This is Backstory. I'm Ed Ayers.

This Labor Day, millions of Americans are headed out to the grill for one last summer barbecue

and will likely indulge in the national pastime of eating lots of meat.

But in 1946, the barbecues wouldn't have been as plentiful.

The price of meat was sky high, and so were Americans' anxieties.

You have restaurant owners jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge because they have no meat to serve their customers.

Today on Backstory, we're cooking up a history of meat in America, from colonists who reveled in a land of abundance to the meaning of small game to the nation of Islam.

You need to turn away from anything that is associated with the slave diet,

the slave mentality, the slave regime.

Coming up on backstory, a history of meat in America.

Don't go away.

Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur

Vining Davis

Foundations.

From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is Backstory with the American History

Guys.

Welcome to the show.

I'm Brian Bellow, and I'm here with Peter Onif.

Hey, Brian.

And Ed Ayers is with us.

Hello, gentlemen.

Today's show is about meat, so we're going to kick off the hour by asking you, our listeners,

...