How To Roast a Whole Cow

"By the Flag in the morning, give her no warning.

I shoot the fire on the Claiborne Bridge.

It'd be a long time talking about the things I did."

Howard: For me being in New Orleans and living here now I was glad for them to see this Whole collection of what Louisiana culture is all about in one place because it's hard to see all those cultural elements in one time Gumbo Jubilee first of all start out because gumbo is the dish that you'll find across the African Diaspora Jubilee is a celebration and also an honor to DJ Jubilee who was one of the Pioneers for bounce music in New Orleans.

Bounce music is a music genre that's unique to New Orleans.

It came out of New Orleans, it was birthed in New Orleans.

We've seen the band, we've seen the Indians.

But I think for me, I wanted them to see that moment And then I want him to also see this whole cow because For me that cow was a labor of love like through my journey of cooking barbecue I have cooked every animal in the American South but the cow was the one that I have not and cook it with a technique that was passed down I have learned over the years that it is tried and true.

To be able to lead a group of people they cooking this dish but it - was more important for me to cook it with team of people because I wanted to share in today's experience I Wanted them to add to their own signature on this because it's important to work together.

Gumbo Jubilee Was for me in a way like a family reunion for people all across America to come back to the south.

It was the last piece of this barbecue journey for me I wanted people to see what American barbecue was and that confirmed it they said the barbecue was the of the whole host of cow with the best barbecue to have.

I don't know this would be my first time tasting well barbecue whole cow look look like You know what the history books say See a bit of sweetest meat And when I tasted it I?

Realized what it was and it made sense and what I was simply describing is eating Every part of anything you could get at any given time in one or two bites The literature said they cooked cows in the exact same manner we cooked pigs.

I came up with how to design this pit: because I knew I want anywhere from 300 pounds on up!

We wouldn't be able to touch this meat, once we start cooking it also I wanted to bear to rotate the animal fairly easily Throughout the cooking process.

Because I knew I needed to rotate it several times throughout.

I considered the turning radius of the width of the cow when laid upon the pit and when I rotate it over I knew it had a to clear that - - distance around the ashes and also fit within the existing pit structure I had - on paper; I knew that I had to rotate the cow.

But actually building this thing, is where my father got involved.

So, one weekend I went to South Carolina and we start building a rack to hold the cow.

So we could basically sandwich the cowl together He built the frame of the pit walls I would say.

But what, we didn't built was how you actually rotate it And when I was home that weekend that's when we put we finished putting that together!

we tested out the rotation beforehand so we knew it was rotate I wanted to test the rotation mechanism to Approximate that kind of week so it took four tractor weights off the front of a tractor and we put one in each corner of the cage and we rotated assimilate the cows week you took the whole pit apart except for the part we had the cow sandwiched in - and He drove it down.

On the back of a pickup truck when they got here, we had the reassemble the whole pit from ground up and at that time that was just it went back together how you build it in South Carolina.

Just to see it all come together in one piece it was huge I was hoping the cows will fit my farmer was hoping?

We had something to hold the cow because you like maybe I should have bought a smaller cow these farmers went through a whole lot for me to get this whole Kiley Ben Burkett he's over a co-op Indian Springs co-op in Mississippi it's been around for a long time and he's probably one of the first farmers in the country to start these farmer co-ops with black farmers.

Just want to introduce you all to Mr. Ben Burkett, from the Indian Springs Co-Op.

They really worked hard - they went out in the trenches to help me find this cow!

Ben: And fasten the process!

Because you got a problem!

Howard: You've been an advocate for black farmers for a long time 35 years multi-generational farmer; Alcorn State Grad.

Ben Burkett in his farmer Terry Price slaughtering cows is not an easy thing anymore a lot of slaughterhouses are going away so these farmers drove this cow up to the slaughter facility and then anyway I picked the cow up and then they drove it back to Somebody asked me: "Dr. Conyers you should be using thermometer the staging of cooking process.

