The two co-founders of The Smokesheet, BBQ Tourist and NYC BBQ, joined the Man Meat BBQ podcast to discuss their origin story with barbecue and also assemble their perfect plate of barbecue out of their favorite barbecue bites from across the US.
There is a little bit of cussing at the top, so be warned. Also be warned that the host Mike could have used a cough button. Still, a pretty good conversation between three barbecue enthusiasts.
Dan the Pig Man is a York, South Carolina-based caterer specializing in outdoor feasts (which just so happens to be the name of his catering company) such as whole hog barbecues, oyster roasts, and shrimp boils utilizing custom-welded grilling and smoking rigs. Check out this video from a recent trip to Tuscaloosa, AL from the Food and Stuff YouTube Channel.
The time we decided to drive to Tuscaloosa, #Alabama to hang out with Dan the Pig Man! We had a lot of fun and can’t wait to hangout again and grill some awesome eats!
Food writer Michael Twitty, writer behind The Cooking Gene, explores the origins of barbecue with Sporkful host Dan Pashman.
“They call [BBQ] suya in West Africa,” Michael says. “Suya, dibi, and piri piri are all little parts of what we would consider the barbecuing system in the [American] south.”
Then, in a kind of part 2 from last week’s podcast from Gravy, Pashman heads to the south side of Chicago to explore how that barbecue tradition migrated during the Great Migration out of the American South in the mid 1900’s. There, he speaks with Gary Kennebrew of Uncle John’s BBQ, who still identifies as being southern.
In fact, Garry is originally from Alabama, and he moved to Chicago with his family, when he was nine.
“Alabama will always be my home,” Garry says. “[But] I have grown to like Chicago.”
For more on the Sporkful, check out their previous episodes here. We previously featured a podcast from them on a pitmaster from Centerville, TN who moonlights as a preacher on Sundays.
Chicago barbecue is a less heralded style of barbecue that has origins in the American South but is only found in the southside of Chicago. Primarily rib tips (a remnants of a St. Louis cut rib) and sausage links, they are smoked in a steel and glass “aquarium” smoker that allows for year-round smoking in the harsh Chicago winters. I’ll link to another podcast next week with more on this style of barbecue but for now, here’s a short podcast from the Southern Foodways Alliance’s Gravy podcast.
Barbecue purists from the Carolinas to Texas might balk at the notion that Chicago, Illinois, has a barbecue tradition all its own. But owing to the Great Migration, and to a special piece of equipment called the aquarium smoker, reporter-producer Ambriehl Crutchfield finds that Chicago barbecue has evolved into a style unto itself.