BBQ Sauces, Rubs and Marinades For Dummies E-Book

Traci Cumbay

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 275

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Think only master chefs can create the savory, succulent barbecue masterpieces you love to eat? Nonsense! BBQ Sauces, Rubs & Marinades For Dummies shows you everything you need to dig in, get your apron dirty, and start stirring up scrumptious sauces, magical marinades, and rubs to remember. Featuring 100 bold new recipes, along with lots of savvy tips for spicing up your backyard barbecue, this get-the-flavor guide a healthy dose of barbecue passion as it delivers practical advice and great recipes from some of America's best competition barbecue cooks. You get formulas for spicing up chicken, beef, pork, and even seafood, plus plenty of suggestions on equipment, side dishes, and much more. Discover how to: * Choose the right types of meat * Build a BBQ tool set * Craft your own sauces * Smoke and grill like a pro * Marinate like a master * Choose the perfect time to add sauce * Rub your meat the right way * Whip up fantastic sides * Add flavor with the right fuel * Plan hours (and hours) ahead * Cook low and slow for the best results * Avoid flavoring pitfalls * Turn BBQ leftovers into ambrosia Complete with helpful lists of dos and don'ts, as well as major barbecue events and associations, BBQ Sauces, Rubs & Marinades For Dummies is the secret ingredient that will have your family, friends, and neighborhoods begging for more.

Leseprobe

BBQ Sauces, Rubs & Marinades For Dummies®

by Traci Cumbay with Tom Schneider

BBQ Sauces, Rubs & Marinades For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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ISBN: 978-0-470-19914-5

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Authors

Traci Cumbay: Traci cooks and eats quite a bit and then writes about the experiences for publications in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she lives with her husband and son.

Tom Schneider: Tom’s passion for authentic barbecue arose during his high school days in Oklahoma and burgeoned over 20 years of uncovering traditional barbecue joints while traveling the United States. Tom is primarily a self-taught cook who, for the past decade, has leveraged his commitment to barbecue into award-winning barbecue recipes while competing in sanctioned barbecue competitions and formal barbecue judging. Tom is owner and pit master for Poppi-Q Bar-B-Que, a specialty catering business in the Indianapolis market.

Dedication

For Richard T. Brink, possibly the worst backyard cook ever to hoist a beer near burning charcoal, and dearly missed.

Authors’ Acknowledgments

From Traci: Thanks first to Mike Baker, the acquisitions editor at Wiley who about a year ago left a message on my voice mail asking me whether I wanted to write “the coolest book ever.”

I’m seriously indebted to the unflappable and insightful Elizabeth Kuball, the editor who kept me in line, kept me calm, and kept making this book better.

And, especially, thanks to all the barbecue cooks who shared their smarts and recipes for this book; to Brandon Hamilton and Anthony Hanslits, the chefs who contributed some excellent and unique touches; and to Rich Allen, who checked my work and gently guided me back when I was off track.

From Tom: I’d like to thank all the purveyors of great barbecue recipes and proven barbecuing techniques who heeded my plea to share some of their very coveted and trusted knowledge. It is with this generosity that we may continue to incubate future barbecue aficionados for years to come.

A special thanks to the Baron of Barbecue, Mr. Paul Kirk, for his significant contribution to our tasty recipes.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Elizabeth Kuball

Acquisitions Editor: Mike Baker

Copy Editor: Elizabeth Kuball

Editorial Program Coordinator: Erin Calligan Mooney

Technical Editor: Rich Allen

Recipe Tester: Emily Nolan

Senior Editorial Manager: Jennifer Ehrlich

Consumer Editorial Supervisor and Reprint Editor: Carmen Krikorian

Editorial Assistants: Joe Niesen, Leeann Harney, David Lutton

Cover Photos: Front cover, © Food Image Source/Peter Hogg/StockFood; back cover left, © Lew Robertson/StockFood; back cover middle, © Noel/FoodPix/ JupiterImages; back cover right, © Klaus Arras-StockFood Munich/StockFood

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Lynsey Stanford

Layout and Graphics: Alissa D. Ellet, Stephanie D. Jumper, Ronald Terry, Christine Williams

