Barbecue, a topic to chew on

Is barbecue dying?

By all appearances, evidence to the contrary abounds. Competitions are bigger than ever. Restaurants continue to open across the country. The down-home food even has its own TV series in Destination America’s “BBQ Pitmasters.”

(Brandall Atkinson/BRANDALL ATKINSON) - Pitmaster Pat Martin of Martin's Bar-B-Q in Nolensville, TN, checks on his hickory-smoked chicken during a BBQ Feast at Woodson Ridge Farm during the Southern Foodways Symposium.

But with all that comes a certain homogenization; is that a spike to the heart of such a fiercely regional American cuisine?

Those questions, in some fashion, were at the center of a barbecue symposium held in mid-October in Oxford, Miss., by the Southern Foodways Alliance, a nonprofit organization of scholars, restaurateurs, writers and passionate eaters that explores food issues related to the South.

Perhaps the most illuminating moment about the direction of barbecue came after a debate by actors portraying Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.

“Lincoln” argued for a big tent. “Mo’ barbecue, mo’ better,” he said.

“Douglas” took the position that modernity threatened the food and its culture. “The past must be preserved,” he declared.

The moderator asked the crowd to vote by applause for the position they supported. Their enthusiasm was evenly split, and a draw was declared. The tie vote seemed to underscore the deep divide among Barbecue Nation’s passionate denizens.

The Lincoln-Douglas show occurred Saturday, the last night of the symposium. Embracing change vs. protecting tradition was at the core of further questions: Is barbecue losing its regional identity? If so, does that matter? Does the national growth of the cuisine signal its demise or its vigor? 

With Southern barbecue having traveled from its ancestral home to every corner of America and been copied like a culinary Xerox, the talk of where barbecue is headed was taken seriously. For those who think about food as an emblem of culture, this 15th annual symposium was thought-provoking, and, for this participant, even enthralling.

SFA is under the umbrella of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, an organization at the University of Mississippi that studies the region. The group held a barbecue-themed symposium a decade ago, but its director, John T. Edge, knew it was time to re-examine the cuisine.

“I really think it is the most totemic of our foods,” says Edge, a James Beard Award-winning writer. “With the rapid change of barbecue over the last 10 years, [I felt] we just had something more to say about it.”

Apparently, he was right. The symposium, whose attendance was capped at around 380 and cost nearly $600 to attend, sold out in 12 minutes.

There were readings by novelists, a panel about farm workers’ rights, the environment and heritage meats, and even a multimedia puppet show. And of course there was food.

Some of the dishes were traditional, such as the whole hog prepared by third-generation pit master Sam Jones of the celebrated Skylight Inn in Ayden, N.C., and pork ribs by top pit master Desiree Robinson of Memphis’s highly regarded Cozy Corner. Others had a modern spin, such as the beef ribs served with chimichurri sauce, dished up by Dallas pit master Tim Byres of the acclaimed Smoke restaurant.