by Don Wilding
Wilson takes enormous pride in his craft. He appreciates that customers spend their hard-earned money on the food created by his staff. He says, “I created this food with my hands, and it’s an honor if someone wants to come and eat it.” He commanded his staff, “If you’re not going to serve that plate to your mother, don’t serve it to my guests.” He puts an enormous amount of pressure on himself. “My competition is me,” he said. “I would love to win a James Beard Award for regional food. That’s my goal.”356
CONCLUSION
A BLAST FROM THE PAST
Alabama Barbecue Clubs
At barbecue gatherings in by-gone eras, people probably didn’t need a reason to be reminded to get together and share each other’s time. That’s just not the case anymore. People look for reasons to maintain community and their sense of place in it. Fortunately, we have barbecue as a sort of communal elixir.
—Drew Robinson, executive chef at Jim ’n Nick’s Community Bar-B-Q357
After the Civil War, Alabamians revived scenes of antebellum barbecues by making barbecues a fundamental element of their club meetings. Dating back to 1872, the exclusive Montgomery Gun Club, which consisted of the wealthiest (white) members of the state, held an annual shooting contest. Along with the shooting contest and officer elections, the club members provided “an abundant and delicious barbecue” for family and friends.358 In 1897, Alabama’s State Bar Association met for an annual meeting, elections and “an elegant barbecue dinner” with “an abundance of cooling beverages.”359
For centuries, barbecue has remained one of the best ways to attract and feed a large crowd. In most parts of the state, Alabamians do not tend to barbecue whole hogs as a regular occurrence, except in West Alabama, where residents still enjoy barbecue feasts reminiscent of past centuries.
In 1927, Sumter County’s men congregated in a fraternal organization housed in a small shack to play cards and engage in other gambling activities, and they often made barbecue as part of their gatherings. Out of these club meetings, West Alabama’s barbecue-specific clubs emerged.360
In Sumter County, seven communities have started formal barbecue clubs, and they each have distinct methods and recipes. The Timilichee BBQ Club members in Geiger continue to cook whole hogs in their pit. In the Emelle Club, members prepare pork butts and pork ribs, which they serve with their Brant Richardson barbecue sauce, named after its creator.361
Barbecue clubs have rejected store-bought sauces and instead smother their pork with special recipes that members pass on to younger generations. “Like the wine regions of France, each club has a subtly different sauce,” explained author Laura J. Axelrod. At Epes BBQ Club gatherings, which occur monthly from April through October each year, Mr. Bud makes the sauce. “His sauce is so popular that he makes it for people in and around the Epes community,” explained a member of the club.362
At old-time barbecues, farmers brought whatever they could spare to the community barbecue and shared with one another. To this day, Sumter County’s barbecue clubs rely on community assistance for side dishes and desserts, with preference for coleslaw, potato salad, baked beans, cookies, cakes and pies.363
In West Alabama, the clubs remain an important part of community formation and development in a sparsely populated, rural area. The clubs generally gather once a month from spring to autumn for their feasts. “It’s a sacramental supper that ties together neighbors and generations,” observed Axelrod. Gump Ozment of the Sumterville Club explains, “In the country, the only time you see folks is when you go to church, go to a funeral, or go to a barbecue club.”364
In the antebellum South, people hosted barbecues to raise funds for local needs, and the barbecue clubs continue to perform these civic functions. They tend to meet in local community centers, such as schools and churches. The clubs will host dinners to benefit local facilities. The Panola BBQ Club, for example, consists of members from the local Methodist church. They use the funds raised from their events to support the church. The club, which started in 1946, raised funds for new Sunday school facilities by cooking two hogs and serving them to church members, and it has since become a tradition. Now, the club cooks six hogs each year in an open pit filled with hickory coals. Before closing, the Cuba BBQ Club members hosted their events to raise money for local schools.365
