Adrian Miller, Author and Historian - Encore
This episode of Barbecue Nation features a profound exploration of the historical and cultural significance of barbecue, particularly as it pertains to African American culinary traditions. We engage in an enlightening dialogue with Adrian Miller, a distinguished scholar and author renowned for his works on soul food and barbecue history. The discussion highlights how African Americans have historically served as pivotal figures in the evolution of barbecue throughout the United States, influencing regional styles and flavors. Moreover, we delve into the complexities and nuances of barbecue's origins, challenging preconceived notions and emphasizing the contributions of various cultural groups. As we commemorate Black History Month, this episode serves as a vital reminder of the rich tapestry of influences that shape American cuisine and the importance of recognizing these contributions.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Weston Kia
- Heritage Steel
- Kia
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
It's time for Barbecue Nation with jt.
Speaker A:So fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.
Speaker A:Now from the Turn It Go Burn it studios in Portland.
Speaker A:Here's jt.
Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker B:Hey, everybody.
Speaker B:Welcome to Barbecue Nation, or as we like to refer to it, the Nation.
Speaker B:Ijt, along with my co conspirator at Barbecue hall of famer, Ms. Leanne Whippen.
Speaker B:And Dave and Chris and Sam, they're running around in the background somewhere.
Speaker B:We'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker B:Beef the way way nature intended.
Speaker B:And this happens to be the week of Valentine's Day.
Speaker B:And so if you check out Leanne's social media, you will see her where she did some Painted Hills.
Speaker C:I was just editing that.
Speaker C:Yes, I will post it later tonight.
Speaker B:Yeah, and so she couldn't do it
Speaker C:on Valentine's Day, but I thought, you know, what if somebody needs an idea or something, they can get it the day before.
Speaker C:So I need to.
Speaker D:Yeah, they need a heads up.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So she.
Speaker B:She handled that beautifully, as usual.
Speaker B:And our guest today is a return offender here, Adrian Miller and social media, you know him as the soul food.
Speaker B:Soul food scholar.
Speaker B:Excuse me, but he's an author, of course.
Speaker B:The President's Kitchen Cabinet.
Speaker B:Soul Food.
Speaker B:And then the last book he did, Black Smoke.
Speaker B:Great book, by the way.
Speaker C:Amazing, amazing, great.
Speaker D:Thank you all.
Speaker D:I really appreciate that.
Speaker B:Yeah, like I said, part of your fame is due to the show, so, you know, it's all good, man.
Speaker B:It's all good.
Speaker B:So have you been.
Speaker D:I've been good.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Black Smoke's getting a lot of love still.
Speaker D:And so it's Black History Month now, so I'm doing a lot of virtual and traveling gigs, and I love travel, so that's very, very cool.
Speaker D:And.
Speaker D:Yeah, just enjoying the ride, trying to milk it while I can.
Speaker D:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker B:I get it.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's smart.
Speaker C:Well, you're in Deb.
Speaker C:Denver.
Speaker C:Correct.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Which loses me all street cred on the subject of barbecue and soul food.
Speaker C:Yeah, I hear it.
Speaker C:I'm from Jersey and I get the same thing.
Speaker C:But you're probably traveling to get out of the.
Speaker C:The snow state, right?
Speaker D:Yeah, snow and cold.
Speaker D:It's been bitterly cold of late.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, Adrian does have a very important announcement.
Speaker B:He just told us off the air that Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer tastes pretty good smoked.
Speaker B:Follow that one up, buddy.
Speaker C:You know, I'm curious.
Speaker C:What would you compare it to?
Speaker C:Like, what type of meat do you think it's kind of tastes like if any.
Speaker D:So the only other kind of venison that I've had is elk.
Speaker D:It reminded me of elk.
Speaker D:I haven't really had a lot of different types of venison, but that's what it reminded me of.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:And I guess then the closest thing, like maybe, you know, beef in a certain sort of way, but yeah, it really reminded me of elk, if you've ever had elk.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:Well, reindeer are part of the deer family, right?
Speaker D:That's what I would.
Speaker C:Yeah, I would assume so.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:So I was in Norway as a guest of the U.S. state Department and the.
Speaker D:The U.S. embassy in Oslo and they arranged for a restaurant in the Arctic Circle to host me for a soul food dinner.
Speaker D:And so, you know, a lot of soul food stuff they couldn't source.
Speaker D:And so they had the venison and it was, it was just slamming.
Speaker D:I wanted to see the northern lights, though, but it was overcast the whole time, so.
Speaker C:That's too bad.
Speaker C:Yeah, I've heard it's.
Speaker B:They are.
Speaker B:Once you see them, you'll.
Speaker B:You'll never forget.
Speaker B:I got a chance to go to Alaska a couple times and a little further north up into Canada and saw them and I was like, wow, no wonder they write songs about this stuff.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker D:Well, thanks for rubbing it in, Jeff,
Speaker B:but yeah, no problem.
Speaker D:I'm here to help, Peter.
Speaker B:I'm here to help buddy.
