Shownotes
The focal point of this podcast episode is the rich and intricate history of Old Arthur's Barbecue, as recounted by Udell Watts IV, the current custodian of this esteemed culinary legacy. We delve into the life of Arthur, a man who transformed his painful beginnings as an enslaved individual into a celebrated career as a pitmaster, ultimately becoming a revered figure within his community. We explore how Arthur's expertise in barbecue, nurtured under the most challenging circumstances, has been meticulously preserved and passed down through generations, culminating in the establishment of the Old Arthur's brand. The discussion further illuminates the significance of family involvement in maintaining this heritage, reflecting a profound commitment to honoring their ancestor's legacy. This episode serves not only as a tribute to a remarkable individual but also as a testament to the enduring power of tradition, resilience, and culinary excellence.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Old Arthur's
- Weston Kia
- Heritage Steel
- Gunter Wilhelm
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcripts
It's time for Barbecue Nation with JT So fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.
Speaker A:Now from the Turnip Don't Burnet studios in Portland, here's jt.
Speaker A:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Hey, everybody.
Speaker A:Welcome to the nation.
Speaker A:That's Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:I'm JT along with Ms. Leanne Whippen, my co pilot, co host, and co conspirator in the barbecue world.
Speaker A:And we've got the normal amount of vagrants hanging around the Turn It, Don't Burn it studios here in Portland.
Speaker A:And we are proudly on the USA Radio networks.
Speaker A:We'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker A:Beef the way nature intended.
Speaker A:You can check them out online@paintedhillsnaturalbeef.com as soon as I get my timer set here, we can.
Speaker A:We can do this.
Speaker A:Oh, come here.
Speaker A:We've got Udell Watts IV with us today.
Speaker A:Udell is the proprietor of Old Arthur's.
Speaker A:I'm trying to do too many things at once, which is never a good thing for me in Illinois.
Speaker A:And he's got quite a to tell about the history and the company of Old Arthur's.
Speaker A:Udell, welcome.
Speaker B:Yes, welcome.
Speaker C:Glad to be here.
Speaker C:Appreciate you having me.
Speaker A:Yeah, it was great to meet you down in Texas there and get a little smidgen of your story and then some of the stuff that you sent Leanne and myself.
Speaker A:Pretty interesting.
Speaker A:But first, tell us what Old Arthur's is actually all about.
Speaker A:The company.
Speaker C:So we're Old Arthur's Barbecue.
Speaker C:Looks like my connection's a little bit unstable, so you have to bear with me.
Speaker C:You know, my father and I brought Old Arthur's to Life, oh, about 10 years ago as a way to begin to tell Arthur's story and to share his legacy.
Speaker C:Something that we've always been proud of in our family, but we really haven't, you know, up to this point, hadn't made a big deal out of.
Speaker C:We knew that we were sitting on something really special.
Speaker C:We just weren't sure what to do with it.
Speaker C:My great, great grandfather Arthur, when you look at the bottle, you look at the products, that is his photo on the label.
Speaker C:You know, the man started out enslaved in Kansas City, Missouri.
Speaker C:So for the first 28 years of his life, you know, he was a slave.
Speaker C:His job revolved around open pit barbecuing day in and day out, all day, every day.
Speaker C:That's what he was tasked with doing from the earliest of ages.
Speaker C:He was responsible for making sure that the cooking fires on the big production farm that Owned him that those cooking fires always had wood available.
Speaker C:So, you know, at the age of 5, 6, 7, he was making sure that the indoor hearth had wood, the outdoor hearth had wood, and the open pit in which they, you know, commercially roasted meats also had, you know, wood available.
Speaker C:So by the time he was in his teens, he was actually also responsible for the roasting of those meats over the open pit.
Speaker C:And so that's where he began to dabble with whatever he could get his hands on to compliment the meats that he was preparing.
Speaker C:He often said he never really got any instruction.
Speaker C:He had to learn on his own, he had to learn the hard way.
Speaker C:But he also knew he couldn't afford to make too many mistakes given the circumstance that he was cooking under.
Speaker C:But fast forward to the age of 28, he actually found himself free through the Emancipation Proclamation at the end of the Civil War.
Speaker C:And when he was set free, the only value that he had to bring with him out of bondage were his skills and his recipe.
