Mark Johnson, a graduate student at The University of Alabama, will research and produce a 25- to 30-page paper on barbecue in Alabama. Johnson is a cultural historian with interests and experience in studying race, class and gender – the way “people present themselves” – and his next project will focus on a food he said relates directly to his field.

“Barbecue was originally viewed as barbaric and savage, something that Europeans portrayed Native Americans as doing, so they distanced themselves from it,” Johnson said. “But then it became the food of the people, and as the country became more democratic, it soon crossed class lines that everyone from slaves to the gentry would eat. It had different meanings for different people.”

Johnson’s research into barbecue’s cultural impact is part of a larger project on Alabama foodways being overseen by Joshua Rothman, a UA history professor and director of the Summersell Center for the Study of the South.

“I think [barbecue is] something people still particularly associate with the South; it’s not unique to one race or culture, and it’s something that in the last 20-30 years has become a phenomenon that has really blown outside the boundaries of the South,” Rothman said.

Despite its transcendence, barbecue is not the South’s only representative among foodways, Rothman said; by definition, foodways move beyond the tactile to include the cultural. Rothman said the mixing of cultures in the South has shaped its foodways.

“Essentially, every culture and sub-culture has its own ways of making food,” Rothman said. “All of these reflect not only the current cultural combinations that exist in a place but are born of a long history of cultural associations and the way people prepare foods and so on. Foodways is the study of that. Not only the things they eat and the way they prepare it, but also the cultural associations that come with it.”

The project is part of a partnership with the state of Alabama and the Southern Foodways Alliance, based out of the University of Mississippi. Amy Evans, the SFA Oral Historian, said the SFA’s interest in barbecue dates back to its first effort to document Southern food.

Following an initial culinary success, there was a decision to do another culinary trail, and barbecue was chosen as the focus.

“We landed on a great format,” Evans said. “Immediately, it was kind of a no-brainer that [the focus of the trail] would be barbecue. …Collectively, the barbecue trail has become this amazing document.”

Since then, the SFA, which was established to “document studies and celebrate foodways,” has used oral history to document and track changes in Southern cuisine, as well as produce programs that serve as gateways in other topics.

“It’s a way of bringing people together,” Evans said. “Barbecue helps us talk about heavier topics that are otherwise difficult to talk about.”

She said the oral interviews are already revealing changes and trends in Southern cooking. Culinary history is happening each day.

“As our world rapidly changes, our foodways change,” Evans said. “But there’s so many people out there who’ve held fast to certain cooking ingredients and certain cooking techniques. [The interviews are] already telling the story of where Southern food is going and how it’s changing now.”

For their work on Alabama foodways, Rothman, Johnson and Dana Alsen, a graduate student working on the history of Alabama, will be relying on both primary sources – oral interviews – and secondary sources – historical documents.

“You assemble the two and you create something new. You create new knowledge and further understanding of the topic,” Johnson said. “Right now, I’m reading the secondary literature to look for holes, questions they may have left unanswered. Then, I will go to primary sources to try and answer them myself.”

And since pulled pork is technically a primary source for the research, taste testing as a form of research is not out of the question, Johnson said. However, Johnson and Rothman are clear that finding the best barbecue will be neither the form nor focus of the research.

“There probably will be a little bit of sitting around eating barbecue,” Rothman said. “[But] it’s not going to end up with ‘I like Jim ‘N Nicks,’ or ‘I like Archibald’s.’”

Both Rothman and Johnson have fielded requests from friends and acquaintances who want in on the action. One of Johnson’s friends in Boston said his expertise on the food was worth an SEC home game.

The offers Rothman and Johnson have received from outsiders is perhaps an indication of how deeply barbecue, like SEC football, has become ingrained in Southern culture.

“I think if you ask most people outside of the South, what are their associations with Southern culture, I think food and music, and maybe literature, will stand out,” Rothman said. “As far as really classical expressions of Southern culture [go] – nobody fries things like a Southerner. I think these are really kind of just quintessential kinds of Southern culture. If you ignore that, you’d be crazy.”