Speaker B:So since you, you know, since you wrote Black Smoke, how have things changed for you?
Speaker B:It's such a dynamic book that, I mean, I've read it, I've gone back to it several times and looked up things and that, and like you said, it's Black History Month.
Speaker B:But I wanted to know.
Speaker B:You put that out there.
Speaker B:And before that there had been some history written on black barbecue.
Speaker B:Robert Moss had done a thing and this and that, but yours was pretty right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:So, man, it's been a great ride.
Speaker D:So when I put that book out, I honestly didn't know what the reaction was going to be.
Speaker D:I thought I was going to get a lot more haterade than I actually ended up getting.
Speaker D:And you know, there were two sources of critique.
Speaker D:So some.
Speaker D:One source of their critique is, hey, look, barbecue is not unique to the Americas or to black people because that kind of cooking has existed for thousands of years.
Speaker D:And I said, okay, well, people don't start talking about barbecue until Europeans go to the Americas.
Speaker D: at by the time you get to the: Speaker D:So, you know, when people read my books, I have a lot in the bibliography and a lot of endnotes because I gotta show the receipts.
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker D:Cause I know I'm saying things that people haven't heard before.
Speaker D:And then the other interesting critique is I got that because I argue that barbecue is Native American in its foundation.
Speaker D:And then later Europeans and Africans put stuff in the mix and it puts us on the road to Southern barbecue.
Speaker D:So I got criticism from people saying everything's from Africa and that, you know, I messed up by not saying that in my book.
Speaker D:And look, I really wanted to prove that barbecue was West African in origins and say Wakanda forever.
Speaker D:But I'm a guy who's bound by the facts, and the evidence really points to Native American foundation.
Speaker D:Somebody may come along later and lead to something else.
Speaker D:But I'm just looking at the sources that I looked at.
Speaker D:It's pretty clear that it's Native Americans foundation.
Speaker D:So I see that the book has started a conversation.
Speaker D:And my book is not the cause of this, but post book, I'm seeing more African Americans get opportunities on TV shows, magazines, newspapers, and getting cookbook deals with barbecue.
Speaker D:And that's a good thing because there was a man.
Speaker D:It was dry for like 30 years in terms of coverage.
Speaker D:And so now I'm glad that more African Americans are being included in barbecue storytelling.
Speaker B:Would we be in the same spot today, the same evolvement of barbecue without the black influence?
Speaker D:I just don't think so.
Speaker D:I think barbecue, well, let me say this.
Speaker D:Barbecue, the way it was developing, it probably would have been similar.
Speaker D:I just think the flavor profile might have been different.
Speaker D:But, you know, 200 years ago, everybody was doing under the umbrella of barbecue.
Speaker D:Everybody was doing whole animal cooking.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker D:So I just think that probably would have developed the same way, because later, by the time you get to the 20th century, you have certainly several white men involved in barbecue, although a lot of them relied on the black labor force.
Speaker D:But barbecue was kind of a set thing.
Speaker D:I think what probably would have been different is the way when barbecue moves from a rural context to an urban context, that we started to get these spin offs of regional styles.
Speaker D:I think without the involvement of black people in those regional styles, I think barbecue would be different because I think there were some things that just lent themselves to a black aesthetic and flavor profile.
Speaker D:So different.
Speaker B:Would that be.
Speaker B:When you say something different, would that be Adrian, like more of a Carolina or a Texas or, you know.
Speaker D:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker D:I'm sorry, I didn't Mean to interrupt.
Speaker B:No, no, that's fine.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:You pick it up from there.
Speaker D:Oh, no, man.
Speaker D:I think you picked the right styles.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Because that east North Carolina style, that's early barbecue, whole hog cooking.
Speaker D:We see it up in South Carolina.
Speaker D:Well, so I think that would have had a lot of cultural momentum.
Speaker D:And then I know people are going to get mad at me, so I'm ready for the heat and the smoke.
Speaker D:But me, what we say is barbecue in Texas is not really barbecue.
Speaker D:It's.
Speaker D:It's smoking because it's not cooking over the direct heat source.
Speaker D:Whole animal cooking that we knew for centuries.
Speaker D:But barbecue is a very, you know, expanded term right now.
Speaker D:And so there's a lot of things under the umbrella of barbecue.
Speaker D:Now, certainly, I would not show up in Texas and say, hey, y' all aren't doing barbecue.
Speaker C:That bell can't be brave error.
Speaker C:Yeah, I, I, I.
Speaker C:And I would not go with you
Speaker D:because you valued your life.
Speaker D:Right?
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker D:So, but, but that's smoking, right?
Speaker D:So that, but I think that would have developed well because we know that a lot of Texas barbecue, especially, especially central Texas, is an inheritance that the Central European immigrants brought with them when they settled in that area.
Speaker D:So I, I'm thinking more of like, the ribs, you know, the turkey tips, the sausages, like the coarsely ground spicy sausages.
Speaker D:I think of those in the African American aesthetic.
Speaker D:So, yeah, I just think it would have been a little bit different.
