AUSTIN, Texas — For many chefs, food is much more than sustenance. Food represents creativity, tradition and culture.
Damien Brockway captures all those themes, and more, in the menu at Austin's Distant Relatives.
“Distant Relatives, to me, talks about the interconnected nature of heritage," Brockway said.
Brockway opened Distant Relatives in February 2021. The restaurant bills itself as “modern African American barbecue” – a genre of food that Brockway discovered through self-reflection.
Brockway, who is from the Northeast, asked himself a question years ago: “It’s like, ‘Why are we eating these particular things, whereas these are not things that we’re seeing in other New England households regularly?’”
Distant Relatives' menu, which rotates and evolves frequently, features traditional Central Texas barbecue favorites like brisket, pork ribs and pulled pork, with African-inspired ingredients.
Tamarind molasses showcases a flavor indigenous to Africa and is a flavorful base for the barbecue sauce. Mustard butter pairs well with brisket and is a nod to the seed’s origin in Northern Africa. Spicy smoked peanuts are a unique barbecue snack item, made possible by African American inventor George Washington Carver.
“We also use grains of paradise, which is a type of pepper, which actually comes from West Africa – also known as the Pepper Coast, for that very reason," Brockway said.
Though some of the spices may be new to local barbecue fans, the method of cooking is familiar.
“We are using a very Central Texas barbecue-style method,” Brockway said. “We’re using an offset smoker, for instance, so a lot of the flavor is coming directly from the wood itself.”
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A highlight of this barbecue journey is hearing the stories his customers bring.
“Folks say, 'My grandfather used to make chicken just like this, and when I eat this, the only other person who ever made it that way was him, so thank you for that,'” Brockway said.
Brockway’s goal is to provide those who are near access to cultures that are far.
“That’s what we want,” he said. “We want our culture and community to be proud of us.”
To learn more about Distant Relatives, you can visit the restaurant’s Instagram page.