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ORAL HISTORY

Rodney Scott

For Rodney Scott, barbecue is less a food and more an idea. He defines barbecue as “a reunion, a party for everybody to come and join in and enjoy each other’s company, a laid back event.” A barbecue acts as a gathering, a communion, a manifestation of the connections between people. Barbecue is love, and he loves barbecue.

In 1972, just a year after the birth of his son Rodney, Roosevelt Scott opened a convenience store/gas station in an oak grove off the highway in Hemingway, South Carolina. On the side, his wife Ella Scott, aided by various family members, smoked a whole hog or two on the weekends.

Rodney first cooked his own pig at age 11. In his teenage years he rebelled against the family business, returning at age 17, just as 1 or 2 hogs became 4 to 6. Today, Rodney Scott, pitmaster and owner of Scott’s Bar-B-Que, oversees the slow-cooking of 8 to 10 hogs a night. Under Rodney’s watch, to spend a day hanging around Scott’s Bar-B-Que is to witness a backyard barbecue, a communion.