Speaker B:So here's another question along those lines, and this is a little bit off of what we were talking about.
Speaker B:Do you think that, like, in Cajun country and, you know, there were a lot of blacks brought into Louisiana for the wrong reasons and all that.
Speaker B:We don't have to go on that.
Speaker B:But would that still have the.
Speaker B:Also the French influence, if you will, of the Cajuns in that, without the African Americans involvement?
Speaker D:Yeah, I definitely see the French influence, you know, being dominant.
Speaker D:But I will tell you this.
Speaker D:I know, I know several black Cajuns, and so.
Speaker D:And that surprised me because I always thought of Cajuns as being the immigrants from northern Canada that came down like a very distinct group.
Speaker D:But I know several black people that identify themselves as Cajun.
Speaker D:So I think there's probably more influence and sharing, cultural sharing that was going on than we might know of, and that shows up in that cooking.
Speaker D:So I think there's definitely.
Speaker D:It would have been slightly different if you didn't have black people in the mix.
Speaker D:But I think there's an added dimension to it that I think is maybe underappreciated.
Speaker D:And I certainly need to know more about it because when I think about Louisiana cooking and black cooks, I always gravitate to New Orleans.
Speaker D:Right, right.
Speaker D:And real cooking, the city cooking.
Speaker D:And I just haven't spent enough time examining what's going on in the country.
Speaker C:In your research, did you have
Speaker D:a
Speaker C:moment where you went, oh, my gosh, this is a totally, you know, surprise to me.
Speaker C:I did not know this.
Speaker C:Did you have a couple stand moments that you discovered?
Speaker D:Yeah, the biggest one was just the Native American foundation.
Speaker D:And, you know, thinking back on it, it's kind of a duh moment.
Speaker D:But I didn't know a lot about the early history of what Native Americans went through.
Speaker D:So I didn't know that there were Native Americans who were enslaved.
Speaker D:I just didn't know that before the transition to African slavery.
Speaker D:So that that early, early history of barbecue and kind of the early interactions between Europeans and Native Americans was a huge learning curve for me because I just never learned that in school or in college.
Speaker D:And so to look at the culinary techniques and all that kind of stuff, that was a huge moment.
Speaker D:And then the other big moment for me was just this transition of barbecue from a rural context to an urban context and, you know, another dumb moment.
Speaker D:But these, the emphasis on smaller cuts of meat.
Speaker B:We're going to take a break.
Speaker B:We're going to be back with Adrian Miller, the soul food scholar.
Speaker B:I'll tell you his books in reverse order.
Speaker B:Black Smoke, Soul Food and the President's Kitchen Cabinet.
Speaker B:Leanne and I and Adrian will be right back.
Speaker B:Please stay with us.
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Speaker B:Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here.
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Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation here on USA Radio Networks and all the podcast platforms you could possibly dream of.
Speaker B:I'm JT along with Ms. Leanne Weapon, hall of Famer and we are very pleased to have Adrian Miller as our guest today.
Speaker B:If you've not read his.
Speaker B:Any of his books, but especially Black Smoke, I highly recommend it.
Speaker B:It's historical and factual, and I will say that Adrian isn't a recovering attorney, so he's got that going for him there, too.
Speaker B:Out of all the three books you've written and all the different speeches and articles and all kinds of stuff, Adrian, what's the one thing that sticks out the most in your mind?
Speaker B:That is, I don't want to say barrier breaking, but as we said in the first segment, you had a few aha moments, or duh moments, as you call them, and there had to be something there that you just went.
Speaker B:It's kind of a follow up to Leanne's question in the last segment.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:I had no idea.
Speaker D:So I think it's just the sheer dominance of African American cooks over a long time in our nation's history, dominating private home cooking, restaurant cooking, barbecue, White house cooking, all of these things.
Speaker D:I just had no idea.
Speaker D:Because today, you know, we celebrate chefs and cooks.
Speaker D:It's almost like celebrity status.
Speaker D:But for a lot of people, cooking was connected to servitude, and that's why African Americans were doing it, because it was low and it was servitude.
Speaker D:So one great example is the black chefs in the White House that I wrote a book about.
Speaker D:Every president has had an African American cooking for them in some capacity, whether in the presidential kitchen.
Speaker D:When the president traveled by train, boat, Air Force One now, or when the president would go someplace and stay there for a long period of time, people would loan their black cooks to the president just to ingratiate themselves with the first family.
Speaker D:So, you know, it was stuff like that.
Speaker D:And then just the excellence that they, you know, they exhibited even under difficult circumstances.
Speaker D:Many times they were enslaved.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:They wanted.
Speaker D:They would rather be free than cooking for somebody.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker D:That just wasn't happening.
Speaker D:And so under those circumstances, they excelled.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker D:But it's just the sheer number of African Americans that contributed to American cuisine.
Speaker D:I don't know if we'll ever have a true sense of the contributions because they were so massive.
Speaker D:And I think the only corollary I can think of now is today, I would say, at least in professional kitchens, you know, like restaurants and stuff, Latinos, I mean, on every, you know, dominate the restaurant sector as cooks on the back of the house.