Speaker C:So he left Kansas City, he wound up here in central Illinois and quickly discovered that he had the ability to put the skills and those recipes to work for himself, to earn a living.
Speaker C:And he set about doing so.
Speaker C:And over the course of the next 80 years, man lived to be 108.
Speaker C:And so over the course of the next 80 years, he carved out a heck of a name for himself as the go to pitmaster.
Speaker C:If you're holding a city festival, a county fair, a community event, you sent for Arthur and had him come to town and execute the barbecue that you had been planning.
Speaker C:So he was pretty specific about his requirements.
Speaker C:If you're going to send for him, it meant that you, you were also going to put forth the resources to have a proper pit built.
Speaker C:And for him, a proper pit meant at least one pit that was 40ft long, 4ft deep, and 6 foot wide.
Speaker C:And I got some photos I can share with you later of those pits being dug, topped with rebar and cattle wire, and then pork shoulder top on those that were then turned through the night.
Speaker C:So that was his method of operation when he did a big open pit barbecue.
Speaker B:So that was he digging the.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Was he digging the pits in the ground or were they above level?
Speaker C:Above ground, they were dug in the ground.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker C:So, like the photos that I'll share, they are actually four feet below grade.
Speaker C: les going back as far back as: Speaker C:That's a lot of meat.
Speaker B:That is a lot of meat.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:You know, so, you know, they were pretty substantial fits.
Speaker A:Leanne does that every weekend.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker B:Exhausting.
Speaker B:It's exhausting.
Speaker B:You know, I'm just glad that he lived to be 108 years old, because again, once again, it proves how barbecue is good for you and it helps with longevity.
Speaker C:I wish we could make that claim.
Speaker A:I read most of the stuff you sent me, in fact, all of it.
Speaker A:And Arthur could not read or write.
Speaker A:So how did he pass down the recipes?
Speaker C:You're right.
Speaker C:As a slave.
Speaker C:He got married, he started a family.
Speaker C:He was able to get his children educated.
Speaker C:We have his recipes by virtue of his children's handwriting.
Speaker C:And so that's because of that part of our give back.
Speaker C:Every year we have a couple of different children's charities that we've created, you know, that we support just in honor of children's literacy.
Speaker A:Did those kids in your charities, do they get to come to old Arthur's and have a barbecue every now and then?
Speaker C:They get.
Speaker C:They get a little taste.
Speaker C:So one of them is actually a, you know, the public library back in my father's hometown, where I grew up in the Quad Cities, Rock Island, Illinois, to be specific.
Speaker C:One of them is charitable trust at public library there.
Speaker C:And, yeah, occasionally he does a barbecue type of activity there for friends and family at the library.
Speaker C:So they get a little taste every now and then.
Speaker A:Can we come?
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker B:So when we were at the National Barbecue Convention in Texas a few weeks ago, you did a lot of walks accepting all these awards for your sauce.
Speaker B:Was it just one sauce, or do you have a couple of sauces?
Speaker C:So we have.
Speaker C:Right now, we've commercialized two of his sauce recipes and six of his dry rib recipes.
Speaker C:And you're right, we won three different awards for tomato based mild sauce.
Speaker C:We actually walked away with top honors.
Speaker C:So first place for tomato based mild.
Speaker C:We walked away with third place for tomato based spicy sauce.
Speaker C:And then one of our dry rubs, smokestack, which is probably our most versatile.
Speaker C:Like true Kansas City.
Speaker C:What do you think?
Speaker C:Barbecue.
Speaker C:Kansas City barbecue flavor.
Speaker C:Walked away with fifth place for poultry.
Speaker C:We'll enter it in poultry.
Speaker C:We'll enter it in pork sometimes we'll enter it in beef, and it always does.
Speaker C:Well, you know, wherever we enter, it's just that versatile.
Speaker B:Congratulations.
Speaker A:We're talking with Udell Watts, the fourth.
Speaker A:What's interesting about this, I mean, old Arthur has got this story that goes on and on and on, but what's really interesting to me also you, Dell, is that it's all been kept in the family.
Speaker A:You know, we see so much these days where some barbecues, brick and mortars, and things are not being passed on because maybe the kids don't want to work that hard.
Speaker A:Maybe they just have no interest in it.
