barbecue

Barnes fetes barbers with barbecue dinner.

Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 7 September 1940.

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  • Rachel G. Barnes — barbershop owner, restaurateur, boardinghouse keeper.
  • Joe McCoy
  • Charlie Woodard — in the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 810 East Vance, Mary Roberson, 46; brother Charlie Woodard, 42, barber; and niece Annie Jenkins, 14.
  • Theodore Bullock — in the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 904 Atlantic, barber Theodore Bullock, 35; wife Mary B., 30; and sister Ethel, 16.
  • Artis barbershop
  • Lewis Neil barbershop — perhaps Austin Neal barbershop?
  • Hargrove barbershop — in the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 919 Atlantic Avenue, owned and valued at $3000, Don[illegible] Hargroves, 35; wife Flora, 31; and daughter Geraldine, 15. D. Hargrove operated a barber shop in a pool room.

Adam Scott, Barbecue Artist, in Wilson.

If you love the people and culture and history of eastern North Carolina, and you’re not reading David Cecelski‘s beautiful and richly textured essays about the Coastal Plain past, fix that. His most recent blogpost is a deep dive into the life of Barbecue King Adam Scott of Goldsboro, a small city about 25 miles south of Wilson, and draws upon photographs found in the N.C. Department of Conservation and Development Collection at the North Carolina State Archives in Raleigh.

Among the images Cecelski selected is this one of Scott at a barbecue in Wilson in 1948.

A little hunting in the Wilson Daily Times and I found a 16 October 1948 piece about the convention of the North Carolina State Grange to be held in Wilson October 26-28. Ava Gardner, “Wilson’s contribution to Hollywood,” had been invited to attend a fashion show and guests were to be treated to “a special barbecue with Adam Scott, of Goldsboro, doing the cooking.”

Eastern North Carolina pitmasters like Wilson’s Ed Mitchell have expanded the legacy of Adam Scott, who cooked for governors and senators and presidents, as well as the every day folk who stepped through his back door on Brazil Street. Though Scott’s Famous Barbecue Restaurant is long-closed, you can order Scott’s vinegar and red pepper-based, sugar- and fat-free barbecue sauce right now.

Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque keeps bringing flowers.

Ryan Mitchell got off a flight from Lagos to this news:

During a roadtrip to New Orleans in summer 2021, I stopped by to see my cousin Zella Palmer. The pandemic was still cutting up, so we sat on her porch and chatted, mostly about family, food, and history. At one point, Zella mentioned that she’d received an email feeling out her interest in co-writing a book about North Carolina barbecue. Specifically, about Ed Mitchell and his family. “Girl, call them,” I urged. “Mr. Mitchell is a legend — and my dad’s good buddy!”

The rest … well, is a James Beard nomination!!

(You don’t have a copy of Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque?? What you waiting for??)

Image courtesy of Ryan Mitchell.

Bullock’s barbecue.

When he registered for the World War I draft in 1918, Ernest Bullock reported that he operated a barbecue stand on Kenan Street in Wilson.

In the 1916 Wilson city directory, Ernest Bullock’s occupation is listed as janitor at Primitive Baptist Church. He is not found in the 1920 census of Wilson, but was described as a house painter in the 1930 census and on his 1931 death certificate. I have not been able to locate a barbecue stand on Kenan. I suspect Bullock’s business was on the eastern end of the street among and catering to workers in the tobacco warehouses crowded beyond Tarboro Street.

Recommended reading, no. 15: Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque.

On a quick escape to New Orleans during that first pandemic summer, I dropped by my cousin Zella Palmer’s for a little socially distanced catching up. Sitting on her front porch, she told me that she’d been contacted about writing a cookbook/memoir with Wilson barbecue pitmaster Ed Mitchell and his son Ryan. In a time of scarce good news, the alignment of family, friends, food, and folkways in this project felt especially serendipitous, and I urged her to do it. 

My copy of their collaboration, its recipes interwoven with piquant stories and lush photographs of the Mitchell family and East Wilson, arrived yesterday. Surely you’ve got yours, too. 

Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque.

In May 2019, Dr. Joseph H. Ward‘s granddaughter and great-granddaughter, both born and reared in the Midwest, came home to Wilson. Zella Palmer FaceTimed me as she and her mother Alice Roberts Palmer stood outside David G.W. Ward‘s house near Stantonsburg, the house in which Joseph Ward’s mother Mittie Ward and grandmother Sarah Ward toiled while enslaved. D.G.W. Ward was the father of at least three of Sarah Ward’s children, including Mittie. Joseph Ward’s father, Napoleon Hagans, who lived not far away in Wayne County, was my great-great-grandmother’s brother, and thus Cousin Alice and Zella are my people. I was so grateful to be able to share, even if remotely, the tangle of emotions the Palmers felt as they stood on ancestral ground. But who knew there was more to come for Zella in Wilson?