Speaker D:That was African Americans 100 years ago.
Speaker B:I find it interesting because if, you know, you know, US History, some of it, of course, I'M I live out west and always had that kind of interest in things.
Speaker B:But if you look at the original, you know, there was, there was a black man that, that came across with Lewis and Clark.
Speaker B:There were other guys like that that, you know, the, the true frontier guys and kept traveling and had their influence.
Speaker B:And then of course, after the Civil War, people started migrating around and then all of a sudden barbecue started showing up in St. Louis and Kansas City and even out here in Oregon.
Speaker B:Even though Oregon was.
Speaker B:Everybody thinks of it as this right now as kind of this liberal icon state.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It wasn't for a long time.
Speaker B:We actually had stuff in our state constitution that banned black people up until not that long ago.
Speaker B:But if you went to some of the real original barbecue joints in the Portland area, in Eugene, and that they were all owned by black people and they were what you think of as a barbecue joint or a shack, you know, they weren't that big, but it wasn't like you went and got some prepackaged crap out of Safeway and that was supposed to be barbecue.
Speaker B:This was the real deal with recipes that had been passed down from through generations.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it's really interesting to see the, the migration of the black influence across the country.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:So that's what I wrote in Black Smoke.
Speaker D:I said, you know, African Americans were barbecue's most effective ambassadors in the years after the Civil War.
Speaker D:And I would say well into the 20th century, you know, African Americans, because so many were pressed into making barbecue while enslaved, emerged after emancipation with this very marketable skill that was very lucrative and they could negotiate on their own terms.
Speaker D:And so you had a bunch of these cooks, men and women, put on stagecoaches, boats and trains out of the south to give people, other people outside the South, a taste of real barbecue.
Speaker D:And in many situations, they got to the new place and they like, oh man, this is a better situation than what I got back south.
Speaker D:So I'm just going to stay here.
Speaker D:They kick started the barbecue scenes of a lot of places.
Speaker D:And I would say for a long time, certainly not now, but for a long time, I think people would, it would be fair to say that a lot of people got their first taste of barbecue made that was made by an African American.
Speaker D:That was their first taste.
Speaker D:And I think what was interesting in the south, unlike soul food, you would have white people go into the black part of town for barbecue.
Speaker D:I think it's because of that specialized skill and also just the reputation that African Americans had for making barbecue.
Speaker D:It wasn't really the case with soul food, but it was definitely the case with barbecue.
Speaker B:We've had a.
Speaker B:We met him, a guy named Udell Watts.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And they've got quite a story about his, what, four time removed grandfather or something, because he's number four and his son is number five, if I can remember.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:But that was a really fascinating story about his, let's just say his grandfather, for lack of the 5x or whatever, you know, in Illinois.
Speaker B:I know Leanne and I spent some time talking to him down there.
Speaker B:And his grandfather got to the point where they were hiring him for big civic events and built these huge pits, earthen pits like that, and they'd throw a grate over it and they'd get to doing it.
Speaker B:And he kind of wrote his own ticket for a lot of them.
Speaker D: cross the country in the late: Speaker D:And they were quite busy in those years, like several decades.
Speaker D:Quite, quite busy.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, we're talking with Adrian Miller here.
Speaker B:If you haven't read any of Adrian's books, I can recommend all of them, although I think black smoke, just because of what we do, is, you know, is the one there.
Speaker B:But really interesting history and all of that.
Speaker B:We are going to take a break.
Speaker B:We're going to be back with Adrian on the show with Ms. Leanne and me right after this.
Speaker B:Please stay with us.
Speaker B:Hey, everybody, it's JT And I have eaten.
Speaker B:If you've ever looked at me, you know that.
Speaker B:But I have eaten seafood all over the world, and I can tell you there's no place better than here in Oregon and our Dungeness crab.
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Speaker B:Check it out.
Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation here on USA Radio Networks.
Speaker B:I'm JT along with hall of famer Leanne Whippen.
Speaker B:We've got Adrian Miller with us today.
Speaker B:We'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker B:Beef the way nature intended, and you can be proud to serve your family and friends.
Speaker B:You can find out more online@panethillsnaturalbeef.com and also pig powder Y Leanne.
Speaker C:Yay.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Trim tab.
Speaker B:That was.
Speaker B:Her dad developed pig powder dry rub a couple weeks ago and.
Speaker C:No, he actually did it in the 70s.
Speaker B:That's why I said a couple weeks ago.
Speaker C:Oh, okay.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But it was voted best rub on the planet at one time.
Speaker B:He's used by winning pit masters for over 30 years now.
Speaker B:40 years now, I guess, almost.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:You go to pigpowder.com you'll probably get an actual response from Ms. Leanne if you, if you do that.
Speaker B:Her and her sister are now running the company and it's really good stuff.
Speaker B:I can recommend it.
Speaker B:She was kind enough to send me a couple of jars and I've used it a lot.
Speaker B:In fact, I used it yesterday.
