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Barbecue Across the Country
The Subject of Sauce
Many African Americans in the South became adept at preparing, creating and cooking barbecue for large numbers of people, and according to Miller, in the late 1800s, they started to move across the United States as "barbecue's most effective ambassadors." And along the way, many were building stellar reputations for their talents. "There was a lot of barbecue freelancing going on across the country, and many cooks were becoming well known," said Miller.
Back to that subject of family sauces. Miller, who has been featured in the Netflix series, “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America,” said he's in possession of his grandmother's recipe, but that "there's no condition of silence" when it comes to sharing. "In my family, barbecue is more of a method," he explained. While not the case in his family, Miller said people often purchase commercial sauce and doctor it with lemon. "I have a lot of fond memories of a half-cut lemon with seeds floating in a pot of barbecue sauce," he said. When he's not studying, tasting or writing about barbecue, Miller, who is a lawyer, has an altogether different job: He's the executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches where he is the first African American and the first layperson to hold that position. Admitting that he once had aspirations to run for Senate in his home state, Miller said he would now like to have a different kind of impact when it comes to bringing people together. "I've always thought about writing a guide to hosting a dinner series on how to have difficult conversations," he said. "The challenge for us in this country today is how to create space where people can come together and listen to each other."
For "Black Smoke," Miller profiled 16 men and women who were barbecue vanguards.
One example: Columbus B. Hill, of Colorado, who pulled off a massive culinary feat on July 4, 1890.
"On the grounds of the state capital, he prepared barbecue for twenty-five thousand people and the event was covered in the local newspaper," said Miller. Another one of Miller's barbecue heroes, actually heroines, is Mary John — real name Marie Jean — a formerly enslaved woman and a renowned Arkansas pit master in the 1840s. "A lot of Black women have been in barbecue for a long time," Miller said. In his own family, where he was one of six children, Miller said his late mother, Johnetta, was "the griller in chief."
If barbecue is on the menu, even better.
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