for decades in the South.

And based on this thread, I would say we succeeded.

It was very brave of Danny Meyers and Company to sponsor such a controversial panel discussion.

[mentalrph]

I am an extremely new "newbie" to yall's board so be kind!

I am had BBQ, Bar-B-Que, barbeque, etal all over this country & really am partial to deep south pork. BUT I could never be so arrogant as to claim superiority of our BBQ over any other region & style of Que!

To paraphrase Duke Ellington; "There ain't but two kinds of BBQ, Good and Bad" and to add the KY addenda "I cain't define BBQ but I know it when I eat it."

Kelly "KY" Cummins aka Mentalrph

P.S. I really feel that I have found a gold mine in e-gullet and hope that I may give back a small proportion of what I gain from all these resources. Sorry about not having an avatar but will work on it.

[Pan]

Robb, after the panel discussion ended, I remarked to a friend of mine who's a music lover that the appropriation of barbecue as something essentially white rather than essentially black that you and Lolis talked about reminded me of the history of jazz reception among white Americans, what with the "Original" Dixieland Band being first to cut a record and making the absurd claim that they (white folks all) invented "Dixieland" jazz. Everyone who had any previous knowledge about New Orleans jazz knew they were buffoons for telling such a transparent lie, but most whites, especially Northerners, didn't know. At least they soon started hearing the name of Louis Armstrong, though; by contrast, I expect that the early black exponents of barbecue are pretty unknown by name, as they were evidently mostly slaves or people of otherwise humble socioeconomic circumstances.

I salute you and the others on the panel for doing valuable anthropology and ethno-history of food. Americans need to know about your "revisionist" history so that we understand that many of the protagonists in the history of the U.S. were members of the poor huddled masses. Undoubtedly, that is still true today, in every country, if we avoid focusing only on the elite and pay attention to what truly inspired but in a superficial sense "average" people are doing.

[Fat Guy]

The thing is, when you're talking to a liberal Manhattan audience, probably half of which is Jewish, you don't meet much resistance to the notion that blacks invented barbecue and the white racists stole it from them. In an audience wherein the most conservative people are looked at as commies by national standards, the sentiment tends to be, "Well, it's no big surprise to us that the white people in the South stole barbecue from the blacks. That's what those rednecks do with everything." I imagine when you give that lecture in Mississippi it's controversial; I didn't feel it was controversial to the New York audience. So, okay, the whites stole barbecue from the blacks, just like they stole the rest of popular culture from the blacks. This is conventional wisdom where I live. But it would be absurd to conclude that, as a result of that invention, there is some sort of current "ownership" of barbecue culture. There is historical ownership of a sort, but who owns it today? That to me is the more interesting question, and ultimately the more controversial one. And good commie that I am, I say it belongs to The People aka everyone.

[Pan]

We could make the analogy with jazz again, perhaps. At least in the case of jazz, it started off as African-American music, then became American music, and starting at least as early as the Quintet of the Hot Club of Paris in the 1930s, increasingly became a type of international music. All jazz musicians honor the black Southerners who started the music, but that doesn't prevent us from also appreciating jazz produced by non-black Americans, Quebecois, Cubans, Belgian Romanies (Gypsies), South Africans, and Japanese, among many others. There's even fascinating jazz-rock/traditional music fusion being produced in places like Bulgaria and Indonesia.

The interesting thing is that jazz changed not only as time passed but also as it moved from New Orleans to the North and then was picked up by whites in Chicago and so forth. Has something comparable been happening to Barbecue?

[Jason Perlow]

This just in from Amy Mills Tunnicliffe, daughter of Mike Mills (from Memphis Championship Barbecue) and author of the upcoming book, Peace, Love, & Barbecue: Secrets, Tall Tales, & Outright Lies from the Legends of Barbecue:

Hi, Jason! Thanks for forwarding the link. Unfortunately I missed this

panel live, but someone taped it for me, so I can talk about it

semi-intelligently.

