Melissa Cookston is an American chef and author. She is the chef/owner of two restaurants, the author of two cookbooks, and a seven-time world American barbecue champion. [1] In addition, Cookston has twice won top prize at the Memphis in May American Barbecue World Championship and is the only female American barbecue world champion. [2] [3] [4]
Cookston was born in Ruleville, Mississippi in 1968. She grew up in Greenville, Mississippi and Pontotoc, Mississippi.
Melissa worked in food preparation for years. In 1996, she started cooking barbecue and began entering in competitions, winning many. [5] In 2007, she and her husband quit their jobs and toured barbecue contests around the country. In 2011, they were able to open their first restaurant, Memphis BBQ Company, which has locations in Mississippi and Georgia. In October 2016, she opened her second restaurant, STEAK by Melissa, in Southaven, Mississippi. It closed in 2020. She also opened a catering/plate lunch restaurant in 2019 called Green Tomato Catering in Horn Lake, MS. She still serves as pitmaster of Yazoo's Delta Q barbecue team. In 2017, Cookston revealed that she had begun breeding her own hybrid pigs. [6]
Since 2012, she has appeared on TV shows such as BBQ Pitmasters , Chopped , CBS This Morning , and The Kitchen , The American Barbecue Showdown , [7] among others. [8]
She currently lives in Hernando, Mississippi with her husband, Pete, and her daughter, Lauren. [9]
Kansas City–style barbecue refers to the specific regional barbecue style of slowly smoked meat originating from Kansas City in the early 20th century. Henry Perry is credited as the originator of the style, as two of the oldest Kansas City–style barbecue restaurants still in operation trace their roots back to Perry's pit. The Kansas City–style sauce is characterized by a thick, sweet sauce derived from brown sugar, molasses, and tomatoes.
Andrew Vaughan Nelson is an American former professional football player who was a safety in the National Football League (NFL) for the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants. He owns and runs a small BBQ establishment, Andy Nelson's Barbecue.
Red Hot & Blue is a Memphis style barbecue restaurant franchise founded by political strategist Lee Atwater and former House of Representatives member and Governor of Tennessee Don Sundquist of Memphis, Tennessee, among others.
In the United States, barbecue refers to a technique of cooking meat outdoors over a fire; often this is called pit barbecue, and the facility for cooking it is the barbecue pit. This form of cooking adds a distinctive smoky taste to the meat; barbecue sauce, while a common accompaniment, is not required for many styles.
Snow's BBQ is a renowned Texas barbecue restaurant located in the small town of Lexington roughly an hour outside of Austin, Texas to the east. Snow's is open only on Saturdays from 8 AM until they run out of meat, which is often around noon. The unusual hours were originally kept to take advantage of a weekly Saturday livestock auction that takes place nearby at 12:30 PM.
BBQ Pitmasters is an American reality television series which follows barbecue cooks as they compete for cash and prizes in barbecue cooking competitions.
Andy Husbands is a chef, restaurateur, author and television personality. Currently, he is the chef and owner of The Smoke Shop BBQ restaurants, Boston magazine's "Best Barbecue Restaurant of 2018" and The Improper Bostonian's "Best Barbecue" of 2017 and 2018. Smoke Shop BBQ has locations in various Boston metropolitan locations, including Cambridge's Kendall Square and Seaport's Fort Point and Somerville's Assembly Row. He has nearly 30 years in the restaurant industry.
Myron Mixon is an American celebrity chef and competitor on the competitive barbecue circuit. He is a five time barbecue World Champion and appeared as a judge on Destination America reality television show BBQ Pitmasters. He also appeared as a judge on the bbq show Smoked as well as the show BBQ Pit Wars. Due to the number of accolades he has achieved during his BBQ career, he has the nickname of "the winningest man in barbecue."
Johnny Trigg from Alvarado, Texas is an American celebrity chef and competitor on the competitive barbecue circuit. He is a two time Grand Champion of the Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational, and has appeared on TLC reality television show BBQ Pitmasters.
Memphis-style barbecue is one of the four predominant regional styles of barbecue in the United States, the other three being Carolina, Kansas City, and Texas. Like many southern varieties of barbecue, Memphis-style barbecue is mostly made using pork, usually ribs and shoulders, though many restaurants will still serve beef and chicken.
"Tuffy" Stone is an American chef and competitor on the competitive barbecue circuit. He has appeared on the Destination America reality television show BBQ Pitmasters. He runs the team "Cool Smoke". His nickname is "The Professor".
A barbecue sandwich is a sandwich that is typically prepared with barbecued meats. Several types of meats are used to prepare barbecue sandwiches. Some varieties use cooked meats that are not barbecued, but include barbecue sauce. Many variations, including regional variations, exist, along with diverse types of cooking styles, preparations and ingredients.
John Currence is an American chef based in Oxford, Mississippi. As of 2019 he owns four restaurants in the city of Oxford: City Grocery, Big Bad Breakfast, Bourè, and Snackbar in addition to a catering business, The Main Event. Currence also owns numerous Big Bad Breakfast locations in Alabama, Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina. He won a James Beard Award in 2009 for the category of Best Chef, South, at City Grocery. He later also participated in the third season of the Bravo television competition Top Chef Masters.
Ed Mitchell is an American pitmaster and businessman. Mitchell's frequent media appearances and advocacy for the use of heritage breed pork has earned him the title of the most "famous pitmaster" in North Carolina. Mitchell has appeared in Bon Appetit and on Throwdown! with Bobby Flay and National Geographic.
Norma Frances "Tootsie" Tomanetz is an American barbecue cook who is the pitmaster at Snow's BBQ in Lexington, Texas. In 2008, she rose to fame when Texas Monthly named Snow's as the best barbecue place in Texas and she is often referred to as the "Queen of Texas BBQ." She is featured in the first episode of the seventh season of Chef's Table, titled Chef's Table: BBQ, which aired on September 2, 2020. Tomanetz lives in Giddings, Texas, and works during the week at Giddings High School as a janitor as Snow's BBQ is open only on Saturday.
Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ is a barbecue restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina. Specializing in pulled pork barbecue and owned by Rodney Scott and Nick Pihakis, it opened in February 2017.
The American Barbecue Showdown is a reality television series filmed in Covington, Georgia that premiered on Netflix on September 18, 2020. On August 9, 2021, Netflix renewed the series for a second season.
Kevin Bludso is an American chef, restaurateur, and television personality.
Rodney Scott is an American chef and whole-hog barbecue pitmaster from Hemingway, South Carolina. In 2018 Scott was named Best Chef: Southeast by the James Beard Foundation, only the second pitmaster to win a James Beard chef award.
Dominique Leach is an American chef.