James Beard Award-winning author and certified barbecue judge - Adrian Miller
With Smokelore, Jim Auchmutey marvelously guides us through the fascinating, wonderous world of American barbecue—its colorful past, its vibrant presence, and glimpses of its global future. Auchmutey is a skillful storyteller who does much to sort out fact from fiction about what we now know about barbecue. Smokelore is essential reading for anyone seeking a comprehensive, well-illustrated, and enjoyable look at barbecue culture in the United States.
Bitter Southerner
Jim Auchmutey’s new book, Smokelore, is a wonderful history of the South’s (and maybe our nation’s) favorite food: barbecue. And his research proved, with blinding clarity, that the connection between barbecue and politics has been part of the American story since the beginning.
State Historical Society of Missouri - Kimberly Harper
Auchmutey takes an inclusive approach, exploring barbecue as a backyard phenomenon, a part of American popular culture, and a way to examine race in America.
Washington Post - Don Schanche Jr.
Auchmutey examines barbecue through the lenses of politics, race, gender, regional variety and other filters, and takes the reader on a rambling journey through a mouthwatering series of historic barbecue emporiums around the country where delectable meat dishes are prepared over open coals, often in picturesque settings by colorful pit masters with generations of barbecue secrets lodged in their heads.
author of Barbecue: A Savor the South Cookbook - John Shelton Reed
With years of learning (worn lightly), heaps of quirky facts, sprightly and engaging prose, and page after page of delightful illustrations, Smokelore is a major contribution to barbecultural studies. My only reservation is the author’s annoying failure to capitalize Southern and Southerner.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Suzanne Van Atten
Auchmutey brings a scholar’s nose for research to Smokelore, but his conversational tone and playful tangents make it an entertaining and enlightening read. Where else would you find a lengthy barbecue playlist that includes Elvin Bishop’s 'Barbecue Boogie,' Bo Carter’s 'Pig Meat Is What I Crave' and Outkast’s 'Skew It on the Bar-B'?
author of High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America - Jessica B. Harris
From eighteenth-century political events to the lines at twenty-first-century Korean barbecue food trucks, Smokelore offers a brief but comprehensive and eminently readable look at one of America’s enduring culinary obsessions. The lavishly illustrated tome spreads a Rabelaisian feast of information for the novice and expert alike that you’ll want to dip into again and again.
Southern Living - Robert Moss
Smokelore is a feast for the eyes, extensively illustrated with color photographs, menus, and advertisements that capture the vibrant history of American barbecue.
Georgia State University News - Charles McNair
Smokelore isn’t a cookbook, a barbecue travelogue or an academic tome, although it has elements of all those. At 280 pages, it’s a lavishly illustrated popular history with 50,000 words of text, 26 recipes and 208 pieces of artwork — mostly vintage photos and amusingly retro magazine ads. It’s fun. It’s also serious history. That’s Jim Auchmutey’s secret sauce — powerful, good-hearted truth-telling — whether he’s writing about the smoke of war or the smokelore of a nation.
Bitter Southerner - Chuck Reece
Beautifully illustrated with a riot of barbecue memorabilia and including a few solid recipes, Smokelore is a must-have for anybody who cares about the ’cue. In other words, pretty much all y’all.
author of The One True Barbecue: Fire, Smoke, and the Pitmasters Who Cook the Whole Hog - Rien Fertel
I’ve read just about every barbecue book there is. I have thought that I’ve readjust about every part and parcel of barbecue history, myth, and arcana, but Jim Auchmutey’s Smokelore shares tales and tidbits that I’ve never come across. Auchmutey writes with wit, taste, and a knack for good storytelling.
cofounder of the Kansas City Barbeque Society - Carolyn Wells
Barbecue has a backstory that's as big as America. Smokelore tells that tale entertainingly. This book really captures the fun and colorful history of our true national food.
barbecue editor of Texas Monthly - Daniel Vaughn
Jim Auchmutey's barbecue education has been a lifelong endeavor. Fortunately for the rest of us, he's sharing the unvarnished history of America's native cuisine in Smokelore. He uses our relationship with barbecue as a lens to explore American values, both virtuous and vile. While there's more to this book than meat cooked over fire, Auchmutey has left plenty on the bone for us all to sink our teeth into.
The Bitter Southerner
Jim Auchmutey’s new book, Smokelore, is a wonderful history of the South’s (and maybe our nation’s) favorite food: barbecue. And his research proved, with blinding clarity, that the connection between barbecue and politics has been part of the American story since the beginning.
