Bludso's BBQ Cookbook: A Family Affair in Smoke and Soul

Introduction


I was born and raised in Compton, California, with a police officer father and a Black Panther–supporter mother. Every summer to stay out of trouble, I went to Corsicana, Texas, to work at my granny's illegal, bootleg BBQ stand.

I always just say that I'm so lucky to live the life I've lived. To be from Compton, to be born and raised with people like Dre and them in the city, in the concrete jungle, but then on the flip side to be able to be in the country every summer, to walk around barefoot, and go crawfishing and all that. Getting to grow up in both California and Texas gave me a whole different outlook than if I had just been raised in one place, and that's something I've been able to carry throughout my life. I just really think everything happens for a reason. Now I look back, and I've opened BBQ restaurants all over the world, I've gotten rave reviews from legends such as Jonathan Gold, I've hosted TV shows, I'm a two-time winner of the Steve Harvey Neighborhood Awards for Best Barbecue Place in America, and now I get to chill out and live in the country in Texas.

In this book, I want to teach you how to kick back, have fun, and make some good-ass BBQ. Then I also want to show you how I get down in the kitchen, too, cooking up way more than just BBQ. But for me this isn't just a cookbook. I also want to tell a story. I want to tell you about the family history, how we started, how we came to this, and a few of the things I've learned in my fifty-five years.

Shit Talking, Cooking, and Partying Lessons with Willie Mae Fields

I call her my granny, but Willie Mae Fields was really my daddy's auntie. She's the one who taught me how to BBQ. I swore up and down to her that I'd never go into the restaurant business. But Granny always said, "You're gonna have to own your own business because you're too much of an asshole to work for anybody else."

That first summer I went to Texas to stay with Granny, I was eight years old. I'll always remember that ride in her '74 gold, four-door Lincoln Continental. I was in the car with her, Aunt Alice, and Mr. Fred. (I still have no idea who Mr. Fred was. I don't even think he was family!) They were just partying, drinking, and driving, blues all in the car. The cooler was full of hog headcheese and sandwiches, and I was like, "What the f*** did I get myself into?"

Then in the house was Granny's crazy-ass husband, Johnny B., who was shell-shocked from the Korean War. So she'd say, "You want to stay here with this crazy motherf***er or you want to work with me in the morning?"

So I started working with her, getting up at six o'clock in the morning and going to her illegal BBQ restaurant on the weekends, with gambling going on, with no permits or health department or anything. She called it Little Rascals, and I watched her work that stand with Aunt Jean and Aunt Alice. It was just the three of them running this restaurant so incredibly. And all they did was cuss out each other all day. As a kid I'm watching this shit, like "Wow." I wasn't used to sitting there with somebody cooking, telling a story, talking shit, laughing, playing the music all loud. I wasn't used to that, and that's what made it better. You see, my parents were young. They were still working, still humping, so when I would go out to Texas, it was something special. I was hooked right away, and I went back every summer.

Granny did so much for so many people. She put people up, fed people. She was a legend in Corsicana. She was ninety-five years old when she died. Something like fifteen thousand people lined the streets of the town for her funeral procession. Everybody knew Willie Mae Fields. But don't get me wrong, Granny was a hustler too. She ran her little businesses in the back-her after-hours club, some other little red-light shit. No matter what, Granny didn't believe in being broke.

She also had a small juke joint next to her house where she could probably fit fifty people at a time, selling BBQ, Crown Royal, Schlitz Malt Liquor, gin, and whatever else. She called it The Halfway House. The juke joint was really long, kind of like a house on one side where you've got the kitchen and all that. At one end was this tiny waiting room that had a little speakeasy door so she could look through it and make sure you weren't the law. After she'd let you in, you'd walk through the kitchen, where it was hot as hell. Past that there was a bar area with a couple of rooms off to the side in case you wanted to do some . . . other stuff. She had AC in all the rooms and in the bar, but it was all window units. Wasn't no central air....