Speaker B:I did a little tri tip and then I had some little sausages in a sauce and I used it in there.
Speaker C:That's very good.
Speaker B:So pig powder dot com.
Speaker B:All right, let's get back to talk some more with Adrian Miller.
Speaker B:How are your barbecue skills, Adrian?
Speaker D:So my barbecue skills are wanting in this sense.
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker D:I'm pretty slamming when it comes to ribs, but I need some schooling on the other things.
Speaker D:And the other thing that is challenging, that's arrested my barbecue development is that I live in a high rise and the Denver code will only allow me to cook with the propane tank, you know, one of those thin ones.
Speaker D:And I'm sorry, I'm just not going to do that to you as a guest in my home.
Speaker D:So I pretty much only cook on holidays over at my dad's place, and he has a double drum oil drum smoker, and so that's what I cook on.
Speaker D:But that's just too episodic.
Speaker D:So I need to get in a groove.
Speaker D:You know, I need to go to one of those intensive, you know, week long or several days long barbecue universities.
Speaker D:And then I need to get a set up where I can have regular access to a barbecue thing so I can get my skills up.
Speaker D:Because, you know, most of the questions I get on the book trail are about cooking and not my book.
Speaker D:Isn't that something I need to raise my game?
Speaker C:Well, Denver, you have to deal with the altitude issues in cooking there, too.
Speaker D:Yeah, altitude, cold.
Speaker C:Yeah, lots of those.
Speaker B:Bad food.
Speaker C:I think you should move.
Speaker C:You can move.
Speaker D:I think you like just looking to make better barbecue.
Speaker C:Yeah, I mean, why not?
Speaker B:If you make better barbecue, Adrian, the Broncos will do better, I promise you.
Speaker B:Yeah, maybe.
Speaker D:See, Leanne is speaking as someone who's not spent a lot of Time in Denver.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Because if you came to Denver and Colorado, you'd be like, okay, I know why you live here.
Speaker C:So I lived in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, for a minute, but it was about a year.
Speaker C:Yeah, I lived in Highlands Ranch and I worked for the.
Speaker C:The Hilton.
Speaker C:Is it the Hilton?
Speaker C:No, it was.
Speaker C:Yeah, it was.
Speaker C:It was the Hyatt.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Downtown.
Speaker C:I work.
Speaker D:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:I was director of catering because I.
Speaker C:That was prior to barbecue.
Speaker C:I was.
Speaker C:There was an overlap, so I was into the hotel scene.
Speaker C:And, you know, it was quite beautiful.
Speaker C:You wake up, you see the mountains and that sort of thing and snow.
Speaker C:I didn't care for downtown Denver at the time.
Speaker C:It was kind of.
Speaker C:I don't know, it was a little ugly and I don't know, it was.
Speaker C:I came from Jersey, so it was a big change for me.
Speaker C:But, yeah, I was there a year.
Speaker C:And I will say I did enjoy the year that I was there, but I probably wouldn't have stayed a long time.
Speaker D:Okay, well, hush my mouth.
Speaker D:I didn't know you had that experience.
Speaker B:I did.
Speaker B:I didn't either.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:And see, she's just holding out.
Speaker D:She's just.
Speaker B:I know she's got all these secrets, and I have to pry one out of her.
Speaker B:Adrian, every once in a while, everyone talk.
Speaker D:We just got one.
Speaker D:We just got a gym.
Speaker B:Yeah, we did.
Speaker B:When you go out and you're on the.
Speaker B:On the book tours, so to speak, on the circuit out there, is anybody ever come up to you and say, look, I cook this at home.
Speaker B:You want to try it and show it?
Speaker D:No one.
Speaker D:No one has ever done that.
Speaker D:I would crack me up if something.
Speaker C:You know what, though?
Speaker C:You do have recipes in your book, and I remember you did a book signing slash event here in Florida, and we took those recipes and I remember smoking the meat and making sauces and what have you, and out of your book, and they were delicious.
Speaker C:So I disagree with you that you can't really cook because your recipes are, you know, delicious.
Speaker C:I must say.
Speaker D:Well, thank you.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:But no one's ever showed up with already cooked meat and said, hey, try this.
Speaker D:There's always you.
Speaker C:I've had people say, here's my sauce.
Speaker C:What do you think?
Speaker C:I haven't had.
Speaker C:I've had meat maybe a handful of times.
Speaker C:It's mostly sauces that people want me to try their sauces.
Speaker D:I have had sauces mailed to me and people like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:And see, I want your opinion.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:And I've got so many sauces.
Speaker D:People are, you know, they send Me a sauce.
Speaker D:And then three days later, what do you think?
Speaker D:I'm like, man, do you know how deep you are in the rotation?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:You know, just saying there's so many sauces that it's just hard to get to all of them.
Speaker C:And you know what?
Speaker C:To appreciate it, you really do need to put it on some meat instead of just tasting it right out of the bottle because, you know, the flavors change and it complements certain meats and what have you.
Speaker C:So it's hard to critique everything that gets sent in.
Speaker C:So, yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker B:I appreciate that, sending it to me.
