BBQ - Rodney Scott

[bunniefuu]

[birds chirping]

[store entrance bell chimes]

[upbeat music playing]

[Rodney] The chef heads
to the restaurant supply store

to get what he needs.

{\an }My situation is completely different.

I need hog wire, I need an a*.

This is what I need to cook barbecue.

[whirring]

[sizzles]

Part of barbecue that's different

is the smoke.

The aroma of the wood burning...

it gets your attention.

You can't help but wonder,

what's going on,
where that smoke is coming from.

People just pour right in.

Family, friends,

sometimes strangers.

That's barbecue.

[Vivaldi's "Winter" playing]

[birds chirping]

[bluesy bass line playing]

[Lolis]
There's been an epic change

on the American culinary scene
about the last or years.

A big part of it has been the attempt
to discover what an American cuisine is.

What have we contributed
to world food culture?

That naturally leads us to barbecue.

{\an }There's no other food
that speaks as articulately

{\an }about this country and its people
than barbecue.

[Nick] If you're in the Carolinas,
there is this tradition

of whole hog barbecue.

They cook a whole hog
over a -hour period.

It's not the same as putting hot dogs
or hamburgers on a grill.

{\an }You're taking it to a much bigger level.

{\an }It's an art.

It's very hard work.

There's no shortcuts.

Very few people
really understand the technique.

[Lolis] Whole hog is a tradition
of rural areas.

Rodney Scott is one of the only people

doing this kind of barbecue.

Without somebody like Rodney,

we wouldn't have the tradition
to enjoy it now.

[Nick] Not something
he learned from a book.

Rodney lived it.

He started when he was .

And it's very innate.

I equate it to a great musician
that doesn't know how to read music.

He feels it.

Rodney Scott is whole hog barbecue.

-Let's move the head out of our way.
-[man] Yes, chef.

[Rodney] And try to get
a little roll on him.

[grunting]

Take that back in that way.

I'm good.

All right, let's fire it up.

[Rodney]
My morning routine these days,

I wake up around : , six o'clock.

And take a walk in the neighborhood.

On this walk, I'm thinking,

what did I do yesterday
that I can improve on today?

I used to watch a lot of stories,

where people would come
from rags to riches,

because they never gave up.

They just kept striving forward.

So, I'd always tell myself
every day's a good day.

It don't always go as smooth as we want.

But life is what you make it.

[Rodney]
How you folks doing?

[indistinct chatting]

[Rodney] My glass is gonna be
half full at all times.

I'm gonna make the best
of every situation.

I'm gonna make sure
that every day is a good day.

-[woman] Perfect.
-Thank you so much.

[pigs grunting]

[Rodney] Scatter it where
all can get some and don't have to fight.

Try not to get it in the water, now.

You're spilling it.

See? Look, scoop...

throw.

[Braylin grunts]

[Rodney] When it's cold like this,

they all sleep together real tight.

-[Braylin] Why?
-That's how they stay warm.

Take some.

[Rodney] So, this is what I did
every day after school.

You had to make sure they had water.

Make sure they had corn.

Then you had to do your homework.

Shake, shake, shake.
Make sure you got it.

All right, now finish up.

[Lolis]
If you look at whole hog barbecue,

we're talking about
a tradition largely Southern,

and largely done by black people.

On plantations, they realized hogs,

in addition to being delicious

would also be cheap sources of food.

[Rodney] That was the most
inexpensive way to feed people.

And it became a tradition
in South Carolina,

weddings, family reunions,

and everybody had a hog for Christmas
and they had a hog for Thanksgiving.

[whirring]

We cook the whole hog directly over coals.

And to get the coals, you had to go
somewhere on the family's farm

and cut a tree or two down.

Split it with an a*.

And then you had to
burn the wood down in a barrel.

We'd take the hog
and put it on meat side down.

We only fire the hams and the shoulders.

The rest of it would just
slowly cook along with it.

The fat of the hogs
drips into the hot coals.

The flavor goes
right back up into that hog,

so you have this smoky, fatty flavor.

All right. One, two, three.

[Rodney] And then you grab
different portions of the whole hog.

And you just pull it apart,

the loin, the belly,
the shoulders, the ham,

and you just put it together in a bite.

And man, you're in for a heck of a meal.

Mmm.