Special Art: Elizabeth Kurtzman

Proofreaders: Laura Albert, Bonnie Mikkelson

Indexer: Broccoli Information Management

Special Help

Erin Calligan Mooney

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director, Consumer Dummies

Kristin A. Cocks, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies

Michael Spring, Vice President and Publisher, Travel

Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher, Dummies Technology/General User

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Contents

Title

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I : Centuries of Barbecue Smarts in Four Chapters

Chapter 1: Faces of Barbecue: A Pit, a Plateful, a Party

First, There Was Fire

Touring the Four All-American Barbecue Regions

Smoke ’Em If You Got Time

Making the Most of the Meat

How the Big Guns of Barbecue Do What They Do

Getting Creative As You Cook

Chapter 2: Gathering Must-Have Equipment

Settling on a Smoker

Fire, Starters: Managing Heat

Wood: To Hickory or Not to Hickory

A Mop, Some Tongs, and So On

Chapter 3: Collecting Ingredients and Using Them Wisely

Finding Meat That Makes the Cut

Running Down the Options, Cut by Cut

Handling Meat without Hazard

Stocking Dry Ingredients

The Stuff of Sauce

Chapter 4: Barbecue Methods, Art, and Science

Beginning with an End in Mind

Trimming and Prepping Meat without, Er, Butchering It

Getting Time and Temperature Right

The Big Finish

Part II : Preparation Prevails: Using Rubs and Marinades

Chapter 5: Mixing and Matching in Rubs and Marinades

Building a Dry Rub from the Binder Up

Seasonings That Play Well Together

Mixing Marinades

Matching Marinade to Meat

Timing Meat’s Marinade Soak

Chapter 6: Crafting Dry Rubs for Any Meat or Taste

Combining Flavors for Classic Dry Rubs

Smokey Joel’s Competition BBQ Rub

Smoke Hunters’ BBQ Rub

Pirate Potion #4

Paradise Jerk Rub

Spicy Rub #1 for Beef

Shigs-in-Pit Bootheel Butt Rub

Everything Rub

Super Simple Brisket Rub

Rib Dust

Pork Perfection

Yard Bird Rub

Jamaican Rib Rub

Bucking Tradition with Rubs Exotic and Inventive

Sweet Persian Rub

Zesty No-Salt Herbal BBQ Rub

Grilled Leg of Lamb Seasoning

Lemon Rub a Dub Dub

Chapter 7: Mixing Tried-and-True Marinades

Priming Pork or Poultry

Charlie’s Pork Brine

Poultry and Pork Brine

Rub and Marinade for Eight-Bone Pork Roast

Garlic Basil Chicken Marinade

Prepping Beef and Lamb with Flavors That Blare or Whisper

Cajun Marinade for Grilled Beef Tenderloin

Vietnamese Lemongrass Rub

Teriyaki Marinade

Hot Pepper Steak Marinade

Brisket Marinade

Mixing Citrus Marinades for Poultry or Shrimp

Lemon Marinade for Smoked Turkey

Sweet and Sour Orange Marinade for Shrimp

Part III : The All-Important Sauce Story

Chapter 8: Sorting through the Sauce Story

Choosing a Base

Striking a Balance

Finding Exotic Inspirations for Terrific Sauces

Chapter 9: Crafting Barbecue Sauces Traditional and Unusual

Touring American Barbecue Regions

Beale Street Memphis Sauce

Texas Steer Ranch Sauce

Alabama White Sauce

Kansas City BBQ Sauce

Carolina “East” Raleigh Sauce

Carolina “West” Piedmont Sauce

Cooking Up More Classic Barbecue Sauces

Original BBQ Sauce

Chipotle-Maple Barbeque Sauce

Rib Runner Sauce

Pork Sauce

Kentucky Bourbon BBQ Sauce

Big R’s BBQ Sauce

Bootheel BBQ Sauce

Paradise BBQ Sauce

Maple Syrup Barbeque Sauce

