Barbecue is the U.S.’s equalizing obsession
Though each state has a different method, everybody enjoys grilling some meat
I thought barbecue was simple. Buy meat, heat meat, eat meat.
After nine weeks in the U.S., I realize how wrong I had been. From state to state and city to city, the meat, rub, sauce, sides, wood and cooking method change drastically.
There is only one constant. From presidents to paupers, nothing brings Americans of all creeds and colours together quite like barbecue.
First stop: Detroit, where Slows Bar BQ stands like a glowing ember of success among a desolate bed of charcoal. Here, and across the Midwest, sauce is everything. The plethora on offer, from a vinegary North Carolina dressing to a sweet and thick Kansas City sauce, is the ideal introduction to the diverse tastes I would discover.
“Anyone can barbecue, not many places can do you a good sauce,” said customer and Detroit native Brandon Johnson. His father’s recipe is the glue that bonds his family. “Before any event, my cousins make sure my dad is on the grill before they come.”
I drive south through the goldenombre crop fields of Ohio to laidback Louisville, Ky., where I meet dunga- ree-clad Smoketown USA owner Eric Gould, the self-branded “Redneck Jew,” so-called for his religion and love of hunting.
“The Johnsons taught me how to barbecue. They were wonderful neighbours,” said the pitmaster with wispy white sideburns that resemble tiny clouds. At 20, Gould, now 46, suffered a brain aneurysm and had been given a 2-per-cent chance to live. “I’m here because I believe in myself and I love people. Life is about how you treat people. I love them. That’s my secret ingredient.”
After six hours in a very high-heat wood-fired smoker, Gould’s pork ribs (he also does beef ) are so succulent and tearable I can leave teeth marks in the bone.
My next rack of pork ribs involve a lot more vigorous chewing. Before taking to the brights lights of Broadway in Nashville, Tenn., I line up for an hour at Edley’s Bar-B-Que, a roadside barbecue ranch, for hardcrusted charcoal crunchy ribs that are more familiar, though less gratifying, to my British palate.
In Memphis, Tenn., I discover one reason why former resident Elvis Presley’s weight ballooned — the irresistible dry rub of Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous. The pork ribs initially look so parched I think they’ll grate my mouth like I had licked tarmac. But when the Cajun coating is ripped apart, juice spurts free to reveal easily chewable, pink-lined meat.
Elvis was not the only king to eat at Rendezvous. Long before U.S. President Barack Obama and former U.S. presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton visited, it welcomed civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who was shot a short walk away at the Lorraine Motel, which now houses the National Civil Rights Museum. After a few hours of solemn American history, I eat at the nearby Central BBQ, where sauce is shunned in favour of a traditional Tennessee dry rub.
“The first week I worked here, an old man in the back said, ‘Tom, sauce is what you put on the meat you screw up. You’re not going to screw up my meat, are you?’ ” said Thomas Strange, who has been the restau- rant’s manager for the past three years. Strange advises where to go next in search of America’s other main barbecue meat.
“I make the best brisket in Memphis,” he said. “It’s still not a brisket town. Texas comes here for pork, we go there for beef.”
Soon, I’m driving on 10-lane highways past gun ranges and signs warning me I’m going to hell. I’m in Texas, where locals brim with barbecue patriotism, almost as devoted to the fat-lined brisket as the Stars and Stripes on their porches.
At Pizzitola’s BBQ in Houston, the waitress hears my Scottish accent and decides I should read the menu and she will order for me. “You’ll love the brisket and then you’ll love me,” said Cindy Amolochitis.
Well, she is half right. Like the locals, the Texas brisket warmly embraces you. The state slogan says you shouldn’t mess with Texas, and they don’t mess with the meat, save for a smattering of salt and black pepper.
From the well-established momand-pop joint of Houston, I go to La Barbecue, a gleaming new food truck in Austin. The lineup is continuously 60-strong on a Wednesday morning.
On the benches of La Barbecue’s lot, suited lawyers tear beef and pork ribs next to unemployed students.
Rich to poor, black to white, Detroit to Texas, barbecue is the great equalizing obsession in a deeply splintered country. It’s not exempt from polar divides — beef or pork? Dry or wet? But unlike the political dividing lines, the U.S. coalesces around barbecue. It’s more than a cuisine. More than a culture. For a true taste of everyday America, a rib joint is the only place to go.
As long as you’re happy looking seven months’ pregnant afterward.