Speaker A:Running a barbecue restaurant is a lot of work, and you can ask Ms. Whippen about that.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's a hell of a lot of work.
Speaker A:But I think that's very cool that you and Udell V and everybody else is involved to keep old Arthur's going.
Speaker A:How important is that to you that the fan.
Speaker A:It's so family centric that, you know, it's kind of an unbreakable circle there.
Speaker C:Well, it's the.
Speaker C:The entire intent behind my effort with Old Arthur's is to create a brand based off of Arthur's legacy.
Speaker C:This sustains future generations of our family.
Speaker C:My children, their children, their cousins, their nieces and nephews.
Speaker C:You know, it's.
Speaker C:Right now, it's a.
Speaker C:It's a hobby that we're transitioning into being a real business.
Speaker C:And we're, you know, there's life in the tunnel.
Speaker C:We have some fantastic things that are happening for us, you know, right now, as a matter of fact.
Speaker C:And, you know, we're not.
Speaker C:We're not a restaurant.
Speaker C:We're a set of products that are designed for retail.
Speaker C:And it's incredibly important that, you know, my son be involved, that my children be involved, because I'm building this business for them.
Speaker C:So they need to.
Speaker C:They need to be a part of what's happening.
Speaker C:They need to understand it intimately.
Speaker C:They need to be part of the decision making.
Speaker C:Earlier you had, you know, you mentioned the idea that there's a lot of Udells involved, including my father, Udell iii.
Speaker C:And you're absolutely right.
Speaker C:But that's also part of the legacy behind old Arthur's.
Speaker C:As a slave Arthur, you know, Kansas City, Missouri, so the little bitty crossroads town called Udell, Iowa, and that was the first place outside of the slave state of Missouri that he laid his head as a free man.
Speaker C:He didn't stay there long before he learned of the opportunity for paid employment over in this community in Illinois, which is what he set out for and where he wound up landing.
Speaker C:But once he got there and he got married, started a family, he did name his firstborn child Udell.
Speaker C:So it's been important for us to carry that name in that direct line of firstborn sons.
Speaker C:That's why there are five Udells at this point.
Speaker B:It makes it easy to name your first child, doesn't it?
Speaker A:It does.
Speaker C:Ties your hands for all the other kids.
Speaker A:We're going to take a break here on Barbecue Nation on USA Radio networks and come back with Udell Watts IV from Old Arthur' Sauces and Rubs.
Speaker A:Award winning.
Speaker A:Now I can say Old Arthur's Sauces and rubs and Ms. Leanne and Udell and I will be back right after this.
Speaker A:Don't go away.
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Speaker A:Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here.
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Speaker A:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation here on the USA Radio Networks.
Speaker A:I'm JT along with Leanne Whippen and today we're talking with Udell Watts, the fourth from Old Arthur's in Illinois there.
Speaker A:If you'd like to email us, you can just go to Barbecue Nation, JT and there's a little box on the bottom.
Speaker A:You can send us a note and then either Leanne or I will get back to you on that.
Speaker A:We just did that yesterday, as a matter of fact.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you can follow us on Facebook or.
Speaker A:Leanne and I both have our individual Twitter accounts and Barbecue Nation has its own Twitter account.
Speaker A:And we're.
Speaker A:Lots of tweets out there.
Speaker A:That's all I can say.
Speaker A:Lots of tweets.
Speaker A:Sometimes we even put an image of food in there.
Speaker A:Leanne.
Speaker A:It's always a Snickers bar, but sometimes occasional fish.
Speaker B:I threw in a fish now and again.
Speaker A:You fish, Udell?
Speaker C:I do.
Speaker C:I love to fish.
Speaker A:You're talking to that blonde up in the left hand corner of your screen there.
Speaker A:She's a maniacal fisherman, I gotta tell you that.
Speaker A:And she actually uses a rod and reel versus an M80 or something.
Speaker A:She's really good on that.
Speaker A:Have you had a lot of interest in Arthur's story?
Speaker A:I mean, it's a fascinating story.
Speaker A:And we're going to jump into some of that here in a second.
Speaker A:But if you.
Speaker A:You've kind of laid out for us all the different things that he did in his life.
Speaker A:Not all of them, but as much as we can get in here today.
