Not solely for Willie’s final arrangements but for one last attempt to coax the complete barbecue sauce recipe out of him. Now that Willie’s death was imminent, the family gathered. Those who made the sauce speculated that the unicorn-type ingredient might be Worcestershire sauce or liquid smoke, but Willie would never confirm or deny when directly asked.
Every once in a while, someone would ask what the missing ingredient was. Those benefiting from Willie’s culinary knowledge knew two things: something was missing, and Willie was probably never going to tell them. Yet these lessons always involved a “ lesser-pe,” a recipe with a key ingredient that Willie left out. Later in life, he taught others how to make his sauce by pointing and nodding. Eventually, that passion for cigars took a toll on his larynx, and he lost much of his ability to speak. He was often paid with high-quality cigars that he cherished. The sauce was so famous that he regularly filled requests to mail the sauce in dry ice containers from Mobile to people around the country. The exact recipe was known only to Willie and his brother Leo. Over the years, Willie “showed” Marcella and his children how to make his family’s century-old barbecue sauce. Willie was welcomed to join her and their children for Sunday dinner, which he did regularly, often sitting at the head of the table.
She demonstrated that lesson to her children in many ways. Though their marriage had dissolved years before, Willie’s former wife, Marcella, believed that it was important for a man to keep his dignity. The one-time Harlem Renaissance-era “hoofer” (tap dancer) and renowned community barbecue man from the Carolinas and Mobile, Alabama, spent the last few months of his incredible life with family in Mobile.
In this adapted excerpt from a chapter titled “Liquid Black Smoke: The Primacy of Sauce,” Miller declares sauce as important, if not more so, than the meat and explains why it’s an undeniable part of what makes Black barbecue Black barbecue. In his third book, published earlier this year, Miller also describes and defines the Black barbecue aesthetic, laying out the factors that distinguish it from barbecue by any other group. Adrian Miller’s Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue aims to remedy this by telling the stories of the Black pitmasters and restaurateurs who developed the Southern culinary tradition. Even as it became something akin to common knowledge that African Americans played a primary role in American barbecue’s origin story, contemporary African American barbecue cooks weren’t given the same due as their white counterparts. Buy “Black Smoke” at Amazon or Bookshop now.įor far too long, the narrative around barbecue has been white.
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