Speaker B:But I told this story last week, and not to be redundant, but at Christmas time this year, I went through and grabbed all the rubs and sauces that I hadn't used that were, you know, in the back of the cupboard, so to speak, and I gave them to a friend of mine who I know will actually give them the proper time to.
Speaker B:He doesn't produce radio and TV stuff, though.
Speaker B:You know, he like that.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker D:You are a really good friend.
Speaker D:I just want to say that.
Speaker B:I did.
Speaker C:Are you.
Speaker C:I'm sorry to interrupt.
Speaker C:I just.
Speaker C:I. I have to ask, are you working on another book?
Speaker D:Oh, my publicist, Leanne.
Speaker D:Yes, I am.
Speaker D:So my next book is going to be on the history of black street vendors.
Speaker C:Oh.
Speaker D:I'm going to show how they shape the food of New Orleans.
Speaker D:Charleston, Savannah, D.C. new York, Chicago.
Speaker D:And I'm going to show how they represented Africa and the way they dressed, the way they carried the food on the top of their heads, the way they used their voices as musical instruments.
Speaker D:There are several music scholars who believe that the street cries of these black street vendors were the early roots of blues in jazz.
Speaker D:So I'm going to show that through line and just show the West African ingredients and kind of technique they introduced with foods.
Speaker D:And then here's the really cool thing.
Speaker D: Between: Speaker D:And I have them.
Speaker D:So I'm hoping to get a book deal where I can put out the book and have a compilation of the street tries.
Speaker D: ould know what it was like in: Speaker D:And this is all part of my grand scheme to make it to the Grammys, because there's a historical record category, and I want to get nominated before they eliminate the category for lack of Entries.
Speaker D:So that's my grand, grand plan.
Speaker C:Maybe Rihanna is available.
Speaker C:She's.
Speaker C:She's pregnant with her second child, so maybe she has some downtime and she'll do a few for you.
Speaker B:I was gonna say he should hire you.
Speaker C:Me?
Speaker D:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:You're absolutely not.
Speaker C:That.
Speaker C:That will definitely not put you in the Grammy nominated category.
Speaker C:What?
Speaker C:Weren't your book nominated?
Speaker C:James Beard.
Speaker C:Didn't you.
Speaker D:Yeah, so my Soul Food book was nominated in one.
Speaker D:My Black Smoke was nominated in one.
Speaker D:And then the President's book was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and didn't win.
Speaker D:But I got closer to a lifelong goal.
Speaker D:I always wanted to meet the actress Halle Berry and she presenters the year that I was nominated.
Speaker D:So the goal, the progress that I made is that we were in the same building at the same time.
Speaker C:There you go.
Speaker B:Did you get to see her?
Speaker D:I did get to see her, and actually we made eye contact, and she stumbled over her words while we made eye contact.
Speaker D:But I was sitting way up in the balcony, so.
Speaker C:Well, that's cool.
Speaker B:I like that she stumbled over her words.
Speaker C:Well, so Adrian travels a lot, and I must say, if he's in your neck of the woods, you really need to go see him, listen to what he has to say.
Speaker C:His presentations are remarkable, and it really is a learning lesson because some people might not take the time to pick up a book and read it, or they'll just read certain sections of it, but it really.
Speaker C:I mean, when I met you, I was awestruck, to tell you the truth, and I still am.
Speaker C:But I was just.
Speaker C:It was one of the greatest presentations, and just overall experiences, just, you know, everything that you had to say.
Speaker C:So I would highly recommend.
Speaker D:Oh, that is so cool.
Speaker D:Thanks for the love.
Speaker D:I really appreciate it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:How in the world did you go from working in a White House to being a barbecue writer, among other topics?
Speaker B:I know you there.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:So the short answer is unemployment.
Speaker D:So the longer answer is.
Speaker D:So I just finished.
Speaker D:I had just finished my stint in the Clinton White House, and I was actually trying to get back to Colorado because I wanted to be in politics.
Speaker D:I wanted to be one of the senators representing Colorado.
Speaker D:So I was trying to get back to Colorado and start my political career, but the job market was really slow.
Speaker D:I was watching a lot of daytime television, and in the depth of my depravity, I said, you know, I should read something.
Speaker D:So I went to the bookstore and I got this book on the history of Southern food by a guy named John Edgerton.
Speaker D:And he wrote in that book he wrote that the tribute to black cooks in America has yet to be written.
Speaker D:And so that got me interested in just learning all I could about African American food traditions and then soul food, barbecue.
Speaker D:I got connected through that.
Speaker D:What started is just that one sentence in that one book.
Speaker B:Had you had some experience in barbecue at home with your father?
Speaker B:You were telling us about the.
Speaker B:The smoker he has.
Speaker B:I mean, was that a common thing growing up?
Speaker D:Yeah, but, you know, for us, barbecue was more about holidays.
Speaker D:So it was really just Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day that we will have barbecue.
Speaker D:And my mother, my late mother, Johnnetta Miller, was actually the griller in chief in my family.
