SXSWorld
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3 2 SXS W O R L D | M A R C H 2 0 1 7 M U S I C | SXSW.COM New Film Studies Barbecue's Global Language By daniel vaughn plains of Mongolia to reach the home of their nomadic hosts, "We got there and it was just an empty field." They found another family who told them to look 20 miles down the river. The hosts had simply moved. While women milked yaks, the men hunted native marmots, which are about the size of a groundhog. Their preparation is one of the most unexpected in the film, involving hot rocks and blowtorches and resulting in what they call boodog. It was only during later research that Salleh learned that "the marmots of that area are natural car- riers of the bubonic plague." The boodog scene is a reminder of how much variety there is in the barbecue world, but for Texans, Barbecue covers some familiar turf. The hallowed ground of Smitty's in Lockhart and Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor are featured, as well as a few joints outside of Central Texas that don't get enough recognition given their lon- gevity, namely Patillo's in Beaumont and Prine's in Wichita Falls, which opened in 1912 and 1925 respectively. For a how-to film on barbecue, you'll need to look elsewhere, but that doesn't mean it's not educational. As Texas Monthly's barbecue editor, I make a living writing about barbecue, reading and watching everything I can find about the subject, but nothing in recent memory has taught me more and renewed my thirst for true barbecue explo- ration than Barbecue. Although the film highlights the differences between the barbecue cultures, it is, after all, an examination of how we all use barbecue for the shared goal of fellowship, no matter what is on the grill. Most importantly, Salleh reminds us that barbecue should be celebrated because the practice itself is a celebration: "When something good has happened, people put meat over a fire." Barbecue screens on Saturday, March 18 at 2pm, at the Stateside Theatre (719 Congress Ave). See schedule.sxsw.com for details. Barbecue, photo by Matthew Salleh A merica is in the midst of full-on barbecue worship. Of late, that same fascination has also spread across the globe, and all those brisket photos from Paris or Tel Aviv or Singapore look a lot like Texas barbecue. But don't think that barbecue is just a recent global phenomenon. There is a vast array of long-practiced barbecue traditions from Armenia to New Zealand, but not everybody has an American-sized megaphone to tell their culture's grilled meat story. Thankfully, film- makers Matthew Salleh and Rose Tucker traveled the equivalent of three times around the globe to capture the diverse cultures of 12 countries in their new film, Barbecue. In it, a series of vignettes document everything from goat barbacoa in Mexico that's cooked overnight underground in a brick-lined pit, to Japanese izakaya, a flurry of skewered meats over blazing charcoal, cooked with a rapidity that matches the bustle of Tokyo. The pre- ceding scene in a rural Japanese forest juxtaposes the time-intensive process of making the binchotan charcoal (which roasts in a kiln for a month) that burns so brightly and swiftly on the izakaya grill. As the film jumps from country to country, each segment is nar- rated only by the cooks involved, with no outside experts or really much context at all. Barbecues are presented as gatherings that foster community, with fire as fuel for both cooking and storytelling. "Rule #1 about this film is that it's about barbecue, and rule #2 is that it's not about barbecue," Salleh says. As he and Tucker traveled, they wanted to focus on the essence of barbecue besides the obvious sustenance it provides. In Sweden, disposable aluminum grills called engangsgrill are purchased from grocery stores en masse at the first sight of spring. The food doesn't get much more complicated than grilled sausages, but the barbecue is an excuse for friends to gather on the newly green grass and say goodbye to the long nights of winter. As one local puts it, "You have to fill up on sunlight, so you have the memory of it for the rest of the year." In the Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan, just across the border from Syria, it is barbecue that brings some joy to lives interrupted by war. One of the first businesses to open in the camp was Atef Muhammad Al Hariri's shawarma restaurant with meat that had to be smuggled in. There were few resources, but Al Hariri found a shawarma chef, Ahmed Al Jabawy. If the refugees couldn't have their normal lives, Allah willing, they'd at least have barbecue. "Everyone in the world has the best barbecue," Salleh laughs. A shack in South Africa no larger than a lawnmower shed has a sign that boasts "Number One Chicken Dust," translated: the best bar- becue in town. Sound familiar? It was that belief, and the willingness of barbecue cooks everywhere to share it online, which provided most of location leads. "We had no plans to go to Armenia," Salleh admits, but a barbecue video on Reddit turned into an invitation to stay with an Armenian family and document khorovats. This scene in the film opens with a young man, hair dryer in hand, summoning fire from a pile of char- coal. One of the hosts, Armen Mheryan, without a hint of sarcasm explains that Armenians are superior pitmasters because, "The Armenian soul is fire and flames." The last minute side trip to Armenia was a joy to the filmmakers, but there were plenty of challenges elsewhere. Salleh recalls the moment of fear and frustration after they drove for hours through the