[birds chirping]

[powering up]

[whirring]

[Rodney]
Growing up in Hemingway, South Carolina

surrounded by farms and fields...

trees...

the only thing you saw throughout the day
was the mailman...

or maybe another farmer passing through.

I was an only child.

No siblings.

Just Rodney.

Many days, there was nobody home.

Sometimes playing out in the dirt road,
you hear a plane overhead.

I would always look up to see
and wonder...

who's in it?

How far is this place
that they're going to?

Can they see me?

I said, "I wanna ride on one of those."

[Ella] Twenty-three, forty-six.

[woman] Jesse, go ahead
and talk to me, baby.

I want two pounds
in two separate containers.

-[woman] How you doing, Jesse?
-All right.

Alrighty.

[speaking indistinctly]

[Ella] Yours on top
and mama's on the bottom.

-Okay.
-Okay.

This is probably good.
I ain't know who cooked, but...

[Ella] I ain't cook it.
[laughs]

Keep cooking, baby.

[Ella] He needs to keep cooking.

-[Jesse] Mm-hmm.
-[woman laughs]

[Rodney] My folks own
the variety store in Hemingway.

-[man] Can I get a bottle of water?
-[Rodney] This tiny town.

We were considered a drug-infested area
that you shouldn't go to.

-[woman] Thank you.
-Thank you, ladies.

[Rodney] There was misconceptions
about how bad Hemingway was.

When in all actuality,
it was pretty quiet.

It's mostly a crossroads
with three traffic lights.

The nearest major city,

Charleston, South Carolina,
is two hours away.

[distant fiddle playing]

The store was a meeting spot.

We had church pews in the front
where people just kind of hung out.

In the back was the barbecue pit...

where we did the whole hogs 
and then sold sandwiches in the afternoon.

My dad was a tough parent.

He believed you had to be busy.

You have to work.

My teen years,
I didn't do anything but work.

Cutting wood.

Making coals.

Eventually, my dad taught me
how to cook a whole hog.

It was just expected
that I would carry it on.

Majority of my time was spent alone.

It was never to have fun.

It was always work.

All the time.

I was stuck in this place, in this town.

[bell chimes]

-Morning, Mr. Henry.
-[Mr. Henry] Good morning.

How's it going?

Get this one here tightened up before...

All right.

-Before he get to the school.
-Right.

[hair clipper whirring]

[Rodney]
So, what ole J up to?

[Mr. Henry] Busy. He was trying
to switch over to appointments only.

-So...
-Man.

[Mr. Henry] That's working out.

Growing up in Hemingway,
we couldn't do that.

-Nope.
-You had to sit and wait.

First come, first serve.

That trip to the barber shop can be...

-An all-day deal.
- minutes to all day.

Discuss whatever
you've been doing all week,

what you got planned for the next week.

[Mr. Henry]
I know. [chuckles]

Had to be ready
when you go to the barbershop,

be prepared to stay a while.

[Mr. Henry] Yep.

[Rodney] My senior year,
we had the graduation ceremony.

I'm wondering, which way am I gonna go?
What am I gonna do with my life?

We celebrated,
everybody hugged, took pictures.

Things are gonna be great.

That's when this young lady came up to me

and said,
"I don't know why you're celebrating.

The only place you're going
is right down the street to cook hogs."

Right after that, I walk over to my dad.

And he looks at me and he says,

"You have to be at work tonight.

Twelve o'clock."

I'm sitting there, like, "Wow.

This is my graduation,
I gotta go straight to work."

I felt like my dreams were taken away.

I'm just gonna be down the street
cooking hogs.

This is my life.

That was it.

-[Rodney] Let's check this hog.
-[man] All right.

[Rodney] Ah.

Once we get it on at this stage,
we can fire it up

and let it go.

We can get the temperature up
to get it where we want it to,

at least , , keep it above that.

We definitely need to get it hotter.
When you can do this...

-[man] Uh-huh.
-...it ain't hot enough.

We want it hotter than that.

Let's grab some coals.

Hit the shoulders and the hams.

Full shovel across the front,
full shovel across the back.

[man]
Hams first?

[Rodney] Go all the way across.

The back.

-[man] Here?
-[Rodney] All the way up.

[man] Oh, I see it.

[Rodney] For a long time, I was frustrated
with what was going on with my life.

Majority of my time was spent
cooking hogs all night long.

