This Rocket Scientist is Tracing Black Ingenuity Through Barbecue

To me, whole-animal cooking is the most foundational part of American barbecue. People talk about “no waste” like it’s something new, but that’s what Black pitmasters have been doing for centuries. And yet when I go to all these barbecue festivals and national food events, I hardly see any other African Americans there. Same thing on top 10 barbecue lists—they weren’t getting the credit they deserved. That’s why I’m doing this work. The history of Black barbecue has never been fully documented by someone from inside the culture, who can fill in the gaps with passed-down knowledge. If I don’t record it, it’ll end up in the cemetery.

I’ve visited all the Black-owned whole-hog barbecue restaurants left in the U.S. There are less than a dozen. I’m recording the pitmasters’ oral histories and noting the linkages. For example, I already knew from the archives that enslaved Africans were cooking for wealthy planters in long open trenches at political rallies back in the Virginia colony before the United States was even a country. That traces to the present day; these pitmasters all learned to barbecue hogs in a hole in the ground.

Stephen Grady of Grady’s Barbecue in Dudley, North Carolina, told me his grandfather traveled around the county with a metal grate and two tobacco sticks, digging holes to cook over. At Campbell’s Quick Stop in Rembert, South Carolina, they used old hay rakes. At Jones Bar-B-Q Diner in Marianna, Arkansas—the country’s oldest Black-owned restaurant—Mr. Jones told me that on the Fourth of July, when they’d reach capacity on their cinder block pits, his grandfather would dig earth pits to meet demand.

Then there’s the vinegar-pepper barbecue sauce, which we know was used during slavery because that’s all they had available back then—ketchup, mustard, and Worcester sauce werent invented yet. All these Black pitmasters across the south are still using it, including my own family. We all call it the same thing—mop sauce— because it’s so liquidy you can literally apply it with a mop. We all butterfly hogs to cook them. We all use hardwood embers for heat. We share the same techniques, the same jargon. Most of these pitmasters are over 65, living in rural communities; none of them got this information via YouTube or Facebook or Google. Somebody taught them. And the only people I know who could carry a message like this across the South are the descendents of enslaved Africans. Because that’s who was doing this work.

Even long after the Civil War, up through the 1970s when you started to see a lot of white barbecue institutions popping up, somebody Black was usually doing the cooking. But all the credit went to the white owners. I would love to one day ask people like [the high-profile, third-generation white pitmaster] Sam Jones, “Who was cooking with your grandfather on that farm? Whose hands were working the pit in that cookhouse? You never talk about those people.”

Most of the Black pitmasters I’ve visited could retire any day now. And most of their children aren’t interested in taking over. I can’t argue with them because I understand the hard work that keeps it going. Would I love barbecue the way I do if my father had forced me into it? I don’t know. There are a few younger Black pitmasters who have started new whole hog spots in bigger cities, like Bryan Furman at B’s Cracklin’ BBQ in Atlanta and Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Charleston. Maybe they will inspire others.

Now I’m in the process of turning my years of research into a book about Black barbecue. I’m traveling around the country sharing knowledge at universities and food events. I hosted a show on PBS Digital Studios called Nourish about food, culture, and science. But the best way to share this information is to send people to the places it comes from. Barbecue is an evolving process, and it’s going to continue to evolve, but you should always keep a road map to the past. You have to go there and live it. You have to taste it.

Want to taste it all? Here’s Conyers’ list of must-try Black-owned whole animal barbecue spots:

• Grady’s B.B.Q. in Dudley, NC
• Scott’s Bar-B-Que in Hemingway, SC
• Ricky’s BBQ in Hell’s Half Acre, SC
• Campbell’s Quick Stop in Rembert, SC
• Sugarhill BBQ in Manning, SC
• Jones Bar-B-Q Diner in Marianna, AR
• Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Charleston, SC
• B’s Cracklin’ BBQ in Atlanta, GA, and Savannah, GA
• Helen’s Bar-B-Que in Brownsville, TN