Speaker A:But it's so fascinating.
Speaker A:One of the things I found fascinating is because my great, great grandparents came out to Oregon, where I live, from New York, and they came across the Oregon Trail and all that jazz.
Speaker A:But when you were talking about.
Speaker A:Arthur liked to imbibe once in a while, and he had a horse and wagon that he would drive to town, followed by his wolf and all that.
Speaker A:But he could, after he had a couple snorts, he could just head the mayor home and she would get him home.
Speaker A:That sounds like something some of my relatives did and probably still do, I'm not sure.
Speaker A:But do people, when they read this story, what, what's their reaction?
Speaker C:They're absolutely, absolutely amazed that the whole thing is almost incredible.
Speaker C:And they're amazed that one, we have possession of the knowledge that it even existed, let alone can tell the stories.
Speaker C:You have to appreciate that My father.
Speaker C:My father was five when Arthur died, so he had memories of sitting on Arthur's laughing story talking to him.
Speaker C:He wasn't just a story.
Speaker C:And my father's not alone.
Speaker C:He's got longevity runs in our family.
Speaker C:I've got probably 16 or 17 aunts and uncles that are all above the age of 85 that remember Arthur.
Speaker C:And every time I go and visit with them are pulling out even more photos from photo albums and telling me stories about him.
Speaker C:So it's a very real thing.
Speaker A:I've got a lot of old family photos and some of them go way, way back to what they call the thrashing crews, because my ancestors were like grassland farmers and stuff like that.
Speaker A:And every once in a while, another we find another one out of somebody else's scrapbook.
Speaker A:And there will be like my great, great grandfather as a child, you know, driving a team or something like that.
Speaker A:I guess I come by all the horse stuff naturally, but I just find it fascinating because you talk about Arthur's walk from Kansas City up to, to Illinois, just that in itself.
Speaker A:And in the times he did it and surviving, that is a story in itself.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's, it's.
Speaker C:The whole thing is so incredibly rich.
Speaker C:Like when Arthur.
Speaker C:Imagine walking from Kansas City up to Iowa, and then I'm not sure exactly how he got from Iowa over to Illinois, which was like another 100ft, 40, 150 miles.
Speaker C:You know, he probably walked a part of it.
Speaker C:He probably hop trains, hobo style, but it in itself was quite a trek.
Speaker C:Interestingly, once he got established over in Illinois as a pitmaster and his reputation began to keep him in demand.
Speaker C:Somewhere in that track up through Missouri and into Iowa, he actually crossed through a stand of hickory trees on a farm that he decided were growing in the perfect condition to provide the right flavor for barbecues.
Speaker C:If he's doing something significant to the point where part of his requirement for doing a big city festival was for that event planner to send a truck back over to Iowa to that farm to collect wood back for the actual event.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:I mean, that's just how rich and intricate like the whole story is, you know.
Speaker A:How did they hire him?
Speaker A:I mean, we didn't have cell phones.
Speaker A:We didn't have email.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:And we had sketchy mail service if somebody was going to write him a letter, but then he couldn't read it.
Speaker A:So I'm sure he.
Speaker A:To have somebody else help him with that.
Speaker A:How did they contact him?
Speaker C:That's a question.
Speaker C:You know, my father always describes it as they sent for him.
Speaker C:I just always assumed that, you know, that somebody sent a telegraph to town and just let you know.
Speaker C:The telegraph office or something let him know, or the post office let him know.
Speaker C:I don't.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:That's a good question.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's kind of interesting because he.
Speaker A:He lived in the country, as it were, so.
Speaker C:But remember, he, you know, his kids were literate.
Speaker C:He had.
Speaker C:He actually owned his own home, so he very well could have taken.
Speaker C:It could have been a letter that came to the house.
Speaker C:He might not have read it himself, but somebody would have read it to him.
Speaker C:It's hard to say.
Speaker C:I really don't know.
Speaker C:That's a very good question.
Speaker C:I'll have to dig into it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:We are just touching the tip of the iceberg on this story, and it's so fascinating to me.
Speaker B:Have you considered doing a book on this?
Speaker C:You know, there was a book published actually a year ago May by an author named Adrian Miller.
Speaker B:Oh, we know Adrian.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker C:Arthur was treated in one of the early chapters of that book, Our Paths Happened across.