Spiced Mustard Sauce

Bringing Fruit Flavor to Sauces with Juices and Jams

Honey-Orange BBQ Sauce

Apple Barbecue Sauce

Harvest Apricot Sauce

Chapter 10: Getting Saucy while You Cook: Mop Sauces

Making Mops Especially for Pork

Bourbon Que Mop Sauce for Pork Tenderloin

Mopping Sauce for Pork Ribs

Smoke Hunters BBQ Mop

Butch’s Whole Pig Basting Sauce

Concocting Multipurpose Mops

Spicy Mop Sauce

Up in Smoke Mop Sauce

Chapter 11: Sauces and Relishes for Dipping and Dashing

Fanning the Flames with a Hotter-Than-Hot Sauce

Porkrastinators Pepper Medley Hot Sauce

Sweetening the Pot: Sauces with a Softer Side

Blueberry Balsamic Barbeque Sauce

Bourbon Onion Chutney

Apricot Preserve Dipping Sauce

Honey BBQ Wing Sauce

Taking an Exotic Turn with Sauces That Cull Asian Flavors

Indian Tamarind Sauce

Chinese Hoisin Barbecue Sauce

Wasabi Mayo

Peanut Dipping Sauce

Cool Summery Takes on Sauces, Salsas, and Relishes

Guacamole Sauce

Ginger Tomato Relish

Ginger Cucumber Relish

Chilean Fruit Salsa

Part IV : Entrees and Sides and Then Some

Chapter 12: Something(s) to Serve with Your Barbecue

Beans, Beans: The Most Magical Food

Loophole’s Baked Beans

Smoky Black Beans

Santa Fe Pinto Beans

Baking Unique Sides in the Smoker or on the Grill

Iron Skillet Potato Bacon Biscuits

Pizza Bread with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Crispy Prosciutto

Preparing Potatoes with a Plethora of Approaches

Super Spud Casserole

Mississippi Potatoes

Shamrock Golden Tubers

Making Yer Mama Proud: Recipes for Veggies

Smokey Joel’s Grilled Asparagus with Garlic and Butter

Swinetology Smoked Stuffed Jalapeño Peppers

Stuffed Peppers

Mixing Salads, Making Memphis-Style Slaw

Warm Apple Spinach Salad

Memphis Slaw for Pulled Pork

Mount Vernon Macaroni Salad

To Macaroni and Cheese and Beyond

Parmesan-Stuffed Dates Wrapped with Bacon

Blue Blazers

Cheesy Butternut Squash

Artisan Macaroni and Cheese

Chili Dip

Chapter 13: A Melange of Main Dishes

Brisket: Out of the Smoker and into the Soup Pot

Vegetable Brisket Soup

A Little Something Fabulous for Cooking Fish

Sea Bass with Nectarine Salsa

Smoking Traditional Barbecue Cuts Like a Champ

Championship Chicken

Brine

Rub

Super Chicken Spray

Chicken

Jon’s Baby Backs

Ribs

Stink-Eye Pulled Pork

Pulled Pork

Have Pizza Stone, Will Smoke Calzone

Grilled Calzone

Calzone Dough

Calzone Filling

Stylish Recipes for Lamb and Beef

Tuscan-Style Lamb Chops

Beef Tenderloin with Cascabel Chile Aioli Marinade

Italian Espresso Steak

Korean Beef Barbecue (Bulgogi)

Pork Satay

Chapter 14: Great Dishes for Leftover Barbecue

Crafting Dishes That Stick to Tradition

Competition Pit Beans

Spudzilla

Barbecue Hash

Jalapeño Shot Shells

Culture Combos: Using Barbecue Leftovers in Unexpected Ways

Big R’s Smoked BBQ Spaghetti

BBQ Fried Rice

Part V : The Part of Tens

Chapter 15: Ten Ways Rookies Ruin Good Meat

Being in an All-Fired Hurry

Sprinting Past Your Experience Level

Using Wood Before Its Time

Taking Meat from Fridge to Fire

Lighting Charcoal with Lighter Fluid

Overcorrecting, Overzealously

Getting Sauced Early

Relying on Eyes, Not Numbers

Poking Holes into the Meat

Forgetting Rest Time

Chapter 16: Ten Truer Words Were Never Spoken

The Truth Is in the Cook, Not the Equipment

Cook Low and Slow

If You’re Lookin’, You’re Not Cookin’