Speaker D:So she was the one that was kind of working the grill, but we really only did that.
Speaker D:And I just don't have a lot of memories of even going out to eat barbecue at a restaurant.
Speaker D:Yeah, it was really just home.
Speaker D:It was home cooking.
Speaker C:Were you raised in Denver then or.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Well, that's why, you know, you weren't.
Speaker C:Yeah, it wasn't like, you know, growing up in Missouri or something.
Speaker C:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker B:That's true.
Speaker B:We're gonna take one more break and we're gonna be back and wrap up the regular show with Adrian Miller, the soul food scholar.
Speaker B:I love that name.
Speaker B:But we're gonna be right back.
Speaker B:Stay with us.
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Speaker B:Hey, everybody, J.T.
Speaker B:here.
Speaker B:I want to tell you about the Hammerstahl knives.
Speaker B:Hammerstahl combines German steel with beautiful and functioning designs.
Speaker B:They're part of the Heritage Steel group, which also does their pots and pans.
Speaker B:So go to heritagesteel us.
Speaker B:Check out the Hammer Stahl knives.
Speaker B:If you're really into cooking, I think you're really gonna like them.
Speaker B:This is an UN core.
Speaker B:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker B:We're fortunate to have Adrian Miller with us.
Speaker B:I believe Christmas Chris Sussman, if I say Chris's name right, will be up with us here next week or the week after.
Speaker B:I have to look at the schedule and Adrian is going to stick around for the abuse in after hours.
Speaker B:So we appreciate that.
Speaker B:And if you want to contact us, it's really simple.
Speaker B:Just call Leanne.
Speaker B:No you can go to barbecue nation jt.com and there's a drop down menu there and you can send us a note and we will respond.
Speaker B:I give you my word on that.
Speaker B:We will respond.
Speaker B:But we're talking with Adrian Miller here.
Speaker B:You've had a very accomplished professional career, Adrian.
Speaker B:I mean, not just from working in the White House, but as an author, an in depth researcher and all that.
Speaker B:Were there ever times when you started out on this journey as far as writing that you went, man, I don't know if I'm doing the right thing?
Speaker D:Oh yeah.
Speaker D:I mean, the first couple of years, because, you know, I was getting all this information.
Speaker D:I'd never written a book before and I just didn't know it would dig it.
Speaker D:And I got.
Speaker D:I got quite a few negative reactions when I started this journey.
Speaker D:People were just saying, oh, you went to Stanford.
Speaker D:Why are you focused on soul food?
Speaker D:And other people were just like, why write about soul food?
Speaker D:That is the white man's garbage.
Speaker D:That's the stuff they didn't want.
Speaker D:Why are you celebrating that?
Speaker D:That's slave food as poverty food.
Speaker D:So I got a lot of negative messages about it.
Speaker D:But I persevered and you know, because I just wanted to celebrate this cuisine and I wanted to sort out fact and fiction about those things.
Speaker D:And I'm proud to say that it's a much more complicated story.
Speaker D:I mean, you know, let's just take for example, chitlins, right?
Speaker D:There's this most pervasive belief that chitlins were just created for black people to eat as slaves.
Speaker D:And there are plenty of white people who eat chitlins.
Speaker D:Every year in South Carolina there is a chitlin festival, you know, the Chitlin Strut, I think they call it, organized by whites and Sally, South Carolina, and thousands of people go to it.
Speaker D:So there are a lot of people eat guts around the world.
Speaker D:So I wanted to demystify a lot of that stuff.
Speaker D:Yeah, I have it on good information that you can smell the Festival at the 35 mile marker as you're driving.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:I. I can believe that.
Speaker B:I can believe that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Out of your critics have you found, and maybe you don't know because they usually come in forms of emails or social media postings or something in that.
Speaker B:Or has.
Speaker B:Have your critics been mostly white or black or chefs or what have they been?
Speaker D:Yeah, so most of my critics have been black, actually.
Speaker D:Really surprised me.
Speaker D:I really thought I was going to get more criticism from whites.
Speaker D:But the criticism has been something I mentioned earlier.
Speaker D:So there are several Black people who are in the food space, West African in origin.
Speaker D:And my thing is I wanted to prove that definitively because I thought that would be a great thing to celebrate.
Speaker D:But if you look at this, just the history and what's written, and again, I'm relying on written sources, but even if you go by oral histories and other things, there's just no evidence that this type of cooking existed in Africa and this, and nobody talks about this in Africa or Europe until they encounter the Americas and the indigenous people living there and seeing the way that they cook.
Speaker D:So I'm getting, so I'm getting, I'm getting criticism about that.
Speaker D:And that's the main source of criticism.
Speaker D:Other than that, you know, it's just people arguing me with me about their favorite regional barbecue.
Speaker D:So the typical fights that you have at barbecue.
Speaker B:So one last smart ass question from me, Adrian.
Speaker B:Why was, you know, the British had slaves too, and stuff, but they must have not let their indentured servants cook much because their food was still crappy, you know, for years.
Speaker B:I mean, you know, they boiled stuff, all that.
