The Southern Foodways Alliance documents, studies, and explores the diverse food cultures of the changing American South.
Oral History
Memphis is the epicenter of urban barbecue, standing ribs and shoulders above all other Tennessee cities. But rural,…
Interview
Unless it’s cooked by wood, it’s not good barbeque. –Sam Donald
When I was young, growing up, my grandfather, this was the business that he came to buy his barbeque…I mean, it’s been…
"I mean, I’m basically the only one [around here] that’s still in the old tradition way. And if I had to go to a gas or…
In this area here, like in say a 30-mile area here, this is a hotbed for whole hog barbeque. And you’ll go out of…
[I flip the hogs] when they’re ready to serve. I do mine just a little bit differently. I’ll cook them with the skin…
We cook—everything that we cook is on hickory, strictly hickory coals. There’s no gas, there’s no ovens, there’s no…
We serve whole hog barbecue. We cook it the old-fashioned way over the wood coals, and it takes approximately 24 hours…