The
Tennesse Barbecue Project
When it comes to barbecue, change is accursed. Speed is anathema. Barbecue is stalwart. Barbecue is slow. More descriptively, barbecue, as savored in the South, is usually pork that has been smoked over a hardwood-stoked pit for hours, sometimes days at a time, before being doused with sauce and served alongside a variety of dishes like potato salad, cole slaw, and baked beans. Contrary to the contentions of our northern neighbors, barbecue is a noun, not a verb. Barbecue is the end result of a time-intensive marriage of smoke, meat, sweat and sauce.
We initiated this project to document Tennessee barbecue in 2002, our first foray into the field of oral history. We revisited many of these locations in 2008 in an effort to get more in-depth interviews and investigate any changes that might have occurred in the intervening years. Because even though barbecue is stalwart, it’s not impervious to change.
The second collection of oral histories is a part of the Tennessee leg of our Southern BBQ Trail, which we hope you will visit. But we also invite you to explore these original interviews to get a taste of the evolution of Tennessee ‘cue.