Speaker B:And, and like I said, that's a sarcastic smart ass question.
Speaker B:But I don't understand, if they had this wealth of knowledge before in front of them, why didn't they utilize it?
Speaker B:If you can find that out, find that answer.
Speaker B:Let me know.
Speaker B:Would you?
Speaker D:Yeah, I'll take a guess, which I think is a pretty educated guess.
Speaker D:You know, these, these people, people have strong notions about their food and with food, traditions of other people, you know, if you look down on those people, you're just not going to embrace them.
Speaker D:I mean, it's not, they're not worthy of you experimenting and trying it.
Speaker D:To me, as an inquisitive person, that's crazy and that's nuts.
Speaker D:And in much of the early American history, especially in the U.S. you know, these European settlers and the colonists, you know, they only ate the foods of indigenous people and other things because they had to, they couldn't grow wheat right away successfully, so they had to rely on the cornbreads and learn from the indigenous people on how to survive.
Speaker D:You know, some, some people were very close to going out, some of those early colonists before they turned to the food of the indigenous peoples.
Speaker D:So I just think it's.
Speaker D:People turn their nose up to other cultures and so they're just reluctant to experiment and try other people's food unless they have to do it to survive.
Speaker B:I always think it's funny when we do the Thanksgiving shows and we do a trivia thing about Thanksgiving and of course, the first Thanksgiving comes in there and there was no turkey involved.
Speaker B:And I would.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:For some reason, I just think that's hilarious.
Speaker B:I don't know my warp sense of humor or something, man.
Speaker B:But it's like, yeah, they had lobster and they had pheasant, and they had venison, and, you know, they had all this, but not a damn turkey on the plate.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker D:So the.
Speaker D:That whole food story, right.
Speaker D:When do people get to the point where they're open to foods from other cultures?
Speaker D:How does that get integrated in the food?
Speaker D:That.
Speaker D:That all fascinates me.
Speaker D:And, you know, soul food is very much.
Speaker D:And I would say barbecue is very much about that.
Speaker D:It's bringing together the traditions, the ingredients, and the techniques of Western Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
Speaker D:And they all play out in different ways, depending on what sub cuisine or cuisine you're talking about.
Speaker D:And I.
Speaker D:That just fascinates me because I think it tells the story of a people as well.
Speaker D:Yeah, I love that stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's all good.
Speaker B:You know, you said earlier that you needed to go to, like, a barbecue university or something.
Speaker B:You've got a person right across the screen from you there.
Speaker B:Not me.
Speaker B:You spent a week with her.
Speaker B:She could.
Speaker C:I'll help you a little bit.
Speaker B:A little bit.
Speaker D:Wait, do you actually have a barbecue university that you host?
Speaker C:I do not.
Speaker C:But I did just post on my website that I am teaching private and corporate classes for those who are interested.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Oh, okay.
Speaker C:Yeah, So I just.
Speaker C:I taught a class in Daytona, and I really enjoyed it.
Speaker C:I kind of stayed away from it because I was in the restaurant biz for a while, and I enjoyed it so much that I think I want to continue on the teaching track.
Speaker B:So how soon before are you thinking before your next book might come out?
Speaker D:Well, I'm hoping to get enough of a book deal that I can take some time with this one, because I really want to actually go and be in New Orleans and Savannah and these places for like a month or so.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker D:Because my previous books, I didn't have much of a.
Speaker D:What do you call it?
Speaker D:Events.
Speaker D:And so I usually was just doing short trips.
Speaker D:So I would be in a place for maybe two or three days, and you're just getting to know stuff, and then I'm rolling out.
Speaker D:So I would like to be in these communities for a little bit longer and just get more of the backstory of how you'd evolve there.
Speaker D:But, you know, I gotta wait.
Speaker D:I'm.
Speaker D:Right now I'm working on a sample chapter My agent's been waiting for it for a long time, so I need to turn that in.
Speaker D:And then we'll start shopping.
Speaker D:I know I'm bad.
Speaker D:Then we'll start shopping and hopefully get enough of a book deal that I can do that.
Speaker B:Adrian Miller.
Speaker B:You can find him@.
Speaker B:It's adrianmiller.com Adrian emiller.com.
Speaker D:okay, so e stands for excellent.
Speaker C:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker B:And you can find him on social media as the soulful soul food scholar.
Speaker B:Can't talk today either.
Speaker B:My God.
Speaker B:Anyway, here we go.
Speaker B:But Adrian's gonna stick around for after hours and.
Speaker B:But, buddy, thank you for taking the time to.
Speaker C:Yes, thank you.
Speaker C:It's a pleasure.
Speaker D:Oh, so good to be with you.
Speaker D:Thanks for the invitation.
Speaker B:No problem.
Speaker B:Anytime.
Speaker B:You are welcome on this show.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:We will be back next week.
Speaker B:Take care, everybody.
Speaker A:Barbecue nations produced by jtsd, LLC Productions in association with Envision Networks and Salem Media Group.
Speaker A:All rights reserved.