Speaker C:And he was fascinated by the story, and he asked me to write the basic outline around ol Arthur, and he included it in his book Black Smoke.
Speaker A:Yeah, Black Smoke.
Speaker A:Yeah, I got it.
Speaker A:I've got it right here.
Speaker B:Fascinating raid.
Speaker C:There's definitely a story there.
Speaker C:Hard to say.
Speaker C:I think.
Speaker C:I think there is a book there, though.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:We're going to take another break.
Speaker A:We're going to be back with Udell Watts from Old Arthur's Barbecue right after this on THE nation.
Speaker A:Stay with it.
Speaker A:Hey, everybody, it's JT And I have eaten.
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Speaker A:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Welcome Back to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:I'm J.T.
Speaker A:Along with Ms. Leanne Whippen, the fish slayer, and Udell Watts IV.
Speaker A:We'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker A:Beef you can be proud to serve your family and friends.
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Speaker A:Check them out online if you want some really good knives for your kitchen or if you're barbecuing or even if you're competing.
Speaker A:Take a look at Gunter Wilhelm online@gunterwilhelm.com We're talking with you, Del Watts IV, here about old Arthur.
Speaker A:He had us you and then overview you sent me.
Speaker A:You said that he would always kind of joke about would never die broke.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, I'm sure he, he probably never even really had money until he got away from being a slave and made his journey up to Illinois and started working.
Speaker A:I imagine, I imagine what that first quote unquote paycheck felt like to him.
Speaker C:Yeah, it had to be pretty satisfying, to be perfectly honest.
Speaker C:You know, even when he first got to Illinois, you know, he like his first few months in the small town of Kewaunee, his existence consisted of knocking on doors and asking if he could work for in exchange for a meal or, you know, change or whatever until he's actually able to find a job and become employed.
Speaker C:Once he got employed, then he could focus on actually functioning as, you know, a side hustle as a pitmaster, you know, until that grew.
Speaker C:But the whole idea that, you know, he always used to joke about he'd never die broke is, it's, it's tragically fascinating is the only way I can describe it.
Speaker C:So as a child, one of his, one of his responsibilities was bringing his master's horse either to him if he was leaving the farm or going to get it, fetch it and take it away to have this, you know, saddle removed and have it rubbed down if he's returning to the farm.
Speaker C:Well, the horse had just been shod.
Speaker C:If you know anything about new horseshoes, horses have to get used to, like the new shoes.
Speaker C:This horse had just been shod and it wasn't yet, you know, used the shoes, but he, you know, he went to fetch the horse anyway.
Speaker C:So as he's as, I don't know, like a maybe a seven year old leading the horse out of the barn, the horse's front hoof caught on the threshold board at the entryway to the barn and the horse stumbled and it kicked out trying to free its hoof and it caught him in the back of the head.
Speaker C:It just, it absolutely just laid him out.
Speaker C:In fact, they thought that it killed him.
Speaker C:You know, he was unconscious, he was motionless, and they thought he was dead.
Speaker C:But then they realized he was still breathing.
Speaker C:So they sent for help.
Speaker C:They sent for the vet and, you know, stationed in life.
Speaker C:And so when the other vet, the help they sent for clean the horrible wound in the back of his head, which included removing like bone fragments at the point of impact, which left a very small hole all the way through his skull.
Speaker C:And realizing he'd never make it like.
Speaker A:That,.
Speaker C:The gentleman that was helping, he took a silver dollar he heated in the fire.
Speaker C:Then he pulled it with alcohol and put a medicinal salve around the edge and then put it in place over the hole.
Speaker C:And then he tied a rag around it and explained to his people, like, I'm not sure if he's.
Speaker C:But to give him the best possible chance, you're going to have to change the rag that's holding this silver dower in place.
Speaker C:You're going to have to change that.
Speaker C:You're going to have to continue to clean around it.
Speaker C:Medicine around.
Speaker C:Basically, over time, the skin began to clude back over that silver dollar to the point where he did not need the rag holding, you know, on the back of his head.
Speaker C:And so that stayed with him the entirety of his life.
Speaker C:My father recalls sitting on his lap asking grandpa Arthur, tell me, tell me about such and such part of your life.
