Being a male chef from Texas, I am predisposed to liking barbecue. Not blood, but a sweet, tangy, hickory flavored sauce runs through my veins. The smell of beef or pork slowly melting with a secret blend of spices rubbed deep into its fibers caramelizing into a crisp, salty bark carries me to a state of humble bliss. As the resident expert on everything that goes on the plate, it is my job, no, duty to inform the masses on the intricacies of what good barbecue is, what different barbecue regions have to offer, what they share, and how to appreciate one of America’s only original contributions to the global palate.
Barbecuing, more than any other form of cooking, is a craft. A combination of art and skilled trade, the transformation of raw hunks of animal flesh into something that that people lust for, barbecuing takes a long time to master. It’s something that shouldn’t be tinkered with. Good barbecue rejects modernization in favor of doing it the way it’s been done for over a hundred years.
For the most part, you’ll find the best barbecue in the world in the least suspecting places. Buildings that have been around before a town was built around them, and even then it only has about 1100 people in it. Look at a map of any southern state and wherever there’s not a major highway, there’s probably good barbecue there. It’s something you have to seek out and the trip becomes part of the experience. Here’s a list of places to start looking:
Carolinas:
Specializing in whole hog preparations, North and South Carolina are known for their vinegar based peppery sauces. Tar Heels dust up that whole animal with a dry rub, park him in the smoker for eight to thirteen hours over indirect heat from smoldering hickory, chop up everything from the rooter to the tooter and slap it between a bun with some of that tangy vinegar sauce. South Carolina is known more for its mustard based sauces, pulled pork shoulder and ribs.
Memphis:
Ribs are king in Memphis. You can get ‘em wet or dry. Wet ribs are basted with a sweet, molasses based sauce during cooking that caramelizes on the outside of the meat. Dry ribs have a dry rub heavily applied to them before smoking and are vacant of sauce of any kind. The rub forms a crust on the meat similar to what aficionados call, “burnt ends.”
Kansas City:
Known to some folks as the “barbecue capital of the world,” Kansas City boasts an impressive resume when it comes to ‘cue. Other regions have their specialties, but Kansas City does it all. Brisket, ribs, pulled pork, sausage, poultry. Like Memphis, Kansas City is known for a sweet and tangy molasses and tomato barbecue sauce, a variety of which is sold in almost every grocery store from Maine to Maui, K.C. Masterpiece.
Texas:
Texas is the only region that has sub-regions. The second largest state in land mass and population has southern, eastern and western styles of barbecue, but the best is right smack dab in the middle. Central Texas barbecue is beef brisket, smoked over post oak (sometimes with added pecan wood), served on butcher paper with a few slices of white bread, and eaten with your hands without sauce. Most of Texas Monthly’s Best Bar-B-Q joints are located only a short drive from the state capital. West Texas smokes primarily mesquite wood because it grows locally and direct heat is used as opposed indirect smoking.
This past weekend I attended the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party where my favorite place from my hometown of Austin (big ups to the Salt Lick) was present and I’m happy to report had the longest line out of any rolling rig. We waited almost an hour for our small portion of fatty brisket and juicy sausage, but it was worth it. All the big barbecue hot spots were well represented with baby backs and St. Louis Style ribs from Missouri, pulled pork shoulder and whole hog from North Carolina and Alabama, Texas brisket and sausage, and even a few local New York spots that surprisingly don’t slouch when it comes to smoked meat. Even though they all had different menus, wood, rigs and sauces, they were all serving up heaping portions of slow smoked meat the way it’s been done for a long time.
No comments:
Post a Comment