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Barbecue has played a surprisingly important role in United States presidential

politics over the years.

George Washington was a Virginia-style barbecue enthusiast.

He fed his soldiers a barbecue feast at the end of the Revolutionary War.

When the cornerstone of the Capitol Building was laid, he presided over the event that had a 500 pound ox barbecued, Old Virginia style.

Adams wrote that barbecues tinge the minds of people.

They impregnate them with the sentiments of liberty.

They render the people fond of their leaders in the cause

and averse and bitter against all opposers.

Recently, archaeologists discovered a barbecue pit on the south lawn of Montpelier that was in use during Madison's lifetime. to attend a barbecue, the first recorded instance of physical assault on an American

president occurred. A soldier who had faced a court-martial for misconduct stopped the president

on the road and grabbed him by the nose and shook

it as retribution before running away.

After the Civil War and before television, when many Americans weren't guaranteed three solid meals a day,

a free barbecue dinner was a compelling incentive to listen to a politician pitch for votes. But one president made barbecue an art form. I'm

Jason Epperson and on today's episode the Linden B Johnson National Historical Park, the Texas White House as it's known, in

Stonewall, Texas.

Here's Abigail Trebue. As a teenager, Linden Baines Johnson spent summers helping out on his Uncle Clarence Martin's cattle ranch along the Paternolus River.

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