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Red, White and Barbecue
Discover American barbecue traditions

By Douglas Brown

You've ordered a pulled pork sandwich in North Carolina, a rack of ribs in Memphis, "burnt ends" in Kansas City and chopped brisket in Texas. And you swooned over it all. You don't need to hop on a flight or plan a road-trip, though, to get in touch with your inner pitmaster.

The roots of American barbecue dig deep into the South, where even neighboring counties can have different approaches to barbecue, never mind different states.

Consider North Carolina, a state with a barbecue tradition that, by American standards, qualifies as ancient.


In eastern North Carolina, you'll eat shredded meat from an entire pig, which will be doused with a peppery vinegar sauce. Drive west a few hours from the coast, though, and the meat likely will come just from the shoulder of the hog, and the sauce will contain tomato.

At least two things remain constant: pigs and vinegar. North Carolinians like their sauce thin and punched with vinegar, whether it comes with tomato or not.
Head due west out of North Carolina and soon you'll glide into a similarly long, skinny state: Tennessee. Keep going until you're nearly in Arkansas, and then stop in Memphis. If it happens to be May, you may be in town for "Memphis in May," the largest barbecue competition and festival in the world. Either way, you'll encounter barbecue restaurants and stands all over the city — there are more than 100 barbecue outposts in Elvis' city — and several different styles and approaches to smoking pig.


Like North Carolina and much of the South, pig is king in Tennessee.

And in Memphis, much attention is slathered upon the ribs of the beast, although rib treatments differ sharply. Some Memphis outposts stake their reputations on "dry-rubbed" ribs, where the meat is generously rubbed with a mixture of spices, smoked and then served. If you want sauce, you've got to apply it yourself. Other places favor "wet ribs." Here, the ribs are lacquered with tangy barbecue sauce before, during and after cooking.

Another Memphis staple is the pulled-pork sandwich, a cheap hamburger bun stuffed with smoked pork shoulder that is topped with coleslaw.
Yes, they worship at the altar of the smoker in Memphis, but you'll find devotees no less fervent and reverential — in temples as storied and weathered — in Kansas City, the Midwest's barbecue capital, another city with upwards of 100 barbecue joints and a gigantic, annual celebration of livestock and agriculture, called American Royal, that twirls in large part around its barbecue competition.


The pig receives its smoky due in Kansas City, but the city, which straddles Missouri and Kansas, long has been a commercial center for cattle, and here you'll find at least as much beef as pig.

Among other things, Kansas City barbecue is known for its sauce, which leans much heavier on the tomato than those of Memphis and North Carolina, with a healthy wallop of molasses thrown in. Many of the thick barbecue sauces you can buy in supermarkets are based on Kansas City style, but don't confuse the mass-produced stuff with the small batches of ambrosia Kansas City pitmasters concoct in their kitchens.

And whatever you do, experience "burnt ends," the crunchy, charred ends of brisket slabs, a Kansas City culinary quirk worthy of national coronation.
Finally, there's Texas, a barbecue nation unto itself.


Cattle are hallowed in Texas, so it's no surprise the sometimes horned, always big, ruminants receive barbecue sanctification in the Lone Star State. Brisket reigns in Texas, but Texans like their chopped beef, too, as well as beef ribs.

But they don't reject the pig. Sausages, called "hot links" and often containing pork, are a Texas specialty. Pork ribs? They smoke 'em righteously in Texas.

When it comes to meat of any kind, Texas-style tends to remain fixed on the meat itself. Barbecue is no exception. Just as Texas chili shuns beans and just about everything else but beef and spices, Texas barbecue does not as a matter of course venerate sauce. Most meats are rubbed with spices and smoked. Sauce? In some places, at least, if you want some it will come on the side.

And where most barbecue is smoked over hickory, oak or a handful of other similar hardwoods, Texans often go for mesquite, which has a unique flavor.

Learn how pitmasters make their special mark

By Douglas Brown

Smoke and time are barbecue's dual backbones, but any self-respecting rib or slice of brisket exhibits more than just the byproduct of burnt hickory and an afternoon of patience. There are spices and herbs, liquids and sprays, and here is where each pitmaster develops secret recipes that set him apart from the competition.




Marinades. A marinade usually contains acidic ingredients like lemon juice or vinegar, and is used to break down proteins and muscle in meat, serving as a liquid tenderizer. Swamping your meat in a good marinade, too, will help add flavor to meat, and for cuts that are notoriously dry, like chicken breasts, the marinade can help keep everything moist.