Here's my take:

A reporter's job is to make people think. They're sort of social

commentators or observers in this instance. They could just go around

and write happy, superficial stories, but in this instance we have

three men who are digging deeper and who want to set the story

straight.

Lolis is incredibly intelligent and well-spoken. He wrote THE book on

barbecue and he's very concerned with keeping the idea in the forefront

that the African-Americans should get most of the "credit," if you

will, for barbecue. In the "business world" of barbecue, I can tell you

that nobody is too concerned with who invented it. (Although my

grandmother thinks my grandfather invented barbecue because she never

saw anyone else doing it!.) They're just doing their own thing and

trying to make it the best it can be. Of all the people my dad knows

who are barbecuers or barbecue restaurant owners, all through the

south, relatively few are black. Ed Mitchell is one of the exceptions I

can think of. But you must remember that he has a master's degree,

spent 15 years working for Ford Motor Company in Boston, and then he

went back to the south and got into the barbecue business. Barbecuing

was something his family did, but for celebrations, not for a living.

Now there are men like Wilber Shirley in Goldesboro, NC who own the

restaurant, but the pitmaster, the man who does the hard labor, is

black. Without revisiting history, we all know that black men rarely

had the opportunity to open a restaurant, per se, in the south.

Similarly, Robb Walsh, from Texas, is also concerned with trying to

update and correct history with respect to Texas barbecue and who gets

the credit. He's done the research and he's super knowledgeable about

the subject.

I loved hearing what Jack Hitt had to say. My dad and I spent some time

with Maurice Bessenger in April and his side of the story is somewhat

different. (imagine that?!?) In fact, I kinda felt sorry for Maurice

because to hear him tell it, he's been completely misunderstood. And he

was very convincing! Again, here is a journalist who is taking the time

to investigate and set the record straight. People who are in the

trenches are not talking about the politics... but the reporters who

assess and comment on the social strata certainly give us something to

talk or debate about.

Of the three, Colman Andrews seemed a bit displaced on this panel. Of

course I admire his food knowledge and his magazine. But the idea of

grilling being barbecue is blasphemy in the barbecue world... as is

liquid smoke in barbecue sauce! And I didn't understand the idea that

tasting liquid smoke will help you identify barbecue?!? IMO, using Liquid

Smoke is kinda like someone ordering their meat well done. That makes a

chef cringe, but that's what the customer wants. Most barbecue

connoisseurs will tell you that the subtle smoke taste should come from

the meat, not from the sauce. Liquid Smoke is overpowering and kind of

hangs in your mouth. Yuk. IMO.

Again, I don't know that  today's white pitmasters are necessarily

claiming "credit" for barbecue. Of course a lot of them do blow smoke

about theirs being the best, etc. But that's just part of the show. My

dad is actually pretty humble. But if others want to brag about him,

that's okay. He'll take it.

My last thought is... Only in New York City could you fill an entire

end of a park, standing room only, with people interested in talking

about the culture of barbecue!  I was trying to explain this to a

friend from back home in Southern Illinois and she didn't get it. She

lives just blocks from 17th Street and as far as she's concerned,

barbecue is just part of our landscape and she's the luckiest girl in

the world to get great barbecue right in her backyard.

[Mayhaw Man]

I imagine when you give that lecture in Mississippi it's controversial;

It would probably be less controversial in Mississippi than you think. We know where the food came from. We know who, historically, cooked it in white people's houses. We know where the original influences were in many of the foods that became common place. Although I can make the argument (and do in the Southern Foods thread) that the modern development of these foods (after 1900) was as much a poor peoples thing as it was a black thing. We cooked what was at hand and we made it taste good. Hungry people rarely argued about who came up with the recipe. Most of the South was rural and poor for the first half of the Twentieth Century (at least until WW2).

A good place to review these types of discussions would be in the excellent Q and A that Joyce White did last year.

