David Dixon first learned to cook with his grandfather in Georgia, roasting a whole hog from start to finish. Today, he is working to bring back a local barbecue monument in Oxford, the Rebel Barn.
“It was just an iconic building that needed to be brought back,” Dixon said. “There’s a ton of history here from being just a drive-thru beer barn, then a beer barn with barbecue, and then barbecue. It’s an iconic place – I wanted to revive the name and get it going again.”
Rebel Barn BBQ has been open on Jackson Avenue for about three months. Dixon is single-handedly running his business, planning to make a name for himself in Oxford by way of his menu and its specialty items like “The Gambler” and “The Cross Dresser”.
He and his team, Big River BBQ, have already made a name for themselves at Memphis in May, placing 17th for rub in the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.
“I love eating at establishments that take the time and have the patience to make their food, or any product for that matter, as great as it can possibly be,” Oxford resident Matthew King said of his experience.
The buzz amongst customers is a significant portion of barbecue culture, and no one knows that better than director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the university John T. Edge.
“Barbecue is the most historical food that we consume today,” Edge said. “It’s the food that connects us in a very primal way to our past.”
It’s more than just a product served on a plate; it’s a food with a sense of cultural identity.
“People are really proud of the place they come from, and they’re really proud of the food of their hometown or their home state,” said Sara Camp Arnold, publications editor for the alliance. “Barbecue is a big part of that.”
As a food of both the past and future, today’s chefs pay homage to barbecue’s roots in preparation.
“I think there’s a real growing interest in Mississippi, and throughout the South, really across the nation in barbecue cooks who cook with integrity,” said Edge.
Phila Hach, current owner and chef of Hachland Hill in Joelton, Tenn., is working on her 17th cookbook at 87 years old.
She won the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award and The Catersource Lifetime Achievement Award, was featured in the Emmy-award winning documentary, “The Rise of the Southern Biscuit,” and received The National Zenith Television Award as the first woman on TV in the South.
Barbecue has always been a specialty of hers.
According to Hach, barbecue first originated in early 1700s West Virginia with French explorers.
Hatch said the explorers would kill wild animals, scald the hair off, skin them, render the fat and barbecue the whole animal in a stone-lined pit with sweet potatoes, corn or whatever they had as packing.
“This is real pit barbecue,” Hatch said. “They would cover it with leaves, put coals over the top of it, cover it completely with dirt, and let it stay there 18 hours usually. Once they cooked the meat, they could pack the meat into big jars and put the rendered fat on the top of it and it would stay all year without spoiling.”
The tradition of having a backyard barbecue or cookout also descends from the French explorers, Hach said.
“They would prop it up on forks and sticks and have a feast. Human beings have always feasted, and this would be a fall festival,” said Hach.
Hach said that regional cooking techniques and ingredients have developed slowly over time.
“North Carolina, for instance, barbecue sauce will have Worchester sauce in it, it will have mustard, it will have tomato, it will have all kinds of things. North Carolina thinks they make the best barbecue in the world.” Hatch said. “And Texas, of course, thinks they do and it’s loaded. In the South, sometimes people put molasses on it. That’s not real Southern barbecue. Vinegar, salt, black pepper and red pepper was it.”
Buck Cunningham, owner and manager of LBs. Meat Market said spice selection and preparation method matter in formulating unique flavor.
“The best cut of meat is usually the shoulder or the Boston butt,” Cunningham said. “It’s the most tender, it’s got the most fat content, it’s got a good grain to pull apart after it’s cooked slow. Next best is probably the whole hog.”
If your mouth is watering, you’re not alone, according to Arnold.
“It’s a food that seems to transcend race and class,” Arnold said. “It’s popular with poor people and rich people; it’s popular, with black and white and Latino.”
— Carter Hach
clhach@go.olemiss.edu