Speaker C:Tell me a story.
Speaker C:And he would talk about some of the hard times he saw, but he would always end it by jokingly saying, but old Arthur will never die broke.
Speaker C:And if you asked him, he would lean forward and he'd let you see that little spot in the back of his head where you could still see of the silver dollar peeking out from the skin.
Speaker B:Huh.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:How?
Speaker A:He was a tall man, from what I can gather from the image, that's.
Speaker C:Part of his daily ritual.
Speaker C:He was.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I got 6 foot 2, 6 foot 3, which was pretty tall for back then, but he was.
Speaker C:He was an exceptionally strong man.
Speaker C:The people in the community called him the double strong man, just for some of the.
Speaker C:Some of his feats of strength.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, so do you follow in their footsteps?
Speaker B:And do you still cook in pits below the ground, or how do you do your barbecue today?
Speaker C:It's been a long time since I've cooked over open pit.
Speaker C:I have.
Speaker C:It's probably been 20 years since we've done one.
Speaker C:My father and I talked about maybe doing one this summer just for the nostalgia of it.
Speaker C:And we'll keep you posted.
Speaker C:We'll send photos for sure.
Speaker B:Oh, no, no, no, no.
Speaker B:No photos.
Speaker B:We're coming.
Speaker A:Yeah, we want samples.
Speaker C:We can definitely do that.
Speaker A:So when.
Speaker A:When digging these pits, I mean, Leanne's done catering, and she's owned restaurants and stuff, and I've done catering and.
Speaker A:And when you talk about feeding, like 4,000 people, that in itself is just kind of mind blowing.
Speaker A:You know, I get it that it was probably 4th of July or a county fair or whatever you Dell.
Speaker A:But that is, as we said in the first segment, that's a lot of meat.
Speaker A:You know, well, being.
Speaker B:Being in Illinois now, it kind of.
Speaker B:My question is, was he cooking beef?
Speaker B:Because, you know, it's a lot of beef there.
Speaker B:But no, he was doing the hog thing.
Speaker B:Huh.
Speaker C:Iwanee was known as the hog capital of the world for hog production During World War I and World War II, the volume of pork that was shipped out to the world was unsurpassed from anywhere else.
Speaker C:So they were known as the hog capital of the world.
Speaker C:And that was his thing was pork shoulder.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:I know there's a lot of restaurants that serve pulled pork or whatever.
Speaker A:Could probably take some really good lessons from the way old Arthur cooks stuff, because to me, it sounds like the real deal, if you will.
Speaker A:You know, digging those pits and lining them.
Speaker A:I looked at a lot of the images you sent, and, you know, they were lining it, and there was one that kind of.
Speaker A:Well, there's several, but one in particular, I was thinking that they kind of take a long shot down the whole pit when it's full and you've got three or four guys, some of your relatives there, tending to the pits.
Speaker A:It's like, holy moly, that's incredibly large.
Speaker A:And you know, they didn't have digital thermometers in those days or anything like that.
Speaker A:You just had to know when it was done.
Speaker C:Yeah, they, it was interesting.
Speaker C:They would, they'd fill the pit with oak timber, you know, and light it at 4 o', clock, 5 o' clock in the afternoon.
Speaker C:So that by 8 o' clock or 9 o' clock it'd be down to, you know, to embers, to coals.
Speaker C:And that's when they put the shoulders on and then they would space med at 5 foot intervals on both sides of the pit with long handled pitchforks.
Speaker C:And then they would be responsible for, you know, working as far as they could reach to the right, as far as they could reach to the left and turning those, those shoulders through the night.
Speaker C:Now Arthur, I know for a fact was,.
Speaker A:Oh, you're breaking up again.
Speaker C:Pretty particular about the way he got reprimanded.
Speaker C:He wanted you to get underneath it, lift it and turn it over.
Speaker A:And you still have his pitchfork, right?
Speaker C:I do have his pitchfork.
Speaker C:I have his pitchfork.
Speaker C:If you go on our website, you'll see a photo of like men with long handle pitchforks turning, turning pork shoulder in the evening.
Speaker C: from, I don't know, it's like: Speaker B:So you have six dry rubs.
Speaker B:When did the dry rubs come around?