Originally, these clubs had strict membership requirements, but they have followed twentieth-century trends toward inclusivity. The Timilichee BBQ Club and the Emelle BBQ Club initially consisted entirely of men, who gathered to play cards or compete in other forms of gambling. To enter the Timilichee BBQ Club, men applied to take open spots, but a single negative vote from an existing member doomed their prospects. “Nowadays,” explains member Junior Brown, “you’ve got to be one tough bird not to get in.” Under current rules, it takes three negative votes to obstruct someone’s membership application to this particular club, which rarely occurs. Now, it consists of twenty-four families, who can bring guests to the monthly barbecues.366
The Sumterville BBQ Club, which did not start until 2001, does not have any membership requirements. Its founding members started the club to allow people greater access to club meetings, so they did not have to travel to distant events. According to one member, “We are just a community. You can’t tell who is Baptist or Presbyterian. We just wanted to have a barbecue club because we wanted to have a community-wide family gathering.”367
Some clubs continue to have membership requirements. With regard to the requirements of the Emelle Club, which started in the 1950s, member Lolita Smith explains, “You have to either live in Emelle, have grown up in Emelle or own property here. We wanted to keep it in the community.”368
Recently, barbecue clubs have become more inclusive, but certain traditions sometimes dictate people’s roles within the clubs. In the Emelle BBQ Club, women prepare the Emelle Community Center for the meal while men cook, cut and serve the food. At Boyd BBQ Club meetings, men serve themselves in a line formed on the right side of the table while women and children make their way down the line on the left side of the table. According to a member of the Boyd Club, “That is how we have always done it. It’s just our tradition.”369
Over two hundred years, Alabama barbecue has changed, but its essence remains the same, especially in West Alabama. In this part of the state, the barbecue clubs reinvigorate the traditions of old-time barbecue, which facilitate community interaction and raise funds for community needs. According to historian Valerie Pope Burnes, “Barbecue not only feeds the body, it sustains the soul of these rural communities.”370
NOTES
Chapter 1
1. Geiling, “Evolution of American Barbecue”; Warnes, Savage Barbecue, 12–49; Moss, Barbecue, 9–11.
2. Warnes, Savage Barbecue, 37–42; Moss, Barbecue, 11–13.
3. Warnes, Savage Barbecue, 35–46.
4. Ibid., 17–18, 174; Rochefort, History of the Caribby-Islands, 297–98.
5. Warnes, Savage Barbecue, 17–18; Deutsch and Elias, Barbecue, 13–24; Moss, Barbecue, 5–6, 12.
6. Warnes, Savage Barbecue, 13, 17; Kurlansky, Basque History of the World, “Postscript: The Death of a Basque Pig.”
7. Moss, Barbecue, 11–13; Warnes, Savage Barbecue, 62.
8. Deutsch and Elias, Barbecue, 21–24.
9. Moss, Barbecue, 64–65; Anne Yentsch, “Excavating the South,” 70; Moore, History of Alabama, 451.
10. Moss, Barbecue, 11–13; Fischer, Albion’s Seed, 353–54.
11. Isaac, Transformation of Virginia, 88–114.
12. Moss, Barbecue, 17; Washington to Wood, July 28, 1758, quoted in Beeman, “Deference,” 401–30.
13. Isaac, Transformation of Virginia, 110–14; Moss, Barbecue, 16–17.
14. Moss, Barbecue, 13–17; Beeman, “Deference,” 401–30.
15. Rothman, Slave Country, 125–27, 173, 183, 218.
16. Moss, Barbecue, 24; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 125–27, 137–40.
17. White, Saint
of the Southern Church, 85–86.
18. Ibid.
19. Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes; Moss, Barbecue, 30–33.
20. Moss, Barbecue, 25–34; Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes.
21. Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution.
22. Warnes, Savage Barbecue, 35–46, 49, 53–55, 160–72.
23. Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution.
24. Warnes, Savage Barbecue, 35–46, 49, 53–55, 160–72.
25. White, Saint of the Southern Church, 90.
26. Ward, “Building of the State,” 68.
27. Ad, Southern Advocate, July 27, 1827, 1.
28. Ibid.
29. Moss, Barbecue, 24–30.
30. DuBose, Life and Times of William Lowndes Yancey, 91; Moss, Barbecue, 24–30.
31. Cruikshank, History of Birmingham, 183.
32. Rothman, Slave Country, 173–75; Thornton, Politics and Power.
Chapter 2
33. Howe, What Hath God Wrought.
34. Dupre, “Barbecues and Pledges,” 485–86.
35. Thornton, Politics and Power, 6–7; Betts, Early History of Huntsville, 3–4.
36. Betts, Early History of Huntsville, 22–23.
37. Thornton, Politics and Power, 6–7; Betts, Early History of Huntsville, 3–4, 22–23.
38. Gilmer, Sketches, 6; Thornton, Politics and Power, 7–8.
39. Betts, Early History of Huntsville, 22–23.
40. Mary Jane McDaniel, “Hugh McVay,” Encyclopedia of Alabama, accessed July 5, 2016, www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1462; Harriet E. Amos Doss, “Gabriel Moore,” Encyclopedia of Alabama, accessed July 6, 2016, www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2004.