There was a fair amount of discussion about this in Southern Foods-Is they or ain't they?

[bentherebfor]

Interesting how barbeque can be defined so many ways by so many people.

[robyn]

Like rock n roll, barbecue is essentially a product of black culture that whites repackaged and commericalized. Which isn't to say you shouldn't love rock n roll or white barbecue. But you should know where it came from.

The earliest reference I could find to "barbacoa" on the internet was this translation about some of De Soto's travels in the "New World" in about 1540. Perhaps you can find an earlier reference.

So the concept and the phrase go back a long time before the "black culture" you're talking about. I think it likely that the style of cooking was appropriated from various "native Americans" by more than one group of people - and that the word describing the cooking was appropriated from the word the Spanish used to explain what they saw. Overall - I think you're looking at a very old complicated "family tree". Sounds like someone could write a doctoral thesis about it (if someone hasn't already). Robyn

[jhlurie]

Like white culture, black culture isn't necessarily immune from appropriating, assimilating and claiming credit for things. I suppose at this point there isn't an equally determined Native American standing behind Mr. Elie and Mr. Walsh, pushing and challenging their claims the way Elie (who's black) and Walsh (who's white) are pushing and challenging the established notions that cowboys invented barbecue, or something silly like that. I mean it even comes on "BBQ sauce" packages with rope lassos and stuff drawn on it! The cowboys MUST have created it, right?

Although in this case it's at least possible that the appropriation is more the word than the actual techniques, since the products of the barbacoa seem to be described more as roasting (although the distinctions probably get pretty thin around this point--no matter what it's definitely an open structure being used as an oven).

It's possible that some portion of the slave population had a pit stop on some island and copied what they saw there. It's also possible that the slavers themselves were the ones who did the copying and simply made the slaves do it--and that knowledge continued with them when they were distributed across North America. It's ALSO possible that the idea of cooking in a pit is so universal that the slaves were perfectly familiar with it and just started using a similar word--as they were forced into appropriating a lot of Spanish, English, Dutch, and French words for things they already knew. Really... how can well tell from the scraps of information we have?

Really, if the issue is contemporary ownership and not historical, this all becomes kind of moot. Does anyone really benefit, for example, by knowing who exactly created the first note of music which had some Jazz-like quality to it? Probably not. The same is likely true here.

[mongo_jones]

Really, if the issue is contemporary ownership and not historical, this all becomes kind of moot.  Does anyone really benefit, for example, by knowing who exactly created the first note of music which had some Jazz-like quality to it?  Probably not.  The same is likely true here.

jon,

good points all. however, i wonder if this is entirely a matter of history and vague historical justice. after all it isn't just that black people may not have gotten the historical credit they deserve for certain traditions--there's literal ownership questions that continue today. as a number of people have noted, there are very, very few black owners of barbecue establishments (in the south and beyond). not only has barbecue's history not been re-written outside of the realm of aficionados but black people rarely have physical ownership of, or the opportunity to profit from, contemporary barbecue. that's one of the areas where the jazz analogy breaks down (though probably not the blues one)--when most people think of jazz they think of miles davis or coltrane or ellington (though i am sure many also think of kenny g); but even in this conversation there's only one ed mitchell.

i think that alters the stakes of this conversation a little. the question of ownership isn't just a turf thing (though it is clearly at least partly about that) it is also one of cultural identity--the very point at which the larger culture seems willing to acknowledge the black roots of barbecue in the u.s is also the point at which it is being claimed for everyone else. at the same time barbecue is one of the few extant american food "traditions" which has a kind of cachet to it--it doesn't surprise me that a lot of people from outside its traditional homes would like to be able to also plug into it. the relationship will probably take some time to work itself out. as de la soul put it in a different context, "stakes is high".

but these are ideological issues--they don't alter how barbecue tastes in different places. nonetheless it is an important discussion and we owe walsh and elie and others thanks for forcing us to have it.

mongo

Edited June 20, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[robyn]

...I suppose at this point there isn't an equally determined Native American standing behind Mr. Elie and Mr. Walsh, pushing and challenging their claims the way Elie (who's black) and Walsh (who's white) are pushing and challenging the established notions that cowboys invented barbecue, or something silly like that.  I mean it even comes on "BBQ sauce" packages with rope lassos and stuff drawn on it!  The cowboys MUST have created it, right?