There Is Such a Thing as Oversmoking

Sauce on the Side, Nothing to Hide

Hot Dogs and Hamburgers Are Not Barbecue

Time Is on Your Side

Meat That Falls Off the Bone Has Been Cooked Too Long

Cleanliness Is Next to Tastiness

Fat Is Flavor

Chapter 17: Ten (Or So) Places to Turn for Tips

Kansas City Barbeque Society

National Barbecue Association

The North Carolina Barbecue Society

The Virtual Weber Bullet

The Smoke Ring

The Barbeque Forum

Barbecue’n on the Internet

Further Regional Barbecue Associations

Chapter 18: Ten World-Famous Barbecue Events

Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue

Memphis in May World Championship

National BBQ Festival

American Royal Barbecue

Big Pig Jig

Big Apple Barbecue Block Party

Lakeland Pig Festival

Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook-Off

LPQue BBQ Championship

Blue Ridge BBQ Festival

Appendix: Metric Conversion Guide

: Further Reading

Introduction

B ig talk surrounds barbecue, talk that would have you believe the topic is impenetrable, that you should be content to pick up a rack of ribs at the local rib shack and call it a day.

Nonsense.

Barbecue is like anything: Dig in and get your apron dirty, and you start finding out what you need to know to keep getting better.

For many people, the pursuit of barbecue perfection becomes all-consuming, edging out sleep and sex for brain space. For others, pulling out the smoker to cook chickens on a sunny Saturday is plenty. Both of these camps start out at the same place: square one. This book picks up at exactly that spot. It tells you what you need to know about barbecue cooking and then gives you the recipes to put theory into practice.

Enjoy the ride — and the results.

About This Book

I wrote this book to be an easy-to-use reference. You’re welcome to read it from cover to cover, but you don’t have to.

As you dig in, you find

All the dirt on the equipment and techniques you need to cook real-deal barbecue

Tips from championship barbecue cooks and legendary restaurateurs

Inspirations for creating your own signature sauces and rubs

Recipes for every stage of barbecue, and even for reimagining leftovers

Conventions Used in This Book

As you work with the recipes in this book, remember the following conventions:

Spices are dried unless otherwise specified.

Flour is all-purpose unless otherwise specified.

Sugar is granulated unless otherwise noted.

All temperatures are Fahrenheit. (Refer to the appendix for information about converting temperatures to Celsius.)

You also run into the following conventions throughout the text:

Italic is used for emphasis and to highlight new words or terms that I define.

Monofont is used for Web and e-mail addresses.

Sidebars, which are shaded boxes of text, consist of information that’s interesting but not necessarily critical to your understanding of the topic. I use them to share stories from the barbecue circuit, hints about finding and using ingredients, and whatever else jumped to mind as I wrote.

What You’re Not to Read

This book is designed to give you just what you need to get cooking. In some cases, though, I couldn’t resist providing a little further information about a topic. Those tidbits show up in one of two ways, either of which is entirely skippable if you find you aren’t searingly curious:

Sidebars: The gray box around blocks of text indicate that you can skip ahead.

Technical Stuff icon: Any paragraph marked with the Technical Stuff icon may be interesting to you, but it isn’t critical to your understanding of barbecue.

Foolish Assumptions

In order to write this book, I had to keep in mind a few notions about who you might be. I assume that you fit into one or more of the following categories:

Someone who’s just getting started as an outdoor cook and wants to make the experience as pleasant as possible by following a well-trod path

A beginning cook who wants to expand his skills with some time-tested tips and new recipes

A barbecue enthusiast looking for some of the back story about the dishes she loves to grub

The smart-thinking spouse or friend of a barbecue cook who’s giving this book as a gift in hopes of feasting on the fruits of his purchase

How This Book Is Organized

You can easily find what you’re looking for in this book, whether it’s a rundown of the types of wood you can use in your smoker or a recipe for coleslaw. Here’s an outline of this book’s organization.

Part I: Centuries of Barbecue Smarts in Four Chapters

A lot of big talk surrounds barbecue cooking, but the bottom line is that anyone can do it. In this part, I give you all the information you need to get started, explaining how the masters of barbecue do what they do and how you, too, can find and use the equipment, techniques, seasonings, and skills that produce fantastic eats.

Part II: Preparation Prevails: Using Rubs and Marinades

An important first step to great-tasting meat, using a rub adds flavor and helps you develop a nice crust on the meat. Similarly, a good soak in a balanced marinade can make a world of difference in your barbecue. This part tells you about how rubs and marinades work, gives you insight into concocting your own rubs and marinades, and provides lots of great recipes.