Speaker B:Because I can't imagine him back in the day using dry rubber spice blends.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:I have no idea who created the term dry rub.
Speaker C:To me that's a marketing ploy.
Speaker C:But they're just spice blends.
Speaker C:He had a handful.
Speaker C:He had a number of seasoning combinations that we gave him cute names, but he was pretty literal.
Speaker C:His barbecue sauce, it was his red sauce.
Speaker C:He didn't call it barbecue sauce.
Speaker C:You know, he's got marinades that we haven't yet done anything with and they're basically based off of like the main profile flavor.
Speaker C:The, some of his dry rubs were based off of the protein that it was going to go on.
Speaker C:Like, you know, he had one that he only put on pork, he had one that he only put on goat.
Speaker C:He had one that.
Speaker C:I mean it's 100 years with the trial for the man had plenty of time to experiment.
Speaker A:We're going to go ahead and take another break and we're going to come Back with you, Dell Watts, the fourth from Old Arthur's Barbecue.
Speaker A:And talk more about pinches right after this on Barbecue Nation.
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Speaker A:Hey, everybody, J.T.
Speaker A:Here.
Speaker A:I want to tell you about the Hammerstahl knives.
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Speaker A:Check out Hammer Stall knives if you're really into cooking.
Speaker A:I think you're really going to like them.
Speaker A:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:I'm JT along with Leanne Webin and today we're talking with Udell Watts iv.
Speaker A:And there is a Udell Watts V. I will tell you that from Old Arthur's Barbecue, sauces and rubs or seasonings as you Dell calls them, like that.
Speaker A:What's the best thing or the biggest thing you, Dell, that you've learned about your grandfather, your great grandfather?
Speaker C:You know, it's, it's actually something that I've seen.
Speaker C:Not only, not only something I learned about him, but it's something I've seen in the generations of Udells that I have been privileged to know my grandfather and my father.
Speaker C:And it's just a sense of self determination.
Speaker C:You know, Arthur had making his way out of bondage and making a name for himself in the kewaunee community for 80 years, you know, turning into an icon of that community.
Speaker C:I saw my grandfather have similar impact in the community that we grew up in.
Speaker C:My father was just named citizen of the year in our hometown three years ago.
Speaker C:So it's, it's a sense of self determination that's really important.
Speaker A:You talk about and I read some of the old newspaper articles that you sent.
Speaker A:You know, he was, he was just a, a, basically a hard working guy.
Speaker A:And I know he came out as a, you know, started as a slave and all that and, and that part of his story.
Speaker A:But did he get his determination from his mom and dad or did he even know his mom and dad?
Speaker A:A lot of people that were in that situation never actually knew their folks.
Speaker C:He actually, he did know his parents.
Speaker C:He knew his mother, he knew his father.
Speaker C:He knew the man that also, that raised him as his son.
Speaker C:So his father and the man that raised him, two separate people.
Speaker C:So he was all quite familiar with everyone in the equation.
Speaker C:I think his sense of self determination was inbred.
Speaker C:It was just a part of who he was.
Speaker C:He knew that if he was to make it, it's because he relied on himself and no one else.
Speaker C:And, you know, he had a really tough beginning.
Speaker C:You start out, like, as a slave, then you're freed.
Speaker C:You got absolutely nothing to start with, you know.
Speaker C:And so, interestingly, when he moved to Kewaunee, Illinois, one of the stories that he often told, which, you know, was when he realized that Kewaunee was where he would stay for the rest of his life, you know, when he moved there.
Speaker C:And, you know, that first couple months when he was just knocking on doors of businesses, asking, you know, can I clean up in exchange for meal?
Speaker C:Can I help you?
Speaker C:He went into a bar, and the barkeep said, I'm sorry, I've already cleaned up, but I've got barrels of whiskey and beer coming.
Speaker C:You can unload those later in the day when the wagon comes, if you wait.
Speaker C:And so he waited two hours.
Speaker C:The wagon showed up.
Speaker C:Unbeknownst to Arthur, there were three good old boys that usually did that work in exchange for a couple of rounds at the bar.
Speaker C:And they were pretty incensed that this guy showed up and he was cheating them out of their drinks.
Speaker C:But the barkeeper was actually the owner of the bar, so he asked.
Speaker C:He was here fair and square.
