This book was published under the MARCIE COHEN FERRIS AND WILLIAM R. FERRIS IMPRINT of the University of North Carolina Press.
2021 Adrian Miller
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Richard Hendel
Set in Chaparral and Publicity Gothic by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
Cover photograph courtesy of Andrew Thomas Lee, www.andrewthomaslee.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Miller, Adrian, author.
Title: Black smoke : African Americans and the United States of barbecue / Adrian Miller.
Description: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2021] | A Ferris and Ferris book. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020051252 | ISBN 9781469662800 (cloth) | ISBN 9781469662817 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: BarbecuingUnited States. | African American cooking. | African American cooks.
Classification: LCC TX840.B3 M529 2021 | DDC 641.7/60973dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020051252
The recipe for Spicy Grilled Kebabs (Dibi Hausa) Pierre Thiam. Reprinted by permission from YOLELE! Recipes from the Heart of Senegal by Pierre Thiam 2008 Lake Isle Press, Inc.
INTRODUCTION
KINDLING MY BARBECUE PASSION
If Black people ever had a national flag, it would be the Black Power fist holding a rib!As told to the late Barbecue Poet Jake Adam York by an anonymous African American man, circa 2012
Luke, youre going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.As told to Luke Skywalker by Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master, in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, 1983
Dude! You smell like bacon. I mean, like, reeeeaallly bad. Those words greeted me when I returned from lunch to the oppressively small office in the Colorado State Capitol that I shared with Leslie Herod, a fellow policy staffer for Governor Bill Ritter Jr. Herods rebuke dry-rubbed me the wrong way for several reasons. First, she was horribly imprecise. My perfumed state wasnt caused by bacon. It was from a barbecue meal that I had recently consumed at Boneys Smokehouse (known simply as Boneys)a Black-owned barbecue restaurant in downtown Denver. Second, I figured, that particular smell should be welcome in most social situations. Why call me out so vociferously? Third, I had to admit that she had a point. Unbeknown to Leslie, within precisely three hours from her olfactory observation, I desperately needed to smell clean. Why? I had a blind date with Barbara. At least, Ill call her Barbara because I like how it sounds like barbecue and I want to protect her privacy.
Im not going to lie. I panicked. All week long, I had anticipated my date with Barbara, and I felt that I was about to seriously mess things up. Given the nature of my job as a senior policy analyst for Governor Ritter, I didnt have enough time to go home, bathe, change clothes, return, and still get all of my work done. I also tried, to no avail, to find some Febreze or a similar deodorizer. All of those people in that big, old building, and I couldnt find one bottle. I felt that had no other choice. I called Barbara, made up an excuse, and asked if we could reschedule. I just didnt want her thinking that I had a hygiene problem. After all, it wasnt like we had been connected through www.bbqpeoplemeet.com. If, by chance, you think I should have gone ahead with the date, Im guessing that youve been either married, or single, for a very long time.
Though I was looking for Barbaras love, my love for barbecue was responsible for the fateful chain of events that began to unwind that very day. That morning, a longtime friend visiting from Washington, D.C., had called me and asked if I was free for lunch. I immediately thought about taking him to Boneys. It was close to the state capitol, and they serve a nice spread of Memphis-style barbecue. Two years earlier, Boneys enjoyed a fleeting moment of international attention when then vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden stopped by its small kiosk on Denvers 16th Street Mall. Biden was in town for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and with about a hundred admirers and press corps in tow, he ordered five pulled pork sandwiches and some lemonade. Presumably, the generous order was for his family back at the hotel.
In addition to the kiosk, Boneys owners ran a restaurant located several blocks south on the same pedestrian mall. Thats where my friend and I chatted and blissfully munched on the Smokehouse Samplera quarter pound each of beef brisket, pulled pork, spicy beef hot link sausage, sliced chicken breast, three succulent pork spareribs, four hickory-smoked, then flash-fried chicken wings, baked beans, coleslaw, collard greens, and house-made cornbread. I recall thinking that they were doing something with the pit, as a thin haze of smoke ascended and clung to the ceiling as we ate, adding to the atmosphere. My friend and I parted ways, and soon after I learned from Herod that I was sublimely, but not subtly, hickory smoked.
When I finally fessed up to Barbara a week later, she responded, Oh, I looooove the smell of bacon. Of course. Sounds like true love, right? Well, over the course of a few more dates, I noticed that I was doing most of the work to keep the relationship alive. I decided to pull back a little bit, just to see if she would reach out and let a brother know that shes thinking about him. Im pretty sure that shes playing hard to get because I havent heard from her in almost a decade. Now you see why I didnt begin this introduction by writing, Barbecue Is Love. For me, amorous matters tend to be complicated.
Shall I count the ways that my love for barbecue is the real, true thing? Whether its pork shoulder with outside brown from the Carolinas, rib tips, hot links, and fries from the South Side of Chicago, burnt ends and pork spareribs from Kansas City, pork steaks in Kentucky, coleslaw-topped pork sandwiches and barbecue spaghetti in Memphis, snoots (pig snouts) and turkey ribs in St. Louis, or brisket, boudain (a variant spelling of boudin, a Louisiana meat and rice sausage), chopped beef, and hot links in Texas, Id eat some version of barbecue every day if werent for some predictable health consequences. Looking back on it, I see that my barbecue life was shaped by a collection of pivotal moments, including that special blind date.
I pause now to share something that usually loses me all street cred on the subject of barbecue: I was born in Denver, Colorado, and raised in one of its suburbs. Wait! Let me win you back. My parents, Hyman and Johnetta Miller, are southerners, born respectively in Helena, Arkansas, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. They made barbecue for our family every Memorial Day, July Fourth, and Labor Day holiday. As a teenager, my first full-time job was at Luthers BBQa national chain that had a restaurant in Aurora, one of Denvers eastern suburbs. I was a busboy and dishwasher, so I was never involved in the barbecue side of the operation, but that didnt stop me from coming home smelling like smoke. Hmmm, Im beginning to sense a pattern here. Unfortunately, Luthers burned down in the 1990s, a fate too common for such enterprises.
