Pitmaster Rodney Scott Talks Barbecue, MSG, and Relaxation

Tinfoil Swans Podcast

On this episode

Rodney Scott is having a good day. It’s right there on the pitmaster’s shirt — the slogan “every day is a good day.” He’s a James Beard Award-winning chef who rose to national prominence cooking the sumptuous whole-hog barbecue he grew up eating. He’s been the subject of a documentary, won accolades for his cookbook, and has plans to expand his restaurant empire everywhere. But before all that, Rodney Scott was a music-loving kid in Hemingway, South Carolina, annoyed about spending his vacation days working in the fields, chopping wood, or flipping pigs for his family. And he never dreamed that barbecue would someday be his legacy.

Meet our guest

Food & Wine named Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ one of the 13 most influential restaurants of the 2010s, and for good reason. In 2018, the South Carolina native opened his first restaurant outside of his family’s original Hemingway, South Carolina, outpost, and that Charleston location has proven to be the anchor of an empire. Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ can now also be found in Homewood and Trussville, Alabama; Atlanta, Georgia; and Nashville, and if Scott has his way, you’ll someday be able to find it anywhere on the planet. Scott was the subject of the documentary film CUT/CHOP/COOK in 2012, named Best Chef: Southeast by the James Beard Foundation in 2018, starred in an episode of Chef’s Table: BBQ in 2020, and won IACP’s Cookbook of the Year Award for Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ in 2021.

Meet our host

Kat Kinsman is the executive features editor at Food & Wine, author of Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves, host of Food & Wine’s podcast, and founder of Chefs With Issues. Previously, she was the senior food & drinks editor at Extra Crispy, editor-in-chief and editor at large at Tasting Table, and the founding editor of CNN Eatocracy. She won a 2020 IACP Award for Personal Essay/Memoir and has had work included in the 2020 and 2016 editions of The Best American Food Writing. She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, won a 2011 EPPY Award for Best Food Website with 1 million unique monthly visitors, and was a finalist in 2012 and 2013. She is a sought-after international keynote speaker and moderator on food culture and mental health in the hospitality industry, and is the former vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.

Highlights from the episode

On worrying about what others think

“I don’t worry about the aunties and the opinions anymore. At some point I did. I’ve learned that the one tradition that I did learn and grow up with was the whole hog, and anything else I can wrap around that.”

On the value of relaxation

“There’s one guy that used to help us, named Beau. He would say, ‘Go sit down on a block and search yourself.’ It didn’t mean, ‘Go rest.’ It was like, ‘Take it easy for a second, don’t have your mind all over the place.’ I would sit on a wooden block just to see what he was saying, and then I realized it pays to relax. It pays to take it easy for a minute. It pays to stay humble, stay grounded, and that’s been major for me. To this day I try to spend some time alone every single day, for at least an hour. Just a moment of staying humble, not letting the world get the best of you mentally.”

On his hoop dreams

“Cooking barbecue never was in the cards for me. I said I need to learn how to play basketball, so I can go play with the great Dr. J, and Andrew Toney, and Maurice Cheeks. I was like, those guys are gonna wait for me to come and play with them, with the 76ers. As I grew a little bit, I wasn’t growing a lot. OK, if I don’t get this basketball thing going, what am I gonna do? My junior year in high school, I figured out that supply and demand was a real thing, and food was one of those things. I said, you know what? I know how to do whole hogs. If I get stuck, I’ll do this. Senior year comes along, I don’t go to body shop school or diesel mechanic school, and I was just cooking whole hogs. I said, I gotta find the fun in this. It just evolved from there. I fell in love with it.”

On the power of MSG

“Ac’cent is MSG. We call it, ‘Jesus Tears,’ and it’s not bad for you because it’s in a lot of the foods that you eat. If you love snacky snacks, made by some of those most famous brands — they have MSG in them. I understand that if you may be allergic, or you may not be allergic, but it’s the best umami flavor that you can add to whatever you’re cooking — just a pinch. The sodium is not as intense as table salt would be, but there’s nothing wrong with a little Ac’cent. The name fits it well.”

On making friends with fire

“You know how when you go to a nightclub, you stand either by the bar or by the bathroom, and you’ll see everybody? With barbecuing you stand by the grill. No matter what’s going on, somebody’s gonna walk past it just to see what’s cooking, how long it’s been cooking, when is it ready. Even if it’s hot dogs, they will still come by the grill first and say, ‘Burn one for me.’ And I’m like, ‘Gotcha.’ But it’s just something special about standing by that grill and people come and see you. The barbecue community is so unique.”

About the podcast

Food & Wine has led the conversation around food, drinks, and hospitality in America and around the world since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with a new series of intimate, informative, surprising, and uplifting interviews with the biggest names in the culinary industry, sharing never-before-heard stories about the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made these personalities who they are today.

This season, you’ll hear from icons and innovators like Daniel Boulud, Rodney Scott, Asma Khan, Emeril and EJ Lagasse, Claudia Fleming, Dave Beran, Dan Giusti, Priya Krishna, Lee Anne Wong, Cody Rigsby, Kevin Gillespie and other special guests going deep with host Kat Kinsman on their formative experiences; the dishes and meals that made them; their joys, doubts and dreams; and what’s on the menu in the future. Tune in for a feast that’ll feed your brain and soul — and plenty of wisdom and quotable morsels to savor.

New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen and follow on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

These interview excerpts have been edited for clarity.

Editor’s Note: The transcript for download does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.