Barbecue Nation: A tale of pork and politics in the South

The History Center exhibit spreads itself. You’ll see a 1970s Japanese forerunner of the Big Green Egg. You’ll learn about the secret link between charcoal and the Ford Motor Co. in the 1930s.

But the role of slow-roasted meat in Southern political life lies at the heart of "Barbecue Nation." The free barrels of whisky disappeared with the temperance movement. And Citizens United vs. FEC, with all its cash, threatens to swamp everything.

Yet so far, decade after decade, barbecued pork — or beef if you are unlucky enough to live in Texas — has remained the most effective form of campaign bribery around.

There are omissions. No mention is given to Marvin Griffin or his famous explanation for losing the 1962 Georgia race for governor to Carl Sanders: “Some of the people who ate my barbecue didn’t vote for me.”

Yet there are surprises, too. In 1909, President William Howard Taft visited Atlanta and was treated to barbecued possum. That wasn’t the worst part. Marketers, eyeing the success that Taft’s predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, had with the toy teddy bear, created their own Taft-inspired stuffed animal: Billy Possum.

A replica is on display. The real thing is too scarce, and thus too expensive, for a poor museum to purchase. “It was short-lived. It scared children, apparently,” said Jonathan Scott, the lead curator for “Barbecue Nation.”

This was Monday. Scott and Michael Rose, the History Center’s executive vice president, were giving me a pre-opening peek. Some finishing touches were missing, including this year’s trophy for the Atlanta Kosher Barbecue Festival – which, appropriately, is topped by a cow.

We do indeed speak of Southern food as the foundation of Southern culture, the thing that holds us together. But barbecue is not magic, and the History Center has made an interesting point with its section on barbecue and the Civil Rights movement.

During the 1960s, roasted pork wasn’t the cure for what ailed us. It was the witness.

The exhibit points to Aleck’s Barbecue Heaven in Atlanta, which was patronized by Martin Luther King Jr. The story is that, when he had writing to do, King would order a slab of the ribs. They were so spicy, he knew they would keep him awake.

Yet, in Birmingham, Jack Cash’s Barbecue was the meeting place for the plotters who dynamited the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, killing four little African-American girls that Sunday in September. One of the joint’s patrons, a fellow name Robert Chambliss, was nicknamed “Dynamite Bob.”

Mom-and-pop barbecue joints were sites of pitched battles over Jim Crow and the legal question of who could obtain service in a public eatery.

“Ollie’s Barbecue, I think it was. It defined the role of everybody being subject to federal jurisdiction because it was interstate commerce,” Sam Huff began, drawing on his law school training. He was right. The owners of Ollies, another barbecue joint in Birmingham, challenged the constitutionality of the Civil Rights of 1964. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law.

It was now Wednesday, and “Barbecue Nation” was two days behind me. My wife and I were in east Cobb County, ribs in front of us. The proprietor of Sam’s BBQ-1 was at our table.

I first met Huff in 1980. He was a Democrat running for district attorney, trying to stem a rising Republican tide. Both he and Jimmy Carter would lose Cobb that November.

Huff returned to his law practice (he and his wife are partners), and eventually wandered into the arcane sport of barbecue competition. In 2004, he opened his first restaurant.

Phil Skinner

Phil Skinner

He is now one of metro Atlanta’s most famous pit masters. More importantly, he is the only pit master I know. And he’s a firm believer in the power of pork to unite.

“It’s a way of life that brings together all the cultures and all the socioeconomic elements,” Huff said. “The best example of that is the old Harold’s Barbecue down there by the federal pen. You walk in there, and the governor’s sitting on one stool, a ditch-digger sitting next to him, and it’s all blended in.”

Cooking, too, is an opportunity to form social ties. A whole pig can take anywhere from 18 to 22 hours to slow cook — with little for minders to do but talk, and maybe drink. “It takes a lot of whisky to cook a good pig,” Huff said.

For the last nine years, Huff has been engaged in a social experiment at the highest levels of government, to determine whether barbecue can save America. Every June, at the invitation of U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, Huff has hauled his equipment and crew to Washington D.C., to feed 100 senators in one of the few events still existing in the nation’s capital where Republicans and Democrats mix.

Huff is still a Democrat, and Isakson introduces him as such.

“I never will forget the very first year,” Huff said. “The room was filled. It was a big crowd, and about 20 Democrats came up to talk to us, to talk about barbecue. It turned into a cocktail party-like atmosphere.

“I was big-headed, puffed up, thinking they recognized me,” Huff said. “And then it dawned on me. They didn’t like talking to each other. I was the only one they could talk to — and food was the only thing they could talk about. Newt Gingrich salted the earth, and it’s been salted ever since.”

Huff won’t make it up to Washington next month for what would be his 10th year in a row. Turnover has made this a rebuilding year at his establishments, and he can’t afford to leave.

Which means that, without his barbecue, this summer in D.C. could be a little rough. So if you watch cable TV news and start feeling a bit wobbly, fire up the grill and invite a friend over. That’ll help.

Or get thee to the Atlanta History Center and introduce the kids to Billy Possum. Once they’ve grown up, and have talked it through with their therapists, they’ll thank you for it.

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