Fire, Smoke and Bold Black Barbecue

“If you’re going to talk about barbecue in the United States, you’re going to have to include African Americans,” says Adrian Miller, author of recent book Black Smoke. A lawyer and former presidential adviser turned food historian, Adrian is tired of watching Black people in the barbecue world being ignored.

Barbecue has had a moment during the last few decades. It peaked with the rise of the “foodies” in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Adrian says, when people shifted from eating at local restaurants to driving a hundred miles, booking flights, and going to great efforts just to taste Texas’s top brisket or vinegar-mopped whole-hog ’cue in the Carolinas. But when the media got wind of this trend, nostalgic neighborhood shacks that only offered pulled pork and ribs were often left in the shadows of multibranch giants serving trendy interpretations, and it