America's best barbecue _ 100 best barbecue recipes from America's smokehouses, pits, shacks, rib joints, roadhouses, and restaurants

A INTRODUCTION mix of cars and trucks is parked here. Cadillacs, rusty pickups, fancy SUVs, vans, flashy new pickups, sports cars, limos, sedans —they are all here for one reason: the barbecue. Out back there’s hickory, oak, pecan, apple, or mesquite, scrambled like it’s ready for business. Forget neatness. This is a working woodpile. Customers are lined up outside the door at 11:15 in the morning. Inside, the people are happy. The joint is already crowded. Be patient. You’ll get a seat. Smell the barbecue while diners dig in with gusto. Soon you’ll be chowing down on America’s best barbecue—slathered meats, crunchy fries, corn bread, coleslaw, beans, and other delectable eats. It’s worth the wait. This book honors American barbecue and the people who make it. Here you’ll find more than 100 recipes for out-of-this-world appetizers, tender and smoky meats cooked low and slow, sweet and spicy sauces and rubs, homemade sides, and even a few decadent down-home desserts—if you’ve saved room. And because food tastes better when you know the people and stories behind the recipes, we’ll introduce you to some famous and not-so-famous pitmasters and barbecue personalities, living and dead. Some come from long lines of proud pitmasters, some have been at the craft most of their lives, and others are up-and-coming barbecuers. All view barbecue as an art and a craft. It’s not a job, it’s a profession, and they take great care to ensure that each day’s barbecue is even better than the last. The next best thing to being at one of the best barbecue joints in America is to get it direct—if they will ship it to you. Many of the places in this book sell their sauces, rubs, and other products by phone and online. We list the address, phone number, and Web site when available so that you can buy direct from the source and try it for yourself. Another great way to enjoy America’s best barbecue is to cook it yourself. The usual drill when writers visit a barbecue joint is to take some photos, sample some dishes, then publish a knockoff recipe from the menu. Whenever possible, our recipes and techniques come straight from the source. A frequent reply when we asked for a recipe was, “If I tell you, I’ll have to shoot you” or “Sorry. Our recipes are trade secrets. We don’t give them out.” We expected to hear that, and often enough we did—especially when we were strangers to the owner. Then “No” turned to “Okay,” or “Sure, I’ll give you our recipe,” after we got better acquainted. “Yes” was instant from most pitmasters who know us. We’re honored to know quite a few, and many are friends. Many of the recipes that were given to us have never been published before. When original top-secret recipes were denied us, and we thought you would like something similar, we came up with our own version, thanks to Paul’s talents as a championship pitmaster and a certified working chef. We bring a lot of baggage to this book. We’ve been involved in the business, sport, and art of barbecue for more than fifty years each. We have many friends in barbecue. Paul also does a lot of consulting and is involved in several restaurants. It’s a daunting task to select a hundred places out of more than eight thousand. It’s a little subjective, maybe not altogether fair. Occasionally we’re influenced by the mystique or personal good memories of a place or both. Our choices reflect our prior knowledge of barbecue joints across the nation and recommendations from trusted friends, family, colleagues, and fans who heard about the book and told us about places we should try. We also checked books, articles, and online sources for tips. Many barbecue books rate joints with numbers; others rate with stars, rib bones, or other symbols. The bottom line is that all ratings are subjective, including ours, and that could serve up a little controversy. Our top 100 are not ranked from 1, best, to 100, less good than the other 99. Each joint in this book is, in our view, one of the best in America. They are all on the same playing field, with varying strengths and weaknesses. That aside, we have each named our Top Ten joints at the back of the book, the ones we feel are the best in America. If your favorite barbecue joint isn’t in here, maybe we haven’t tried it, or maybe we tried it and didn’t like it. You will agree with us sometimes, and sometimes you won’t. We don’t even always agree with each other about a particular place. We get over it, and so will you! The menu is similar across America’s barbecue joints, with regional variations. The standard meats are pork ribs, beef brisket, pork shoulder, sausage, chicken, and turkey. A few places serve duck, and we wish more would. Some southern joints offer pork only. In parts of Kentucky the featured meat is lamb or mutton. You can get cabrito (goat) at many Texas barbecue joints. We’ve included a good mix of main dishes, and while most of the recipes come from Kansas City and the so-called barbecue belt from North Carolina to Texas, we’ve loosened the belt a notch or two to include a few recipes from places like Vermont, New Mexico, Washington, New York, and California. People everywhere love and appreciate good barbecue. At most barbecue joints, you can expect starters, sandwiches, dinners, sides, and dessert. Some serve breakfast, but, to our regret, we haven’t found one that serves barbecue for breakfast. Meat is the heart of barbecue, and many joints these days treat starters, sides, and desserts as afterthoughts, serving labor-saving dishes from off-premise suppliers. Real made-from-scratch American barbecue starters, sides, and desserts are still out there, however. We just don’t find as many as we used to. But the ones you’ll find in the chapters in this book are the real deal and therefore examples of the best you’ll find out there. More than just your standard ribs, beans, and coleslaw (though plenty of those are included, too), America’s Best BBQ also includes recipes for burgoo, gumbo, Rocky Mountain oysters, barbecue brisket nachos, smoked catfish, barbecued baloney, bison ribs, barbecue spaghetti, pig salad, fried peach pie, barbecue sundae, and many more recipes that will drive barbecue fans hog wild.