OUR PATRONS
These worthy folks have graciously consented to support the Campaign for Real Barbecue. They are primarily eaters and critics of barbecue, and students of its history and culture. Most cook barbecue at home and many have judged barbecue competitions, but none cooks it commercially or competes regularly. Since they represent both Carolinas, Georgia and the Deep South, Kentucky, Memphis, Texas, Kansas City, and elsewhere – some 20 states, the District of Columbia, and Ireland – they don't agree about much, but all understand that Real Barbecue is cooked with wood smoke.
• Jim Auchmutey is a food writer formerly with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and his most recent book is Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America.
• The Barbecue Bros - Speedy, Monk, and Rudy - originally from High Point, North Carolina, blog about their barbecue adventures at Barbecue Bros: Barbecue Travels in North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, and Beyond.
• Ben Barker is an award-winning chef, author (with his late wife Karen, also an award-winning chef) of Not Afraid of Flavor: Recipes from Magnolia Grill.
• Wes Berry is a professor of English at Western Kentucky University and the author of The Kentucky Barbecue Book.
• Ardie A. Davis, founder of what became the American Royal World Series of Barbecue Sauce Contest, author of the KCBS' judges' oath, and member of the Barbecue Hall of Fame, has written eleven barbecue books, most recently Barbecue Lover's Kansas City Style.
• Lolis Eric Elie is a film-maker, screenwriter, journalist, and the author of Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country.
• Elizabeth Engelhardt, professor of Southern studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, was formerly at UT-Austin, where she wrote Republic of Barbecue: Stories Beyond the Brisket with 11 of her graduate students.
• Amy Evans is an artist and independent oral historian based in Houston, Texas, who has documented barbecue traditions from the Carolinas to Texas for the Southern Foodways Alliance.
• Marcie Cohen Ferris is professor of American Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and the author of Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South and The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region.
• Ryan Cooper explores the cultural geography of barbecue on his website, BBQ Tourist, and is co-founder (with Sean Ludwig) of The Smoke Sheet, a weekly barbecue newsletter.
• Rien Fertel documented dozens of barbecue places in western Tennessee and the Carolinas for the Southern Foodways Alliance and is the author of The One True Barbecue: Fire, Smoke, and the Pitmasters Who Cook the Whole Hog.
• Bob Garner, a long-time contributor to North Carolina Public Television, has written widely about the food of his native state, including three books about its barbecue: North Carolina Barbecue: Flavored by Time; Bob Garner's Guide to North Carolina Barbecue; and Bob Garner's Book of Barbecue: North Carolina's Favorite Food.
• Grant Goggans has visited and written about more than four hundred (and counting) barbecue restaurants in Tennessee and other southeastern states for his award-winning and often amusing blog Marie, Let's Eat.
• Dotty Griffith teaches journalism at the University of North Texas and is the author of eight cookbooks, including Celebrating Barbecue: The Ultimate Guide to America's 4 Regional Styles.
• Gene Hamer is the co-founder and until recently the owner of Crook's Corner in Chapel Hill (NC), which honored great barbecue houses across the Carolinas by serving their barbecue.
• Joe Haynes, the author of Virginia Barbecue: A History, blogs at Obsessive Compulsive Barbecue.
• Lake High is president of the South Carolina Barbeque Association and author of A History of South Carolina Barbeque.
• Jack Hitt, a Peabody Award-winning journalist, has written about the barbecue of his native South Carolina, and introduced whole-hog barbecue to Yale at what is now the Annual Jack Hitt Pig Roast.
• Mark A. Johnson, author of An Irresistible History of Alabama Barbecue: From Wood Pit to White Sauce, is a U.S. historian who specializes in Southern and African-American history.
• Sean Ludwig, a Brooklyn-based tech and food writer and photographer, runs NYC BBQ, a website devoted to the barbecue scene in New York and the Northeast, and is co-founder (with Ryan Cooper) of The Smoke Sheet, a weekly barbecue newsletter.
• Dean McCord is an attorney, a barbecue and Southern food enthusiast and an occasional food writer and blogger, contributing to Walter Magazine and the VarmintBites food blog.
• William McKinney founded the Carolina Barbecue Society at UNC-Chapel Hill and is co-author of Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue.