You have the education."

But I said I don't know for for cooking pit cook barbecue as I've been taught I don't know that and so I went with What I knew.

See if I passed your test!

That passed your test?

Your cooking school?

Mr. Harris is cooking school.

Oh man don't give it to me cuz I'm your son.

You gotta tell me how to earn it.

And what I have trained over the past five years of cooking I mean I've been cooking on my whole life but I've been cooking a different experience so that I've cooked in the ground I have cooked on cinder blocks and I wanted America to See, somewhere I cook a whole cow I mean in this style I don't think America has seen anybody cook a whole cow in this manner and it's not just about cooking It's also about engineering because they have an apparatus to handle this cow and manage this cow.

Is an engineering feat along with cooking.

Cooking on a refrigerator pit is how I learn how to cook.

Whole hog barbecue in South Carolina.

That was my first childhood memory of a pit I converted to refrigerator some time ago in New Orleans It's a show that I could cook any meat on a refrigerator I could do it but the rest of the public didn't know that.

We cooked sweet potatoes, my family sweet potatoes out of South Carolina.

That we've been growing for like 40 years.

I made a mop because people didn't have a cotton mop to mop floor with.

So, my father told me people to take a clean t-shirt and they'll wrap it around a stick We're cutting up in the shreds so you can actually replicate a cotton mop and we use that to apply the sauce during the seasoning process, so you'll see guys definitely to a bucket and you're different mop in there and that's a very common technique in the Old South.

It's a sufficiency thing you'll have to bend down break your back to mop the animal And I wanted to do something big to represent the tricentennial but, also look at Louisiana and look at the south and a greater way.

We put a lot of focus on our food items on what came through New Orleans and came through Louisiana.

when you think about how the country grew at that time people from South Carolina came to New Orleans people in Haiti came to New Orleans people from the upper South Canada knew or like Virginia area came to New Orleans to go up to the Mississippi Delta so you have all those different cultures coming they got people from the West Indies coming in New Orleans people coming over Africa From the Gullah culture we took we looked at Okra Soup and that's a common dish you would find all over the South.

That was prepared by BJ Dennis.

Louisiana culture I want to look at something it Was kind of new and old: Yakamein.

Yakamein is a beef broth soup with noodles And that is a classic dish in New Orleans and the best person I knew to make this dish with Miss Linda Greene who was the Yakamein Queen.

We had Chargrilled oysters Chris Hayes is one of the best oysters people I know in the city So chargrilled oysters are basically oysters on the half-shell but you grill them and you have like parmesan cheese butter garlic we had Sarina Johnson and me Jambalaya jambalaya is a common Louisiana dish You have Purrlo rice.

You can almost say it's like a jambalaya in a way.

It's a rice and a meat dish We had a dish called Soup Joumou.

Which was a Haitian dish.

After the Haitian Revolution they made this dish and our dish was a dish they have every year to honor dat particular event.

Todd Richards made corn maque choux: corn, bell pepper, garlic, that's good.

We had creole sausage.

Vance Vaucresson of Vaucresson Sausage Company is one of two original Creole butchers in the city of New Orleans.

His family in particular has been making sausage in New Orleans since 1899 oh The dessert table, jeez.

The dessert table was like, beyond eating at Grandma's house The dessert table that were presented by Adrian Lips Gone and E Williams and her friends was like a church homecoming celebration.

They had everything.

They had pound cake, tea cakes, sweet potato pie Cornmeal cake!

They had a variety of cakes you couldn't see that many cakes and pies in your own house!

Sharing a meal together is like the that's the best way to learn about one another and appreciate one another they kind of just connect and form new bonds or old bonds and think about the past Think about your family everybody sitting down and break bread together it should be a good time, when you celebrate That's another thing that's unique to New Orleans so We had Creole Field Rhodes And I wanted people to see the ornate labor of love who goes into these suits do these people making the community in New Orleans.

They make these every year This program is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting