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Real Southern Barbecue

Constructing Authenticity in Southern Food Culture

Kaitland M. Byrd

The focus on barbecue in this book uncovers how processes and rhetoric surrounding a specific food product, and food culture as a whole, shape the food appearing on our plates, which can impact people’s health as well as market dynamics. The book takes an in-depth look at barbecue chefs and restaurant owners to triangulate the relationship between producers and their products. It uses barbecue to explore the intersection of deindustrialization, commercialization, and changing health concerns. Finally, it explores the changes in food culture presented in the book highlight the need for producers to justify their positioning in response to commercialization and changing environmental laws and concerns. The scope of this book describes the creation of authentic food products and questions how these products evolve over time in response to changes in broader society. It sheds light on the rise and fall of food trends through in-depth analyses of barbecue and its producers.
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  • Reviews
  • Reviews
Lexington Books
Pages: 128 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅛
978-1-4985-9335-9 • Hardback • July 2019 • $104.00 • (£80.00)
978-1-4985-9336-6 • eBook • July 2019 • $98.50 • (£76.00)
Subjects: Social Science / Agriculture & Food
Kaitland M. Byrd is lecturer in sociology at Virginia Tech.
1: Eating Authentic Food: Producing and Consuming Authenticity in Food Culture

2: The Meaning of Barbecue: The Role of Place, Style, and Tradition

3: Beyond the Meat and Sauce: Barbecue as a Healthy Food Option

4: Real Barbecue Restaurant Have Smoke: The Impact of Environmental Concerns on Barbecue Techniques

5: Family, Commercialization, and Community Dynamics: The Future of Barbecue

6: The New Taste: Failed Authenticity and Changing Taste in Food Culture

Appendix: Oral History Participants

References
Kaitland Byrd’s Real Southern Barbecue is not your Grandpappy’s nostalgia for the joys of chopped pork. Byrd recognizes that barbecue restaurants must operate on the illusion of authenticity – the idea of the rural South. However, she also realizes insightfully, surprisingly, and crucially that in the 21st Century, these establishments must meld tradition with contemporary values. Increasingly BBQ shacks must be healthy, environmentally-friendly, socially conscious, and operating within a modern economy. The balance is not always easy or comfortable. Relying on interviews with pitmasters, Byrd delights in puncturing our culturally-set illusions about Southern foodways. I was startled and delighted by Byrd’s refusal to accept the myth of unchanging ‘cue.
— Gary Alan Fine, Northwestern University, author of “Everyday Genius: The Culture of Authenticity in Self-Taught Art”


In its best moments, Real Southern Barbecue reads as half ethnography, half psychological profile. The index lists more than 100 oral history participants across the South, and Byrd does a masterful job in the middle chapters of exploring her subjects’ words in the context of authenticity creation…. I wish I had read Real Southern Barbecue as an undergrad American studies student all those years ago. Byrd’s measured but insightful presentation of oral history does important work in illuminating the voices of a group figuring out how best to survive a new era. By doing so, she reminds her reader that no culture or cultural product, however revered, is ever static. Barbecue plays an important role in Southern culture across lines of race, income, gender, and background; it is a gathering food. As such, its evolution and the evolution of its secret-keepers are reflections of our changing world, for better or for worse.


— Journal of American Folklore


Real Southern Barbecue

Constructing Authenticity in Southern Food Culture

Cover Image
Hardback
eBook
Summary
Summary
  • The focus on barbecue in this book uncovers how processes and rhetoric surrounding a specific food product, and food culture as a whole, shape the food appearing on our plates, which can impact people’s health as well as market dynamics. The book takes an in-depth look at barbecue chefs and restaurant owners to triangulate the relationship between producers and their products. It uses barbecue to explore the intersection of deindustrialization, commercialization, and changing health concerns. Finally, it explores the changes in food culture presented in the book highlight the need for producers to justify their positioning in response to commercialization and changing environmental laws and concerns. The scope of this book describes the creation of authentic food products and questions how these products evolve over time in response to changes in broader society. It sheds light on the rise and fall of food trends through in-depth analyses of barbecue and its producers.
Details
Details
  • Lexington Books
    Pages: 128 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅛
    978-1-4985-9335-9 • Hardback • July 2019 • $104.00 • (£80.00)
    978-1-4985-9336-6 • eBook • July 2019 • $98.50 • (£76.00)
    Subjects: Social Science / Agriculture & Food
Author
Author
  • Kaitland M. Byrd is lecturer in sociology at Virginia Tech.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • 1: Eating Authentic Food: Producing and Consuming Authenticity in Food Culture

    2: The Meaning of Barbecue: The Role of Place, Style, and Tradition

    3: Beyond the Meat and Sauce: Barbecue as a Healthy Food Option

    4: Real Barbecue Restaurant Have Smoke: The Impact of Environmental Concerns on Barbecue Techniques

    5: Family, Commercialization, and Community Dynamics: The Future of Barbecue

    6: The New Taste: Failed Authenticity and Changing Taste in Food Culture

    Appendix: Oral History Participants

    References
Reviews
Reviews
  • Kaitland Byrd’s Real Southern Barbecue is not your Grandpappy’s nostalgia for the joys of chopped pork. Byrd recognizes that barbecue restaurants must operate on the illusion of authenticity – the idea of the rural South. However, she also realizes insightfully, surprisingly, and crucially that in the 21st Century, these establishments must meld tradition with contemporary values. Increasingly BBQ shacks must be healthy, environmentally-friendly, socially conscious, and operating within a modern economy. The balance is not always easy or comfortable. Relying on interviews with pitmasters, Byrd delights in puncturing our culturally-set illusions about Southern foodways. I was startled and delighted by Byrd’s refusal to accept the myth of unchanging ‘cue.
    — Gary Alan Fine, Northwestern University, author of “Everyday Genius: The Culture of Authenticity in Self-Taught Art”


    In its best moments, Real Southern Barbecue reads as half ethnography, half psychological profile. The index lists more than 100 oral history participants across the South, and Byrd does a masterful job in the middle chapters of exploring her subjects’ words in the context of authenticity creation…. I wish I had read Real Southern Barbecue as an undergrad American studies student all those years ago. Byrd’s measured but insightful presentation of oral history does important work in illuminating the voices of a group figuring out how best to survive a new era. By doing so, she reminds her reader that no culture or cultural product, however revered, is ever static. Barbecue plays an important role in Southern culture across lines of race, income, gender, and background; it is a gathering food. As such, its evolution and the evolution of its secret-keepers are reflections of our changing world, for better or for worse.


    — Journal of American Folklore


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