Part III: The All-Important Sauce Story

Sauce is the big finish of barbecue and often the first thing that hits the tongues of your guests. This part explains how you use various sauces and shows you how to make a spectrum of sauces from regional barbecue standards to exotic concoctions.

Part IV: Entrees and Sides and Then Some

Sides, salads, and salsas complement a great plate of barbecue, and this part provides you inspiration for cooking up memorable dishes to serve with your impressive ribs and brisket, some recipes for dishes that break the barbecue mold, and others that make use of barbecue leftovers.

Part V: The Part of Tens

Full of chapters that give you easily digestible tidbits of information, this part alerts you to common barbecue mistakes and gives you words to cook by. You find ten places to turn when you want more information and ten hot barbecue competitions or festivals where you can taste inspiration.

Icons Used in This Book

For Dummies signature icons are the little round pictures you see in the margins of the book. They’re designed to draw your eye to bits of information I really want to drive home. Here’s a list of the icons you find in this book and what they mean:

Some points in these pages are so useful that I hope you keep them in mind as you read. I make a big deal out of these ideas with this icon.

The barbecue pros who contributed to this book have ages of wisdom at the ready. When I relay the tidbits that can save you time, money, or sanity, I emphasize them with this icon.

Wherever I point out possible missteps or potentially dangerous practices, I use this icon to highlight the information. May you experience neither burn nor unbalanced sauce.

If you’re the kind of person who thrives on detail or an overachiever always on the lookout for extra credit, information marked by this icon is for you. But you’re welcome to skip it; doing so won’t affect your understanding of barbecue cooking.

Where to Go from Here

For Dummies books are set up so that you can flip to the section of the book that meets your present needs, and this book is no exception. When I refer to a concept that I cover in greater detail elsewhere in the book, I tell you which chapter to turn to, and I define terms as they arise to enable you to feel at home no matter where you open the book.

Looking for a great marinade? Turn to Part II. Interested in finding out more about the difference between Memphis barbecue sauce and the versions that come out of Kansas City? Chapter 1 gives you the lowdown (and Part III has recipes for sauces from all over). Dive in and get cooking!

Part I

Centuries of Barbecue Smarts in Four Chapters

In this part . . .

Sure, you can step outside and throw some weenies on the grill, but with just a little preparation and forethought, you can create meals full of wow. This part of the book prepares you for barbecue greatness, giving you the scoop on equipment, ingredients, and techniques that help you cook like a pro.

Chapter 1

Faces of Barbecue: A Pit, a Plateful, a Party

In This Chapter

Chronicling a short history of barbecue

Delving into the four regional barbecue styles

Looking across the oceans for inspiration

Identifying the big differences between barbecue and grilling

Injecting thousands of flavors with three techniques

Glimpsing surefire barbecue techniques

Getting your barbecue bearings and getting creative

An unmistakable reaction tears through my body when I get barbecue on the brain. Just talking (or reading or even writing) about it incites a bone-deep craving, making my mouth water and my stomach plead.

I know I’m not alone. Barbecue stirs up a visceral reaction everywhere you go, causing cravings that spur enthusiasts to drive all night or get on a train to get their lips around their favorite ribs. The passion that barbecue incites has created deep friendships and broken others when spats over recipes heated to boiling. Ever heard of chicken soup doing that?

Barbecue is a way of cooking, a party, or the food itself — succulent servings of slow-cooked pork shoulder shredded and mixed with sauce or dry-rubbed ribs with a crackling bark full of paprika, cayenne, and cumin. It’s food for laid-back Sundays with friends or raucous family gatherings, for baptisms and funerals and anything in between. It’s a way of life for the cooks who travel from competition to competition and those who stay put, running generations-old family restaurants. It’s no less lifeblood for the devotees who make more-than-weekly trips to a favorite rib joint or for hobbyists who cook their own barbecue at home.

In this chapter, I run through some of the theories about barbecue’s origins and fill you in on the very basics of the cooking method that begat the lifestyle.

First, There Was Fire

Before it became the holy grail of barbecue flavor, smoke was good for keeping away the bugs, and the earliest Americans built fires under their meat while they dried it on frames in the sun to preserve it. Turns out the meat tasted better after the smoke wafted into it, and so started the practice of infusing meat with the flavor of smoke.