This week, Zella announced that the cookbook she wrote with Wilson’s own barbecue pitmaster extraordinaire Ed Mitchell and his son Ryan Mitchell is now available for pre-order on Amazon, with a publication date of June 2023! Zella is chair of Dillard University’s Ray Charles Program in African-American Material Culture in New Orleans and passionately committed to preserving Black foodways. Who better to capture the family stories and recipes of my father’s old friend Ed Mitchell? And who better than I to provide source material and to introduce the world to Black Wilson at the book’s opening?

My gratitude goes to Ed Mitchell, who has long stood in the gap for the preservation of eastern North Carolina food culture (and respect and recognition for its practitioners and purveyors); to Ryan Mitchell, whose True Made Foods embodies the spirit of sankofa; and to my cousin Zella Palmer, who drew me into this project and showed love and grace when I missed deadlines as I struggled to find words during my father’s illness.

“In his first cookbook, … Ed explores the tradition of whole-hog barbeque that has made him famous. It’s a method passed down through generations over the course of 125 years and hearkens back even further than that, to his ancestors who were plantation sharecroppers and, before that, enslaved. Ed is one of the few remaining pitmasters to keep this barbeque tradition alive, and in Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque, he will share his methods for the first time and fill in the unwritten chapters of the rich and complex history of North Carolina whole-hog barbeque.”

Y’all — get your orders in!

In memoriam: Libby McDonald McPhatter, restaurateur.

Wilson Daily Times, 14 November 1997.

Near the end of the Great Depression, Libby McPhatter opened a cafe in the 500 block of East Nash Street that served barbecue dinners for three decades.

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In the 1910 census of Lumber Bridge township, Robeson County, North Carolina: farm laborer Archie G. McDonald, 28; wife Lucy J., 35; and children Suda, 14, Augusta, 8, Hetta, 6, Sandy, 5, Libby, 4, and Pibel, 1.

In the 1920 census of Lumber Bridge township, Robeson County: farmer A.G. McDonald,  42; wife Elam, 42; and children Samuel, 15, Libie, 14, Manilie, 8, William, 7, and Susie R., 3.

On 11 April 1926, Nathaniel McPhatter of Robeson County, son of Fred and Maggie McPhatter, married Libby S. McDonald, 20, of Robeson County, daughter of A.G. and Ella McDonald, in Lumber Bridge township, Robeson County.

In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: McPhatter Nathan (c; Libbie) truck driver h 113 Pender

James Arthur McPhatter died 23 March 1932 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 4 September 1931 in Wilson to Nathaniel McPhatter and Libbie McDonald, both of Robeson County, and he lived at 113 Pender Street.

In 1940, Elmond Henry McKeithan registered for the World War II draft in Wilson. Per his registration card, he was born 5 July 1914 in Cumberland County, North Carolina; resided at 539 East Nash Street, Wilson; his contact was cousin Libby McPhatter, 539 East Nash; and he worked for Woodard-Herring Hospital, Green and Douglas Streets, Wilson.

In the 1941 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: McPhatter Libby (c; Libby’s Cafe) h 539 E Nash. Also: McPhatter Nathaniel (c; Libby) driver h 539 E Nash.

In 1942, Nathaniel Green McPhatter registered for the World War II draft in Wilson. Per his registration card, he was born 7 November 1902 in Robeson County, North Carolina; resided at 539 East Nash Street, Wilson; his contact was Pinkey Townsed, Red Springs, N.C.; and he was unemployed.

In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 539 East Nash (“over Libby’s Cafe”), restaurant proprietor Lillie McPhatter, 44, widow; Louise C. McPhatter, 8; and roomers Doll Brown Jr., 30; Mabel Brown, 45; J.C. White, 38, tobacco factory laborer; Wilbert Signal, 35, construction company building helper; Alfonso Hodge, 40, restaurant cook; and Ozy Allen, 50, restaurant cook. [In fact, McPhatter was separated. She and Nathaniel McPhatter did not divorce until 1953.]

Wilson Daily Times, 12 May 1981.

The pitmasters of Dixie Inn.

From “Facts … About Wilson North Carolina: The City of Beautiful Trees,” a 1934 publication of the Wilson Chamber of Commerce.

The Dixie Inn opened in 1930 just south of Wilson and quickly established itself as the go-to spot for nights out, civic group meetings, company banquets, and rehearsal dinners. Its painted roof proclaimed its specialties, barbecue and oysters. Like every restaurant of its time and place, Dixie Inn was strictly segregated — at least, in terms of its dining tables. The Inn’s cooks and wait staff were Black, as were their so-called “pitboys,” the men who produced the barbecue for which the Inn was renowned. The photo above shows several African-American men shoveling charcoal under a long row of halved hogs and others tending to the fire that produced the coals while a boy in a cap looks on.