Episode 10: Soul Food with Adrian Miller and Dr. Mark Johnson

This week HATM  revisits 1997's Soul Food to talk about food history, the African diaspora in the United States, and gendered spaces in the house. To do so, I got two of the best damn scholars of food history in the United States: Adrian Miller and Mark Johnson. If you don't know their work, you soon will because they drop some absolute knowledge bombs in this podcast. And yes, we're gonna settle the best bbq debate once and for all. I hope you like the episode.

Adrian Miller is an award-winning culinary author, professional speaker, certified barbecue judge, and recovering attorney. He previously served as a White House special assistant to President Bill Clinton, and as a senior policy analyst for Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Jr. Adrian is currently the Executive Director of the Colorado Council of Churches, and recently co-curated the “Proclaiming Colorado’s Black History” exhibit for the Museum of Boulder. Adrian lives in Denver, Colorado.

Mark A. Johnson, from Milwaukee, graduated in 2016 with a Ph.D. in History from the University of Alabama. Previously, he earned an M.A. from the University of Maryland and B.A. from Purdue University. Before joining the UTC faculty, he worked as a Visiting Lecturer at Georgia State University.

He specializes in the history of the United States and, specifically, the U.S. South and African American History. In 2017, he published An Irresistible History of Alabama Barbecue: From Wood Pit to White Sauce. In 2021, he published Rough Tactics: Black Performance in Political Spectacles, 1877-1932 came out with University Press of Mississippi. He previously published articles in Southern Cultures and Louisiana History.

Currently, he’s working on a cultural history of bacon in the United States tentatively titled American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon with University of Georgia Press.