I felt lost.

And then my dad had a stroke.

We all had to make adjustments.

Just me and my mom
in charge of this place.

So, I gotta figure this out.

I dedicated myself
to trying to learn every little thing

that I can about the business.

What-- What's appealing?

How should it look?

How should it taste?

My mom had this light-blue Cadillac,

Carolina blue.

I said, "What if we use this color
on the building?"

We can capture people's attention.

Then I had this idea to pull the hogs off

just before service.

If you kept it coming off hot,
that aroma was always in the air.

People would just want it.

With my dad,

there was always a little pushback.

"Leave it alone. It's been like this."

Like a closed fist.

He wanted it his way.

I wanted to make things better.

[Rodney]
Set it right here for a minute.

So...

let's put our pit a little bit right here.

All right.

-What are the dimensions?
-We're building a single pit.

We can go up...

get ready to come back here.

It's gonna be nice and tight.

Enough room to get that hog in there.

[man] One hog?

[Lolis] One of the theories
about the origins of American barbecue

is that it has to come
from South Carolina,

because only South Carolina has
all of the different sauce traditions

that you find in other parts.

The mustard sauce,

and ketchup sauce,

and the vinegar and pepper sauce,
which is what Rodney does.

You have all of this in South Carolina.

[Rodney]
My earliest memories of eating barbecue

is standing beside my mom.

She would be pulling the pork.

She always knew which part to give me

that wasn't too spicy for me.

When I got a little older,
I started to want a little spice.

Now the sauce that I make is not mild.

Rodney talks about
when the sauce is right, it makes you

wanna kiss it, gives you a pucker.

But perhaps more important

is the balance when you apply
that sauce to the meat

and it's served on this bread.

You put all together and you say,
"Oh, this is the hand of a master

who realizes all the elements
he's working with have to be in balance."

And he's figured out how to balance them.

[Rodney] Let's get these two.

Check this one.

And that one.

Take him.

For the next spot,
I wanna check these two right here.

Take him.

[Rodney] After the changes, we got busier.

Before you knew it,

I noticed people coming
from different areas

just to get the barbecue.

That's how word got out.

We went from that one hog a week

to a point where we were doing
about hogs a week.

One afternoon,

we're out cutting wood.

My mom calls.
She says, "This guy called.

He wants to write a story
about the times or something."

I said, "Mom, be specific.
What is it? What's this times?"

She said,
"Something about [span style="style "]New York Times.[/i]

He says he's gonna call you."

"Yes, ma'am, okay."

I had a prepaid cell phone
that I know only had a few minutes on.

This guy calls.

I'm like, "Please hurry up
and say what you've gotta say.

Hurry up.
This phone call's gonna shut off."

We had this conversation,

set up the date to show up,
and I hung up.

The phone said
I had about nine minutes left.

I said, "Fame is only minutes.

We got nine left, let's go to work."

John T from [span style="style "]The[/i] [span style="style "]New York Times[/i]
came to Hemingway.

I fired my hogs.

And he took notes.

We hung out.

We talked all night long
as if I'd known him forever.

Then he said,
"Okay, I have enough."

And he left.

I figured that was it.

He wrote the story.

{\an }The phone immediately started ringing.

We were getting calls
from people in New York.

There was one call
from some foreign country.

It was amazing.

This story reached so many people.

It just blew up from there.

[Paul]
All right, hot rod.

Same recipe as last time,
same flavor profiles.

Okay.

Cooked them a little bit longer,
less bitter, okay?

I don't like that bitter.

[Paul] Stems nice and tender,
got some belly meat.

-All right.
-I like what you're doing.

[Paul]
Rod sauce on this one.

Is that supposed to help
convince me to taste them?

-I talked to your mom. She said...
-Golly.

...you should eat your greens.

-She told me the same thing.
-I know.

As I resisted every time.

-[Nick] All right.
-I'm gonna do this.

Here we go.

[Nick] Good?

-[Paul] What do you think?
-With the rub, yeah.

They feel tender.

That's it.

[Nick] I think so, too.

Okay, let's go with this.

[Nick] I learned about Rodney Scott
from [span style="style "]The[/i] [span style="style "]New York Times.[/i]

It got my attention.

So, I visited, uh, Hemingway.

I was taken aback
by how hard Rodney worked.

You can feel the love that's been put
into everything that he does.

