02/01/2016
Though some will scoff at the suggestion that there’s one true barbecue, food writer, historian, and self-described barbecue dilettante Fertel (Imagining the Creole City) makes an argument for the primacy of whole-hog barbecue that, if it doesn’t convince, will at least leave you hungry. The book combines Fertel’s interviews and recollections with photos, historical accounts, and a fair amount of lore. Because of the labor involved in smoking a whole hog over a wood fire, this form of old-time barbecue, Fertel notes, is in decline. Fertel introduces the charismatic, reprehensible, humble, and loquacious characters behind the tradition, as well as the smoky pits, the feuds and legacies, the long nights, and the shuddered restaurants that were men’s lives. The prose is showy, with a preference for sounding good over making sense and a tendency to overreach for grandiose allusions (Fertel perhaps embraces to a fault his notion that “all barbecue writing is hyperbole”). But more than the writing, it is the stories of the pit masters and their predecessors, told with a sympathetic and fastidious eye, that give this hog its wings. (May)

"The One True Barbecue is the whole hog of storytelling— sharp and witty prose, thoughtful interviews, and deep, humane insights into what makes these pitmasters cook."

"Crackling with southern culture and history, Fertel's love for barbecue—from the pitmasters to the culinary traditions—is alive on every page. A joy to read and hog heaven for anyone who appreciates the nuances and delights of barbecue at its finest."

"Some barbecue cooks who still cook whole hogs the old way are just stubbornly doing what their people have always done. Others have studied the tradition and are reviving it in unexpected places. Not surprisingly, all are interesting characters, as Rien Fertel shows us in this fascinating book. A superb documentarian with a wry sense of humor, Fertel also offers some thoughtful observations about authenticity, gentrification, and celebrity. This book should be read by anyone who thinks barbecue is about sticky red sauce."

With an anthropologist's eye and a glutton's appetite, Rien Fertel crisscrossed the American South on a pilgrimage to collect the wisdom of the great pitmasters, practitioners of the vanishing art of whole-hog barbecuing. Like all great food travelogues, you'll be tempted to consume this one in a single sitting."

I devoured this book the same way I do good barbecue—in one big sitting with enough left over for the next day. The One True Barbecue takes hog as its subject but is much more: history, sociology, race relations, economics,and land. Read this for a view into the South, then and now. It'll make your mouth water for more.

"[T]old with a sympathetic and fastidious eye…" ---Publishers Weekly

"[T]old with a sympathetic and fastidious eye " —Publishers Weekly

Race relations, religion, the New South versus the Old: These are just a smattering of the heavy issues James Beard Award nominee Rien Fertel writes about through the lens of—well—smoked meat in his new book, The One True Barbecue: Fire, Smoke, and the Pitmasters Who Cook the Whole Hog. And, while you might be thinking, "Oh, man, another book about barbecue?", this one stands out from the crowd thanks to Fertel's superb writing and storytelling skills. In a book that's part culinary history, part personal narrative, and part tale of an American road trip (via RV, no less), Fertel travels throughout the South, documenting the men who have long stood behind the fires practicing the time-consuming pursuit of whole hog barbecue—the ones who have been keeping alive the embers of what once seemed like a dying art, and the ones who are inspiring a new generation of pitmasters today, even as far north as Brooklyn.

2016-03-31
Fertel (Imagining the Creole City: The Rise of Literary Culture in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans, 2014, etc.) mines the small towns of Tennessee and the Carolinas in search of the pinnacle of Southern cuisine: whole hog barbecue. Growing up in the Cajun heartland of Louisiana, the author missed out on what many regard as the most Southern of food traditions. Not until he joined the Southern Foodways Alliance did he truly discover "real barbecue." A chance trip to Henderson, Tennessee, introduced Fertel to pitmaster Ronnie Hampton of Siler's Old Time BBQ, and the author spent a steamy morning mesmerized by the grueling labor, smoky flames, and long hours that define whole hog barbecue. Upon first taste, Fertel was transported through the centuries. "I was tasting history, culture, ritual, and race," he writes. "I was eating the South and all its exceptionalities, commonalities, and horrors....Everything I loathed and everything I loved about the region I called home." From that moment on, the author was driven by a sometimes-distracting zealousness to find every whole hog pitmaster in the South, resulting in this blend of personal, culinary, and regional history. Readers follow Fertel to the heart of it all: Pitt County, North Carolina, where he uncovered the history of the Jones family and their famous Skylight Inn, which in many ways parallels the history of barbecue in America itself. Interweaving culinary and ethnographic history with vibrant character profiles and mouthwatering food writing, Fertel takes readers on an anthropological journey across back country roads and generations to unearth the rich legacy of this art. Mouths will water, but the most discerning readers will likely find the phrase "some of the best barbecue I've ever eaten" and its many permutations growing increasingly meaningless with each utterance. Fertel is well-aware that the ground he covers isn't entirely new, but food fans and lovers of Americana alike will go whole hog for this loving paean to a distinct tradition.