"The History & Culture of Barbecue - from the 16th Century Caribbean, to Tom Moore in Paradise, Louisiana"

Barbecue is hot these days. In hundreds of barbecue competitions every year, thousands of participants vie for millions of dollars in prize money. The internet is seething with a blooming, buzzing proliferation of barbecue blogs, newsletters, and webcasts (one has 12 million visitors a year). There are barbecue programs on the Food Network, TLC, Destination America, PBS, Netflix, and who knows where else. Texas Monthly and Southern Living have barbecue editors. New-style “elevated barbecue" restaurants, some with white tablecloths and wine lists, can now be found in cities across the country. Celebrity barbecue cooks have their own television shows, best-selling cookbooks, product lines, and James Beard Awards.

Where did all this come from? John Shelton Reed will examine the history and culture of barbecue, from the sixteenth-century Caribbean to the present day, looking at the emergence of distinct regional traditions in the nineteenth century and the rise of “mass barbecue” in the twentieth. Along the way he will touch on the barbecue Walker Percy ate as a student in Chapel Hill, the barbecue Tom Moore was cooking in Paradise, Louisiana, and the barbecue we will be eating on Friday night.

To allow for better spacing and for all attendees to see all 4 major presentations this talk will be offered in 2 sessions. Once from 2pm - 3:30pm and again from 3:45 -5:15pm