• Craig David Meek chronicled his quest to eat at every barbecue and soul food restaurant in Memphis on his blog, Memphis Que, and has now written Memphis Barbecue: A Succulent History of Smoke, Sauce & Soul.
• Adrian Miller is a recovering lawyer and politico turned KCBS-certified barbecue judge and a James Beard Award-winning culinary historian whose latest book is Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue.
• Tim Miller, author of Barbecue: A History, teaches at Labette Community College in Parsons, Kansas, and writes about all aspects of American food history on his blog Grog to Grits.
• Robert Moss is a food writer and culinary historian, restaurant critic for the Charleston City Paper, author of Barbecue: The History of an American Institution, and Contributing Barbecue Editor for Southern Living.
• Frederick Douglass Opie, a fellow of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, is the author of Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America.
•Craig Pascoe is a professor of Southern history at Georgia College and is the conceptual design creator for the Atlanta History Center exhibit Barbecue Nation.
• Michael Pollan has written four award-winning New York Times bestsellers, including Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation.
• Susan Puckett, former food editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has written many books, including Eat Drink Delta: A Hungry Traveler's Journey Through the Soul of the South, which deals extensively with Memphis barbecue.
• Kathleen Purvis wrote the bourbon and pecan cookbooks in the Savor the South® series and has written extensively about barbecue, including during her time as a newspaper food editor.
• Steven Raichlen, Barbecue Hall of Famer and PBS TV host, has written 30 books, with five James Beard Awards, three IACP-Julia Child Awards, and translations in 17 languages; and is the founder of Barbecue University at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.
• Hanna Raskin, editor and publisher of The Food Section, has won awards from The James Beard Foundation, International Association of Culinary Professionals, and Society for Features Journalism for her coverage of food and drink across the American South.
• Dennis Rogers (deceased) was a well-known champion of “the Holy Grub” (eastern North Carolina style) as a long-time columnist for the Raleigh News and Observer.
•Jim Roller is the author of Going Whole Hog and (with his wife Heather) blogs about the barbecue of South Carolina at Destination BBQ.
• Kevin Sandridge is a professor of humanities at Polk State College in Florida, and host of the BBQ Beat Podcast, which covers the world of barbecue and grilling.
• Fred Sauceman has written innumerable articles and several books on the food of his native Appalachia, most recently The Proffitts of Ridgewood: An Appalachian Family's Life in Barbecue.
• Jim Shahin, whose barbecue education began with 24 years in Texas, is an award-winning journalist who teaches at Syracuse University and writes the monthly "Smoke Signals" column for the Washington Post.
• David Shields, McClintock Professor of Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina, has written on many subjects, but his latest book is Southern Provisions: On the Creation and Resuscitation of Regional Cuisine.
• Vince Staten is a journalist and author whose many books include the pioneering Real Barbecue (published in 1988) and Jack Daniel’s Old Time Barbecue Cookbook.
• John Tanner, North Carolina born and Alabama bred, now writes John Tanner’s Barbecue Blog as he travels from Washington, D.C. in search of great barbecue and non-vegetarian vegetables.
• Michael Twitty has written about African-American foodways in World of a Slave and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, and in his James Beard Award-winning book, The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South.
• Daniel Vaughn, the barbecue editor of Texas Monthly and author of The Prophets of Smoked Meat: A Journey Through Texas Barbecue, blogs at TMBBQ.com.
• James Villas (deceased) was the author of essays, memoirs, novels, and over a dozen award-winning cookbooks, including Pig: King of the Southern Table.
• Robb Walsh, three-time James Beard Award-winning author of Barbecue Crossroads: Notes and Recipes from a Southern Odyssey and Legends of Texas Barbecue, is co-founder of Foodways Texas and its BBQ Summer Camp program at Texas A&M Meat Science Center.
• Doug Worgul is an editor and writer whose books include The Grand Barbecue: A Celebration of the History, Places, Personalities and Techniques of Kansas City Barbecue and Thin Blue Smoke, a barbecue-based novel.
• Joe York is a Senior Producer at the University of Mississippi’s Southern Documentary Project whose many films include several about iconic barbecue places, in partnership with the Southern Foodways Alliance.