It Ain’t the Meat, It’s the Notion

by Ed Ward

by Lolis Eric Elie;
photographs by Frank Stewart
Farrar Straus Giroux, $35 hard

Learning to control
fire was, and is, a form of civilization,” says Dutch sociologist Johan
Goudsblom in his book Fire and Civilization. “Because humans have tamed fire
and incorporated it into their own societies, these societies have become more
complex and they themselves have become more civilized.” Complexity of
civilization results in the gathering of capital, which leads to the
possibility of leisure, which brings about culture, of course. Later in the
book, Goudsblom identifies the three most important steps in becoming civilized
as the control of fire, animal husbandry, and industrialization.

Control of fire = the pit. Animal husbandry = beef, pork, chicken and mutton.
Industrialization = the manufacture of grills, barrels, and metal cookers, as
well as spatulas and forks.
Thus, we see that barbeque is a cultural
activity which epitomizes the highest form of human civilization. Not that any
Central Texan needs to be told this, but sometimes it’s comforting to see
something so easily proven. And to deepen the proof considerably, along come
Lolis Eric Elie and Frank Stewart, who collaborated with Wynton Marsalis on
Sweet Saving Blues on the Road, a book about touring with Marsalis’
band, with the tale of their epic sweep around the country in search of perfect
barbeque.

Naturally, with this topic controversy is sure to ensue, mostly of the
why-didn’t-you-stop-here variety, but putting that aside for a moment, it must
be admitted that these two have made a major contribution to American food
writing and cultural studies with Smokestack Lightning. Through the
medium of cooked meat, they address the issues of the black diaspora from the
Deep South, the place and meaning of traditional and regional cultures in
America, and the deep intertwining of black and white folkways that make all of
us, in Albert Murray’s phrase, “omni-Americans.”

Elie is from a barbeque-challenged region, New Orleans, and Stewart is from
Memphis, which is just the opposite, and this makes them perfect researchers.
Elie is open to discovery, Stewart deeply opinionated, and driving from Memphis
to Texas to Kansas City to East St. Louis to Chicago, they embark on a voyage
of discovery that illuminates our cultural history in a way perhaps no other
topic can. Along the way, they discover that barbeque is, in many ways, a dying
art, “a dinosaur without a mate,” in Stewart’s words, as a younger generation
turns its back on the hard work and slim profits generated by a craft that has
sustained generations. They hit the cookoff circuit and puzzle over the
circumstances that have propelled this poor man’s food into a rich man’s
pastime, and don’t shy away from the fact that in large part it is aman’s
pastime, one of the few instances (pancakes for Sunday morning breakfast
being another) where men have always dominated the traditionally female world
of cooking. They get down in the pits with the masters, interview them and
their wives and children, and each time come away with another nuanced piece of
the picture, even when they can’t get an interview with Maurice Bessinger, the
born-again maybe-ex-segregationist barbeque king of West Columbia, S.C. They
eat snoots in St. Louis, barbacoa in Laredo, mutton, rib tips, outside meat,
brisket, and, at a stopoff with in-laws for which their digestive systems
probably thanked them, vegetarian Indian food. Elie notices all the right
things, Stewart snaps them: Juneteenth in Mexia, Texas; “steppers” dancing in
Chicago; after-hours R&B in Memphis.

It’s not, perhaps, the definitive book on barbeque (the West Coast, home to
many East Texas expatriates, is missing, and would have added another dimension
to their discussion of the northward migration to St. Louis and Chicago); I
can’t believe they missed the Barbeque Shop in Memphis and didn’t even go to
Taylor, Texas to check out Mueller’s and the cultural significance of the
horseshoe-shaped bar at the Taylor Cafe across the street, but quibbles aside,
Smokestack Lightning is a project that was mounted at just the right
time, a book that will set your brain to thinking while your stomach is
growling. The appendices with addresses of all the places mentioned in the book
plus a score of stupendous recipes will help you do something about the latter,
while you mull over the nuances of what is becoming known as black
neo-conservatism (there is the Marsalis/Murray connection, after all) and begin
to look at the ribs on your plate in a whole new light. Just don’t read it on
an empty stomach! n

This article appears in June 14 • 1996 and June 14 • 1996 (Cover).