41. Thornton, Politics and Power, 8–12.
42. Ibid., 12.
43. Ibid.
44. Moss, Barbecue, 64–65; Yentsch, “Excavating the South,” 70; Moore, History of Alabama, 451.
45. Ad, Southern Advocate, July 20, 1827, 1.
46. Ibid.
47. Southern Advocate, “The Barbacue,” July 13, 1827, 3.
48. Ibid., “The Barbacues,” April 25, 1828, 3.
49. Ibid., “The Barbacue,” July 13, 1827, 3.
50. Ibid., “The Barbacues,” April 25, 1828, 3.
51. Republican Banner, “Bloody Affair in Alabama,” July 28, 1843, 2.
52. Moss, Barbecue, 32–33.
53. Southern Advocate, “The Barbacue,” July 13, 1827, 3.
54. Ibid.
55. Moss, Barbecue, 54–55.
56. Ibid., 49, 63; Opie, Hog and Hominy, 17–30.
57. Southern Advocate, “The Election,” August 10, 1827, 3.
58. Ibid.; Dupre, “Barbecues and Pledges,” 479–85.
59. Southern Advocate, “The Election,” August 10, 1827, 3.
60. Ibid., “The Barbacues,” April 25, 1828, 3.
61. Ibid., “The Barbacue,” July 13, 1827, 3.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid., “The Barbacues,” April 25, 1828, 3.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid., “The Barbacue,” July 13, 1827, 3.
67. Ibid.; Moss, Barbecue, 54–55; Dupre, “Barbecues and Pledges,” 479–85.
68. Southern Advocate, “The Barbacue,” July 13, 1827, 3.
69. Moss, Barbecue, 40–41, 54–55.
Chapter 3
70. Faust, This Republic of Suffering, xi–xii; Foner, Reconstruction, 1–5, 251–61, 422.
71. Janney, Remembering the Civil War.
72. Hodgson, Cradle of the Confederacy, 394.
73. Republican Banner, “The Union Demonstration at Huntsville,” August 16, 1860, 2; Janney, Remembering the Civil War, 16; Foner, Reconstruction, 45.
74. Moss, Barbecue, 2, 20–34, 55–58, 74–80.
75. United States Congress, “John Tyler Morgan,” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. I am also indebted to Bobby Joe Seales for his work on Alabama history and for providing information concerning Napoleon B. Mardis.
76. Writers’ Program, Alabama, 280
77. Ibid.; Shelby News, Obituary, October 20, 1892.
78. Testimony Taken by the Joint Select Committee, 314–316.
79. Ibid., 246.
80. Moulton Advertiser, March 20, 1868; Moulton Advertiser, March 27, 1868; Moulton Advertiser, August 7, 1868; Horton, “Submitting to the ‘Shadow of Slavery,’” 135; Moss, Barbecue, 100–2.
81. Testimony Taken by the Joint Select Committee, 337.
82. Crook, “Barbour County Background,” 250.
83. Daily American, “The Latest Outrage: How the Whites of North Alabama Treat the Colored Democrats,” September 7, 1876, 4.
84. Horton, “Submitting to the ‘Shadow of Slavery,’” 135; Moss, Barbecue, 100–2.
85. Atlanta Constitution, “Alabama’s Campaign Will Be Opened on the 8th of July,” July 2, 1890, 4.
86. Ibid., “The Alabama Campaign,” July 9, 1890, 1.
87. Washington Post, “Political Riot in Alabama,” July 28, 1890, 1.
88. Atlanta Constitution, “Barbecue in Alabama,” July 5, 1896, 12.
89. Nashville American, “Campaign Opened,” August 13, 1899, 6.
90. Hahn, Nation Under Our Feet.
91. Newstelle, “Negro Business League,” 43.
92. Wallach, “Dethroning the Deceitful Pork Chop,” 165–80.
93. Moss, Barbecue, 125.
94. New York Times, “Barbarism in Alabama,” August 14, 1880, 5.
95. Daily Constitution, “In Alabama,” July 5, 1879, 1.
96. Atlanta Constitution, “Veterans at Oak Bowery,” September 1, 1899.
97. Thompson, History of Barbour County, 415; Moss, Barbecue, 107.
98. Confederate Veteran 13, “Confederate Monument at Eufaula, Ala.,” January 1905, 13.
99. New York Times, “Cotton Hurt by Rust: But the End of the Rainy Season Gives It a Chance to Improve,” August 15, 1891, 5.
