Photographs by Mamadi Doumbouya, food styling by Pearl Jones, prop styling by Shannon Maldonado
Kurt Evans, culinary director at Drive Change, marinates his chicken in advance to ensure it won’t dry out on the grill, then he bastes it with sauce at the end for the crackliest, stickiest skin. Evans’s homemade barbecue sauce contains just a touch of blackstrap molasses: a rich, dark flavor brought by African American migrants from the Deep South. They used to make it on their rural homesteads from homegrown sugarcane during the time of the Great Migration.