This week, Fox News caused a justifiable uproar within the barbecue community with a piece titled “The Most Influential BBQ Pitmasters and Personalities.” While no one would deny that inductees Aaron Franklin and Daniel Vaughn played crucial roles in the upswing of barbecue over the past five years, the glaring omissions were obvious: not a single African American was nominated.
Our friends at Grub Street tipped us off to the immediate online maelstrom, which saw Texas Monthly BBQ editor Daniel Vaughn and author John T. Edge taking to Twitter to voice their disgust.
While the lack of black pitmasters is unnerving, it is symptomatic of a broader disconnect between mainstream media and real BBQ culture.
"If anything, both in etymology and culinary technique, barbecue is as African as it is Native American and European, though enslaved Africans have largely been erased from the modern story of American barbecue,” wrote Michael Twitty in an essay that appeared in The Guardian... ."
BBQ Community Responds to the Absence of African Americans on Fox New's Most Influential Pitmasters List
Michael Lucero@mhenrylucero 