Rubs. A rub is a dry mixture of herbs, salt and spices that sometimes also contains sugar. The rub is slathered all over the pork shoulder, brisket, rack of ribs or bowl of chicken thighs shortly before it gets set in the smoker or grill. Some pitmasters and barbecue traditions shrink from adding anything — like barbecue sauce — to a hunk of meat that has been rubbed and smoked. Since barbecue uses low heat, the rubs cook too, instead of burning, which is what some of them will do if grilled quickly over high heat. Rubs add complex flavor, but they also contribute a key textural element: crunch and crust.




Mops. A mop is similar in taste and consistency to a marinade — thin and acidic. Only where most marinades also depend on fats, like olive oil or butter, mops tend to eliminate them. And while marinades sometimes can be a stew of varied ingredients, mops can be awfully straightforward, often containing nothing more than vinegar, salt and black pepper. Beer, too, is a popular mop ingredient. The point? Moisture. Mops aren't typically applied to small cuts of meat that spend less than an hour on the smoker. Instead, a mop might be applied every hour-and-a-half or so to a six-pound pork shoulder as it spends its morning and afternoon slowly cooking and absorbing smoke.




Sauces. Marinades and mops are back-up singers; rubs and sauces are the stars. And for many barbecue styles and enthusiasts, an awful lot hinges on the quality of the sauce. There are also regional differences in choice of sauce:

South Carolinians prefer spiking their sauces with mustard.

Eastern North Carolinians snub tomato and lean heavy on the vinegar.

Western barbecuers embrace the tomato.

Kansas City pitmasters lace their thick sauces with molasses.

Texans often skip the sauce altogether, or they jack it up with cayenne or other hot peppers.
Using sauce is tricky. As long as you are vigilant about maintaining low heat, any barbecue sauce — even a sugary one — should survive without burning. But even a few short bursts of licking flames can turn a decadent, sweet glaze into a charred mess. As a result, barbecue sauce often is added to the meat shortly before it's yanked from the smoker, or is simply added to that paper plate piled high with sliced brisket. Sauces that do not revel in sweet, on the other hand, can be easily added before, during and after cooking.

Get hearty campfire flavor in your own backyard

By Douglas Brown

Learning the basics of cooking in the oven, on the stove or over hot coals takes some work, but let's face it: Grilling a bunch of burgers for a Saturday cook-out doesn't demand a wealth of knowledge and experience. You don't need a decade of practice to get the hang of smoking, either, but it's a bit more demanding than a round of grilled cheeses for the kids.

First of all, there’s the heat: How do you not only maintain a low temperature, but keep the embers glowing for hours and hours? And then there’s the smoke. Chuck a few dry chips of oak on a bed of hot coals and you'll get smoke — for 10 or 15 minutes. But you're going to want smoke for two hours, six hours, maybe even 12 hours. Or more.


Keeping the heat steady and shy takes work. Assuming you are working with a standard kettle charcoal grill, you'll want a chimney-starter full of charcoal. Hardwood charcoal burns with an intense, clean heat, but doesn't last long. Briquets, on the other hand, burns at a medium heat for a longer time. Often a combination of the two is optimal. Once the mountain of charcoal is covered in gray ash and no longer distributing flames, push it all to one side of the grill. In barbecuing, you do not want your meat hanging directly over a mass of hot coals; you desire indirect heat. The meat will sit on the part of the grill that is beside, rather than atop, the pile of coals.

Keep a supply of charcoal handy. Periodically, while you smoke your pork ribs or turkey leg, you'll want to add fresh coals to keep that heat huffing along.
Now for the smoke. Smoked foods demand hardwood, like oak, apple, mesquite, pecan and, of course, hickory. You can use old hunks of applewood from your yard, for example, or large chunks of oak that come in a bag, or processed alderwood or mesquite chips. Whatever style of wood you select, it's important that you drop it into a bowl of water for at least 60 minutes prior to introducing the wood to the flame. The wet wood smolders and smokes for hours, instead of igniting and flaming to a crisp in 20 minutes. If you're using chips, it's also a good idea to wrap the sopping wood in tin foil that you've punctured with holes. This keeps the little chips smoking for longer.

While you can smoke meats using gas grills, doing it over charcoal works best. You can use an inexpensive kettle-style grill; a ceramic Japanese-style grill that is really more of an outdoor oven; a cylindrical device called a "water smoker;" or a pit smoker a big, rectangular contraption with a chimney, a fire box and a separate cooking chamber.

In addition to hardwood and charcoal, you'll also want:


a culinary brush used to swab meat with sauce

a different tool used to apply mop — and with its loose skein of cotton yarn or strips, it often looks like a miniature mop

a rib rack (if you plan on smoking ribs) — a cheap metal appliance that holds your rib racks up on their sides, rather than flat on the grill — is invaluable
The barbecue industry offers a wide range of products revolving around barbecue, and many of them come in handy. But if you're just getting started, you don't need much more than time and patience.