Speaker C:I've hired him.
Speaker C:Leave the man alone.
Speaker C:Let him do his job.
Speaker C:And they realized, actually, they were mad, but they're also joking.
Speaker C:There's no way he's going to be able to handle these barrels of alcohol.
Speaker C:It takes three of us to move one to the basement.
Speaker C:There's no way, you know, this one so and so is gonna be able to do it.
Speaker C:Well, a barrel, what we know is a keg, is a half barrel.
Speaker C:A barrel weighs about 310, 312 pounds.
Speaker C:And, you know, he needed to get that down to the cellar of this building.
Speaker C:So he shouldered it, he put it on his shoulder, and he walked the first one down.
Speaker C:He came back up, he shouldered the second one and walked it down to the basement.
Speaker C:And when it became apparent that he was going to get the third and final one down there, the ringleader of the three went ballistic because he had bet the others that this guy wasn't able to do it.
Speaker C:Arthur got it down there, and so he lost the bet.
Speaker C:And now he's ready to fight because Arthur's cost him money, cost him drinks, and now he's cost him money.
Speaker C:And so the guy called him out in the street.
Speaker C:Arthur tried to refuse.
Speaker C:He hung out in the bar as long as possible.
Speaker C:The barkeeper even said, hey, look, somebody that's able to do that with barrels of alcohol, you probably don't really want to fight somebody like that.
Speaker C:Leave the man alone.
Speaker C:But they insisted.
Speaker C:Because it was three to one.
Speaker C:They insisted.
Speaker C:Well, Arthur finally obliged them.
Speaker C:This is the only way he's gonna be able to leave the building.
Speaker C:They wound up in the hospital.
Speaker C:Arthur wound up in jail.
Speaker C:And, you know, as a newly freed slave, the only outcome of what he, you know, he sat up.
Speaker C:He was in jail.
Speaker C:He sat up all night worried about, you know, what was gonna.
Speaker C:What was to come.
Speaker C:And he was surprised.
Speaker C:The next day, he got a.
Speaker C:Had a bench trial in front of the judge and the shopkeep.
Speaker C:The barkeeper showed up for the trial, you know, for the hearing, and he told the truth.
Speaker C:He told the whole story.
Speaker C:And the judge essentially said, well, it sounds like they kind of got what they asked for.
Speaker C:And he's like, but I got to do something here.
Speaker C:So he wrote out, you know, a edict that from this point forward, Arthur Watts may strike no man with a closed hand.
Speaker C:And he released him with that edict.
Speaker C:And so he felt he had been treated so fairly, given the circumstances, he knew he had found a home in Kewaune.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's awesome.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:You've got a great story, Udell.
Speaker A:We're going to wrap up this part of the show here in just a minute, and then you, Dell, will stick around for a little bit for after hours.
Speaker A:That's always fun.
Speaker A:But what a great, great story of.
Speaker A:Of old Arthur.
Speaker A:I mean, it's.
Speaker A:And I think you're very privileged, if you will.
Speaker A:I mean, that's a word that people don't like these days.
Speaker A:But to have that story in your background and for your products, because it's all true, and it's of great significance to the barbecue world, but it's also a great bit of history.
Speaker C:So we really feel privileged to have this, the authentic history behind us.
Speaker C:I. I appreciate what you're saying, and I agree with you.
Speaker C:100.
Speaker C:We are privileged.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:That's gonna wrap it up for this edition of what do we do here, Leanne?
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:We will.
Speaker A:For the online set here.
Speaker A:We'll be doing the after hours here shortly.
Speaker A:But Udell Watts, the fourth from Old Arthur's.
Speaker A:Thank you for sharing your story with us today.
Speaker A:I mean, it was.
Speaker B:I could talk to him for days.
Speaker B:It's just so fascinating.
Speaker A:We just might.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:We just might.
Speaker A:Coming up here, we'll be back next week with a another edition of Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:And remember our motto here.
Speaker A:And I'm sure it was Old Arthur's motto, too.
Speaker A:Turn it, don't burn it.
Speaker A:We'll be back next week.
Speaker A:Take care, everybody.
Speaker A:Barbecue Nation is produced by JTSD, LLC Productions in association with Envision Network and Salem Media Group.
Speaker A:All rights reserved.