[Rodney]
Nick asked me the question,

"Once that article from [span style="style "]The[/i] [span style="style "]New York Times[/i]
starts to get old and yellow...

where will Rodney Scott be?"

I had no answer.

He said, "Why don't you open up
a restaurant in Charleston?"

To me, that was foreign.

In Hemingway, you didn't talk to people
with multiple restaurants.

And I felt responsible for making sure
the family business was okay.

[Nick] He just wasn't ready to go.

And so, my other recommendation
to Rodney was...

"How about cooking a pitmaster dinner
here in Charleston?"

{\an }We featured a different pitmaster
each year.

[Rodney]
Never cooked away from home.

It was a little scary.

We set up the pit.

Sold out dinner.

They're counting on me
to make sure my part is on point.

The crowd starts to fill in.

[laughing and chattering]

There was some serious VIPs.

I'm terrified.

I pick up my ingredients,

and I freeze with it in my hand like this.

Lost it.

I'm looking at all these people
waiting on this hog.

All eyes on me.

I wanted to just run out of there.

Then I thought,
"I'm just gonna throw a Hail Mary here."

I started seasoning that hog.

I mopped it.

Just do it.

It came out perfect.

Guests that I talked to were happy.

To satisfy that crowd,

it was very relieving.

I'm thinking, "You know what?

I can do this.

What's next?

How far can we take it?"

[Rodney] I think we're good.

-Right about here.
-[man] All right.

[Rodney] November, .

It's Thanksgiving weekend.

One of our biggest days,
trying to get food out.

We have about...

hogs cooking
and about turkeys cooking.

It was about : in the morning.

My pit guy called me and said,

"The pit is on fire."

It was about a -minute ride
to get to the store.

That was one of the longest trips ever.

When I got there,
you see all these firetrucks.

The locals were already out there.

It was chaotic.

It was the horrible smell of burnt meat.

Burnt wood.

The whole building burnt down.

I'm, like, completely finished.

What am I gonna do now?

After the fire, it was pretty tough.

I didn't have enough money
to fix this business.

How am I gonna take care of all this?

I started making calls.

John T and Nick, they said...

"What do you think
about making pop-up appearances

to raise funds
to get yourself back together?"

I said, "It's worth a sh*t. Let's try it."

[upbeat country music playing|

We started in Charleston.

From there, went to Atlanta...

Nashville,

over to Oxford, Mississippi.

Way down south to New Orleans, Louisiana.

Back across country.

Finish up again in Charleston.

It was about an -day tour.

We called it "Rodney Scott in Exile."

[Nick] A lot of people
were coming to see Rodney.

Cooked out on the street,

and people were standing up,
giving him an ovation for it.

We were like,

"Holy sh*t, is this really happening?"

It was amazing.

[Rodney]
There was a lot of love.

A lot of support.

I found out that people cared
about what we did.

A great feeling.

-Gonna throw a couple sticks.
-Open it.

[fire crackling]

-Yeah.
-Oh, yeah.

-That'll get it going.
-Hurry and wait.

That's what it is.

[Rodney]
One time, I cooked a hog in five hours.

Only got three witnesses.
I'm one of 'em.

[laughter]

Five hours, on a pit.

[laughter]

[man] Three days ago,
I'd left a few coals...

-Uh-huh.
-...going in the box.

Flames coming out of my cooker.
I'm going down highway about ,

and this car comes and he's like,
"Hey, man, you're on fire!"

And I was like, "My tire?"

"No, you're on fire!"

I was like, "I got some ribs on there."

-[laughter]
-I was like...

And the dude, only thing was,
guy at the gas station was like...

-"Can I get one rib?"
-[laughter]

And I was like,
"I don't think they're ready."

[laughter]

You want a beer?

[Rodney] Nah, gotta slow down.
You might hear truth if I keep drinking.

[man] That's the point.
What barbecue's about.

Drink too fast,
you definitely won't last.

[man]
Cook slow, drink slow.

Right. This should hold us a little while.

[fire crackling]

[Rodney]
The tour was a success.

We raised $ , .

We applied it towards
rebuilding this new pit house

with a total of about pits.

Everything set up the way it needed

for Scott's barbecue in Hemingway.

Nick gets on the phone to check on me.

The question of Charleston came up again.

I b*at him down, constantly.