100. Daily American, “A Big Barbecue Year,” August 22, 1891, 6.
101. Ibid.
Chapter 4
102. Moss, Barbecue, 126–33.
103. Ibid.
104. Ibid.; Cooley, To Live and Dine in Dixie, 17–18, 43–44.
105. Moss, Barbecue, 126–33.
106. Ibid.
107. James and Bennett, Story of Coal and Iron, 161–65.
108. Matsos, interview by Evans.
109. Ibid.
110. Derzis, interview by Johnson.
111. Matsos, interview by Evans; Brown, Birmingham Food, 59.
112. Matsos, interview by Evans.
113. Ibid.
114. Ibid.
115. Ibid.
116. Ibid.
117. Ibid.
118. Ibid.
119. Brown, Birmingham Food, 21–22.
120. Ibid., 49–51.
121. Beth Eddings, “Michael’s Restaurant,” Homewood Star, June 1, 2012; Roy L. Williams, “Birmingham Restaurant Operator Michael Matsos Dies at 93,” Birmingham News, January 13, 2012; Brown, Birmingham Food, 69–75.
122. Brown, Birmingham Food, 27–29, 56.
123. Ibid., 21–22.
124. Derzis, interview by Johnson.
125. Brown, Birmingham Food, 27.
126. Derzis, interview by Johnson.
127. Booker, interview by Johnson.
128. Ibid.
129. Ibid.
130. Matsos, interview by Evans.
131. Derzis, interview by Johnson.
132. Matsos, interview by Evans.
133. Ibid., Booker, interview by Johnson.
134. Matsos, interview by Evans.
135. Ibid.
136. Williams, “Birmingham Restaurant Operator”; Derzis, interview by Johnson.
137. Williams, “Birmingham Restaurant Operator.”
138. McLemore, interview by Evans.
139. Ibid.
140. Ibid.
141. Ibid.
142. Lilly
, interview by Johnson.
143. McLemore, interview by Evans.
144. Ibid.
145. Ibid.
146. Lilly, interview by Johnson.
147. Ibid.
148. Ibid.
149. Ibid.
150. Ibid.
151. Ibid.
152. Ibid.
153. Ibid.
154. Kansas City Barbeque Society, “2016 Rules and Regulations,” accessed February 1, 2017, www.kcbs.us/pdf/2016_rules.pdf.
155. Lilly, interview by Johnson.
156. Ibid.
157. Ibid.
158. Ibid.
159. Ibid.
Chapter 5
160. Sugrue, Origins of the Urban Crisis.
161. Cooley, To Live and Dine in Dixie.
162. Ibid.
163. Opie, Hog and Hominy, 101–2. For examples outside the restaurant industry, see R.A. Lawson, Jim Crow’s Counterculture: The Blues and Black Southerners, 1890–1945 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010), 18; LeRoi Jones, Blues People: Negro Music in White America (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1963), 85; Adam Gussow, Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 6. Psyche A. Williams-Forson analyzes the ways in which black women used chicken to achieve these goals in her book Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
164. Moss, Barbecue, 150, 213–14.
165. Putzel, Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court, 268–70; Moss, Barbecue, 150, 213–14.
166. Don Milazzo, “Ollie’s BBQ Closes, but the Sauce Will Live On,” Birmingham Business Journal, September 23, 2001, www.bizjournals.com/birmingham/stories/2001/09/24/tidbits.html.
167. Williams-Forson, Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs.
168. Opie, Hog and Hominy, 101–2; Williams-Forson, Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs.
169. Jim Shahin, “They Fed the Civil Rights Movement. Now Are Black-Owned Barbecue Joints Dying?” Washington Post, February 22, 2016.
170. Ibid.
171. Ibid.
172. Matt Okarmus, “Brenda’s Bar-B-Que Pit Winning Flavor Is Family,” Montgomery Advertiser, September 28, 2015.
173. Ibid.
174. Ibid.