It Ain't the Meat, It's the Notion

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