How about coming to Charleston
and cook here?

[Rodney]
I said, "You know what?

Opportunity doesn't knock
all the time like this."

When I talked to my folks,

I assured them that it would be
two separate businesses.

Hemingway will still be Hemingway.

My mom, she was like, "Oh, okay."

My dad was kind of quiet.

Everything my dad had taught me,

I did for a while...

his way.

I embraced the knowledge.

I appreciate it.

But if you keep your fists closed,
nothing can come in.

You got what you got,
but you can't get any more.

I wanna see what happens
if my hands are open.

New ideas,

new opportunities...

they can get in.

I decided, let's go ahead and do it.

Open 'em up.

{\an }[woman] Thank you for choosing
Rodney Scott's BBQ. Order when ready.

I'm doing well, and yourself?

You want the plate or the sandwich?

All right. Will that be all for you?

Please drive forward.

You're welcome.

We appreciate y'all.
Thank y'all so much.

-Thanks for coming.
-Thank you.

[Nick] Coming to a pretty big stage
in Charleston,

got the attention of a lot of people.

They read about Rodney Scott's
and they go, "We wanna try it."

People were coming
from all over the world.

[Rodney]
We're setting up one morning.

My phone's buzzing
in the middle of me talking to my staff.

It's Nick.

[chuckles]

And he said, "Congratulations.

We made the James Beard finalist list."

In utter shock, walked out...

trying to gather myself.

Heart's b*ating a mile a minute.

They said,
"You have to go to Chicago."

I got to the ceremony.

I'm sitting there in the audience.

Martha Stewart's here.

Andrew Zimmern's here.

These are the big names in food.

This is huge.

Here comes Best Chef Southeast category.

They call the names.

And I just try to take a deep breath.

The next thing, they were tugging me.

Saying, "You gotta get up, you won."

[cheering]

The whole row beside me, my wife, Nick,
were cheering me on.

[upbeat country music plays]

The lights, just like, boom.

They put this award around my neck.

{\an }I said, "Here's that dream
that you thought was out of reach."

[cheering and applause]

How y'all doing?

[Rodney]
I went back to years old.

And I went back to that young lady
that told me,

"You're not going anywhere
except right down the road."

I thought about her and I said,

"Ha.

Didn't even know
what she was talking about."

My mom would be proud.

Check these two right here.

That one.

Take it.

Make sure you get it in the pen.
Don't scatter.

[Paul]
What do you think?

Yes.

Stop right there.

-See right here?
-Mm-hmm.

We score this

so the heat and the smoke flavor
can get down in here, right?

There's no need.
That's all thinner belly meat down there.

So, we make sure
they're open with the blade.

Like such.

Give the smoke a chance to get in.

Okay?

Pull the fat out, but not the meat.

Pull.

See?

[Rodney]
My son, he tends to dream about

when he's in charge
and when I'm gonna take over.

And when we let him in the pits now,
he's so focused on what he's doing.

Score the meat.

You're explaining something to him,
he just focuses in.

Before you know it,
he got it locked.

[Braylin]
What about seasoning?

[Rodney]
No seasonings yet. Okay?

-All of that?
-Now grab it-- grab it here.

Just pull it straight back.

Keep pulling.

[Nick] For Rodney, his family
was passing that business on to him.

But Rodney wanted to grow.

His family had to let go.

That's hard.

I think-- It's hard on the family,
it's hard on Rodney.

[Rodney] I have a strong
relationship with my mom.

Dad, not so well.

It is one thing
that I would like to set right.

I've made attempts.

Was a little unsuccessful.

The solution that I can come up with

was to just carry on.

Keep on moving forward.

Let temperature build up.

Close that off.

[Nick]
The things he learned from his dad...

he's carrying on that family tradition.

-Just doing it his way.
-[Rodney] How we doing, folks?

-Good.
-Good, good.

-We're from Louisiana, man.
-Louisiana? Ooh, that's...

That's... That's incredible there.

[Rodney]
I always think about the future.

Saying, "What's next?"

Let's play with it. Let's get bold.

How far can we take things?

How much can we do?

How many places can we go?

Now I'm traveling to different places.

Meeting different people.

Every time I get on a plane,

I wonder,

is there another kid looking up?

I want him to look in the mirror and say,

"I can reach any level I want to

if I continue to strive forward."

[upbeat southern music playing]