........

Really, if the issue is contemporary ownership and not historical, this all becomes kind of moot.  Does anyone really benefit, for example, by knowing who exactly created the first note of music which had some Jazz-like quality to it?  Probably not.  The same is likely true here.

The BBQ sauce I use is called Copper Kettle. It's made (or used to be made if the company has been sold) by local African Americans (and it has a picture of a dark brown person in chef's clothes on the bottle). I've talked with some of the people who demo the product - it's grandma's original recipe . It's also relatively low in salt (for BBQ sauce) - and kosher .

There aren't a whole lot of those original "New World" native Americans in the southeast, the islands, central America and south America left to fight about these things. Many died from imported diseases. And of those who were left - many inter-married. I'm sure that most who remain have more pressing problems than claiming their ancestral right to be known as the creators of BBQ. So that leaves groups of self-centered Americans to fight about the issue (and the only thing I'll say for sure about this is that I know my Jewish ancestors from Eastern Europe can't claim any credit ).

And I agree it's kind of a silly argument. I'd rather go to a BBQ cooking demo or contest than a seminar where a lot of people fight about who invented the technique. I care more about eating well than having politically correct thoughts about food.

For what it's worth - if anyone is interested - we actually do have the oldest US city down here where I live in north Florida - St. Augustine. And you'll find references to barbacoa in the history of St. Augustine (although they come after the DeSoto travels). As well as a lot of other interesting food/animal history. E.g., many of the early settlers brought pigs to these parts - and when they escaped into the swamps - over the course of several hundred years they wound up evolving into wild pigs like boars you think you'd only see in Africa - we see them on the road once in a while. Robyn

P.S. If anyone reads the translation I cited - you'll see references to barbacoa cooking of little birds. Whoever got the idea that real BBQ doesn't include chicken is inaccurate historically!

[Pan]

Really, if the issue is contemporary ownership and not historical, this all becomes kind of moot. Does anyone really benefit, for example, by knowing who exactly created the first note of music which had some Jazz-like quality to it? Probably not. The same is likely true here.

Sounds like there's a fundamental disagreement between us on this point, Jon. I consider history very important, and yes, I do think it's important to understand that jazz fundamentally arises from a unique type of Afro-European fusion that was possible only in the U.S. (though related to other types of Afro-European fusion in the rest of the Americas) - and furthermore, to understand which elements are of African and European origin. These historical questions, though important, are of course quite different from the question of who jazz belongs to today, which I would unhesitatingly answer "Everybody."

Robyn's point is very interesting. Has the tradition of barbacoa continued in Hispaniola in a way that can be clearly traced back to the style reported on by early European visitors to the island?

[Pan]

And I agree it's kind of a silly argument. I'd rather go to a BBQ cooking demo or contest than a seminar where a lot of people fight about who invented the technique. I care more about eating well than having politically correct thoughts about food.

I hope Robb Walsh comments on this, but I didn't get the feeling that anyone on that panel is interested in making up some new tall tale about barbecue to satisfy their "politically correct" outlooks, whatever that means. If anything, it's the myths they seem to have disproven that were a form of manufactured "political correctness." Good historians don't try to make up fake histories to fit their viewpoints, but instead, allow the viewpoints they have coming into a study to be altered by evidence they come across.

Also, Robyn, the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party didn't have panel discussions instead of barbecue, but in addition to barbecue, so had you come to it, you could have chosen to simply eat the cue and listen to music, and skip all of this "silliness."