Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine One Plate at a Time, won a James Beard award; his second,
The President's Kitchen Cabinet, explored the history of African-American chefs in the White House. His new book is
Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue, and it was inspired by the same motivation behind his first two efforts: "The people who decide what stories are being told are white — and they're getting recommendations about what stories to tell from other white people."
In contrast,
Black Smoke tells the story of the importance of African-Americans on the birth and evolution of barbecue: cooking meat at low temperature over wood coals in a way that's distinct from other forms of outdoor cooking. "I saw that African-Americans had been pushed so far to the sidelines of barbecue that they were in danger of disappearing," explains Miller. "The book is consistent with my other books in that it tells a hidden history or a forgotten history."