https://soundcloud.com/user-994591363/ep-42-john-t-edge
Southern Foodways Alliance Director and author of the recently-released “The Potlikker Papers” John T. Edge recently stopped by The Winnow podcast to discuss all things southern food with Hannah Raskin and Robert Moss. There’s really only a passing mention of barbecue, but the 36+ minute podcast is worth it just to listen to one of southern food’s foremost minds opine on the past, the present, and the future of the cuisine.
– Congrats to Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge on winning the Thrillist’s Barbecue Bracket!
– Grant makes us feel inadequate after visiting his 20th joint (out of 23) on the Historic NC Barbecue Trail
New blog post: Enjoying #BBQ at M&K in Granite Quarry NC. https://t.co/TRQwfzc8Xk pic.twitter.com/Q4FPnjCWhZ
— Grant Goggans (@MarieLetsEat) April 4, 2016
– Speaking of the NC BBQ Trail, it is included on this list of the Toronto Star’s spring roadtrips
– John T Edge is the latest to visit Sam Jones BBQ
North Carolina pit master Sam Jones is breathing new fire into the old-school smokehouse. https://t.co/N5zJbXM4LT pic.twitter.com/apjYxq8Ta5
— Garden & Gun (@gardenandgunmag) April 4, 2016
In the latest edition of Parade Magazine Southern Foodways Alliance Director John T. Edge weighs on the current resurgence of barbecue cooked low and slow (aka the right way).
Welcome to the glory days of American barbecue. And not just in Texas. In Tennessee, in the Carolinas, out in California, and beyond, pitmasters like [Aaron] Franklin carry forward a style of cookery that predates our republic.
The feature also lists seventeen new “restaurant critics’ favorites barbecue joints” (although it curiously includes Bobbee-O’s in Charlotte), documents a day in the life of Aaron Franklin and Franklin’s Barbecue with some great photos, and answers some question/accusations about the cover’s similarity to TMBBQ’s top 50 issue.
And while the Parade article covers some of the history of barbecue, this Smithsonian Magazine blog on the evolution of barbecue is also worth reading.
-Monk
You’re better than that, kind sir. Knowing you’re in the midst of a grand barbecue world tour, and knowing that you have had the chance to eat ’cue from the likes of Skylight Inn in Ayden, North Carolina, on that tour, I know you know better. Please tell me that your editors forced this untenable position on you and yours. In my experience, that’s where the problems usually start. With editors. Please tell me that’s so.
John T. Edge, from an open letter to Daniel Vaughn, Barbecue Editor of Texas Monthly on naming the Top 50 Barbecue Joints in Texas as the best in the world.
To which Daniel has responded by inviting John to a “thorough guided barbecue road trip” of Texas (which John has accepted), but not by really addressing his original query. To be fair, I guess it wasn’t likely that Vaughn would have walked back from his comments.
-Monk