Believe that? You have no reason not to, and it’s at least as plausible as any of the 47 or so other theories about how barbecue came to be.

The mysteries of barbecue extend far beyond the origin of the word. (Does it come from the French for “whiskers to tail”? Is it a description of the frames used for roasting meat over fire in the West Indies? Dunno — and neither does anybody else.)

Smoking for preservation: How wood works wonders

Somewhere, somehow, some long-ago human figured out that drying food over smoke kept it from rotting, at least for a while longer than doing nothing would have. Smoking food worked well enough in pre-refrigeration days, but the reason wasn’t pinned down until much later.

Heat sets free a number of organic acids (including acetic acid, or vinegar) from wood. When those acids fly up onto the meat via smoke, they condense on its surface and change the balance of the meat. The result is a surface pH level that’s too low for bacteria to be able to make themselves at home.

Wood smoke also is heavy in phenols — high-acidity compounds that prolong the period of time before meats turn rancid.

As you may guess, not all the many chemicals in wood smoke are good for human consumption or respiration. Lucky, then, that the low temperatures you use for slow smoking don’t release as much of the unhealthy compounds from wood as high heat does. Keeping the meat as far as you can from the wood as it smokes also cuts down on the opportunity for the harmful compounds to get into the meat and, therefore, into you.

In the upcoming sections, I tell you a few things that are known, believed, or completely fabricated about the start and progress of barbecue. In the brazen and lively world of barbecue, lies and half-truths are as good as facts. Sometimes better.

Facts and fibs about barbecue

Some do-it-yourselfers build smokers out of old refrigerators, which is a little ironic: Had refrigeration become a part of everyday living earlier, barbecue might not exist. Without it, people had to preserve meat by salting the bejesus out of it or by smoking it, and that smoking process opened the door for the pits and stands and restaurants that do heady business today.

Barbecue first took hold in the American South and used primarily pork because that’s what was available. As barbecue moved across the country, urban conditions in Memphis led cooks to focus on ribs, which took less time and space (and consequently, money) to cook.

In Texas, where cows are common as dust, beef brisket became the definition of barbecue. (I tell you about brisket and the other common cuts of meat that are used in barbecue in Chapter 4.) Heavy German influence in the area helped bring sausage into the barbecue norm, and hot links (spicy smoked sausages) grew to be another Texas barbecue trademark.

The best of all the barbecue traditions melded in Kansas City, and restaurants and hobbyists all over the country maintained and modified barbecue practices in search of their particular definition of perfection. Many will tell you they’ve found it, and most of these “perfect” barbecue concoctions come from wildly different approaches — including serving crackly pig skin in shredded pork sandwiches; dousing ribs with sauce as a final touch while they’re still on the heat (or cooking them in nothing but rub); and using mustard-, vinegar-, or tomato-based sauces.

Everyone thinks his own barbecue is the best. Everyone is right.

From pit to pellet smoker

With scarce resources, resourceful settlers dug pits and cooked their food over hot coals — a far cry from the high-tech barbecue rigs that the pros use to mimic the results of those centuries-ago methods.

Barbecue spread westward across the United States, just like everything else, and morphed a bit along the way. (Check out the upcoming section, “Touring the Four All-American Barbecue Regions.”)

Holes in the ground gave way to homemade smokers cut from metal barrels. Industrialization brought nicely engineered and executed home charcoal smokers — and later, gas and electric models — into mass production. (Chapter 2 tells you about the current options for barbecue equipment.)

From its simple beginnings, barbecue has become, of all things, a sport, drawing competitors from around the United States to weekend contests where hundreds slave over mobile pits they paid thousands of dollars for in hopes of taking home a trophy, a small check, and big-time bragging rights. What a shock to anyone who just wanted to be able to chew her meat without an overlong struggle.

Touring the Four All-American Barbecue Regions

Great barbecue happens everywhere, but some human yen to codify things begat four regions of barbecue in the United States. Each region has some significance in the story of barbecue, but none is entirely separate from the others. Although the differences among them are a matter for considerable and vehement discussion, the details of the traditions in the various regions have more in common than they don’t. But try telling that to a Tennessean turning up his nose at a Carolina-style, vinegar-sauced, shredded pork sandwich with coleslaw on top.

