How AI Is Hijacking Recipes and Food Creators

Barbecue has never just been about food. It is about trust. About showing up. About knowing when to say yes and when to say no.

Every now and then, the barbecue world hits a stretch where nothing feels settled. Not collapsing, not exploding, just… uncertain. This week’s conversations landed right in that space, where you can feel the industry shifting under your boots, even if no one has fully named it yet.

Let’s start with Traeger. If you spend any amount of time on LinkedIn, you have probably noticed the same thing I have. A steady flow of “now hiring” posts. No big announcement. No victory lap. Just movement. And sometimes movement without explanation tells you more than a flashy press release ever could. Is Traeger back? Maybe. Sorta. Hard to tell. What is clear is that brands are repositioning quietly, recalibrating for whatever comes next.

Then there is Tendernism. Or more specifically, what happens when food culture, money, pride, and public attention collide. Keith Lee visiting Destination Smokehouse should have been another moment of shared excitement. Instead, it turned into a flashpoint. Being turned away after attempting to tip Walt, reportedly to the tune of $4,000, lit up conversations everywhere. Tipping culture. Intent versus perception. Who gets to decide what respect looks like in a space built on community? There are no villains here, but there are lessons. When barbecue becomes a destination, the expectations change, whether we like it or not.

That tension shows up again when you look at Smokeslam. According to their site, Smokeslam 2026 is officially on ice. No event this year. That kind of pause does not happen by accident. Events are expensive. Labor is expensive. Attention is expensive. Sometimes the smartest move is knowing when to step back instead of pushing forward just to say you did it.

At the same time, some traditions keep standing firm. The Shed Showdown is back, reminding us why legacy matters. Steak cookoffs, real fire, real skill, no gimmicks required. There is something grounding about knowing that some corners of barbecue still move at their own pace, untouched by trends or timelines.

And then there is the newest threat creeping in quietly. AI bandits. Bloggers and recipe developers waking up to find their work scraped, repackaged, and redistributed without credit or consent. This is not innovation. This is extraction. And for creators who built their platforms one recipe, one test cook, one failure at a time, it hits deep. Barbecue has always been about sharing knowledge, but sharing only works when respect travels both directions.

When you zoom out, all of these stories are connected. Brands hiring quietly. Events pausing. Traditions holding steady. Creators protecting their work. What we are really watching is an industry negotiating its values in real time.

Barbecue has never just been about food. It is about trust. About showing up. About knowing when to say yes and when to say no. The smoke always clears eventually. The question is who is still standing when it does, and what they chose to protect along the way.