Episode 020: Carolina BBQ and Southern Culture with John Shelton Reed

The culture of Carolina BBQ dates back to at least the 17th century. It is steeped with traditions including the famed Eastern Carolina vinegar sauce or mop and the art of cooking whole hogs over pits fired with wood coals in proverbial low and slow fashion.

Promoted largely through the 1800s by German immigrants who spread their love of pork across the Carolinas, especially North Carolina, Whole Hog cooking morphed to a preference for cooking shoulders as you move to the Lexington, NC area.

Barbecue in the Carolinas has, sadly, begun to shift and change with the times, but in some select locales, there are traditionalists old and new who are shunning gas and electric cooking means in favor of using just wood, fire, smoke, and time.

In this podcast episode, I talk with John Shleton Reed about Carolina BBQ history, where BBQ sits today both regionally and nationally, and what he and his compatriots are doing to preserve the Southern Tradition of Barbecue.

John Shelton Reed is true Southern gentleman scholar. He grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. His books and writing covering the the history and culture of the south can be found across more than twenty books covering the subject, not the least of which includes Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue and his most recent BBQ related text, Barbecue: a Savor the South Cookbook (Savor the South Cookbooks).

He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the National Humanities Center, and twice a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has lectured at over 300 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad, including a number of universities in India as a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer, and he has held visiting positions at many institutions, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Institute of United States Studies at the University of London, and All Souls College, Oxford University.

He spent 1996-97 at Cambridge University as the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions and Fellow of St Catharine’s College. He taught for some years at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, retiring in 2000 as William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of sociology and director of the Howard Odum Institute for Research in Social Science. He helped to found the university’s Center for the Study of the American South and the quarterly Southern Cultures.

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About the Show

The BBQ Beat Podcast, hosted by Kevin Sandridge, shares all that’s good in competition and backyard BBQ and grilling. Guests include competition BBQ pitmasters, food industry insiders, BBQ and grilling product manufacturers, and event promoters from the US as well as abroad. If you love BBQ and have an appreciation for southern culture and live-fire cooking – this is the podcast for you.

Episode Summary

During this exploration, John and I discuss the nature and history of Carolina Barbecue and some of the early figures who helped put this style of low and slow pork cuisine on the map. We also discuss the state of barbecue today, competition BBQ – related to the Kansas City Barbeque Society – and what that means for BBQ culture, and branch out to refer to other barbecue styles, namely Texas-style barbecue.

What You’ll Discover

The origins of Carolina barbecue from Eastern to Western Carolina and on into South Carolina
How John become acquainted with Carolina-style barbecue and came to author his epic history on the subject
Where and how hush puppies became standard side items at Carolina barbecue joints
The impact German immigrants made on barbecue in the Carolinas
Just how closely linked the two predominant style of North Carolina barbecue are to one another
How competition barbecue is helping spread the love of barbecue, so long as you like it Kansas City-style
The origins of Mustard Sauce and why you don’t want to use it if you’re competing, no matter how much you love it
Where there’s great “transplant” barbecue in Downtown San Francisco – cooked on all wood, no electric or gas
What North Carolina’s tourism board can learn from Texas when it comes to supporting and promoting its unique barbecue tradition
How you can earn instant appreciation from TrueCue.org approved pitmasters, just by asking to see their pits

People, Places, and Things of Interest

Complimentary Podcast Episodes

Questions, Comments or Suggestions?

Have a question or a podcast guest suggestion? Please leave me a message on my contact page. You can also find me on Twitter and via the BBQ Beat Facebook Page.

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