Throughout this book, you find recipes for barbecue from each of the regions (and from elsewhere). The following sections give you some idea about how each area distinguishes itself.

Carolinas

Squealers fared well with little attention in the Carolina climate, and barbecue from this region reflects that. Primarily pork, often shoulder or whole hog, barbecue in the Carolinas most often means sandwiches. Those sandwiches contain chopped pork from pretty much every part of the pig, including the crackly skin.

Pork in North Carolina is dressed with a touch of vinegary sauce in the eastern part of the state, more generously mixed with vinegary tomato sauce in the west.

Order barbecue in South Carolina and you’re most likely to find a mustard-based sauce atop your shredded pork. Wherever you go, it’s served on chewy white bread.

Memphis

Ribs are the crux of the Memphis barbecue tradition, and many pit masters there serve them dry (cooked with a rub but without sauce). But dry isn’t the final word on ribs, and sweet, sticky sauce tops a good portion of those you find in Memphis.

Ribs are a product of the move from the country into the cities as farming became mechanized. Because they’re small, ribs cook much more quickly, with less fuel, and in much less space than a whole hog. Although ribs popped up quickly in other urban centers like Chicago and St. Louis, they are forever tied up tight with Memphis barbecue.

Texas

Before same-day shipping to mega grocery stores, people cooked what was available, and in Texas, what’s available is beef.

Beef brisket is the hallmark of Texas barbecue, which also strays from the Memphis and Carolina styles by including ham and sausage. Ribs make it onto barbecue platters here, too.

Brisket is a tough cut of meat that’s a challenge to master. True Texas pit bosses took to the coarse, amply muscled cuts because of the great finished product that slow smoking provides. They usually give it a douse of rub (or just a sprinkle of salt and pepper) before cooking it over mesquite, slice it across the grain, and serve it with a side of smoky sauce and a slice of white bread.

Kansas City

That thick sauce you find in bottles, the one taking up most of the shelf space in grocery stores’ barbecue sauce sections — that sauce is the product of Kansas City.

Most everything else in Kansas City started somewhere else. Its spot at the center of the country positioned it to be the melting pot of barbecue styles, where brisket is as common as a rack of pork ribs. One unique local offering is burnt ends, the bits of brisket from the thin edges that cook quicker than the main part and hang tightly to deep, smoky flavor.

Sauce is the end-all, be-all of barbecue in Kansas City, and sauce means heavy on the tomatoes, light on spice, and full of tangy sweetness. (Think KC Masterpiece, the biggest-selling sauce and a product of Kansas City physician Rich Davis.)

Smoke ’Em If You Got Time

The hallmarks of barbecue are smoke flavor and low-and-slow cooking. Despite so many people insisting upon calling what they do on their gas grill “barbecuing,” the practices behind barbecuing and grilling are at odds: Grilling means hot-and-fast cooking and barbecue is its opposite.

Barbecue requires patience at just about every step of the process, from adding a dry rub to the meat before you cook it to letting meat sit a spell before you cut into it.

True barbecue is slow

Barbecue cooking may have come about in part as a form of multitasking. Carolinians cooked whole hogs over low heat because it was the best way to ensure that every last bit got cooked without ruining any of the faster-cooking parts. Legend says they also did it because doing so enabled the cook to run off and see to other tasks.

Barbecue cooking requires a temperature somewhere around 250 degrees. (Significant argument surrounds the “correct” cooking temperature. Some argue for 300 degrees or so, others for something in the neighborhood of 180 degrees. As long as you keep the temperature from fluctuating, you can cook great barbecue at about any stop along that range.) By contrast, you grill using a fire that’s a good 500 degrees.

Barbecue cooking also owes something to poverty. If everybody in the South had been able to afford tender cuts of meat, high-and-fast cooking would’ve been fine. The need to turn the dregs of a pig into something tender and tasty brought about the slow-cooking technique.

Cooking meat slowly, at low temperatures, is what makes tough meat tender. Slow cooking gives meat’s fat time to render and its connective tissue time to break down. Both those processes lead to softer, easier-to-chew, and more delectable cooked meats.

The story behind your pulled pork sandwich may not be entirely appetizing, but the result is the reason people travel hundreds of miles or plan their vacations around their favorite barbecue spots.

True barbecue is smoked

Without smoke, there is no barbecue. Smoking