BBQ Across the South

Southern Living ^ | April 2003 | Gary Ford

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BBQ Across the South

Barbecue is pork. No, beef. How about mutton? Chicken? Goat? North Carolina has the best barbecue. Make that Texas. Memphis is barbecue heaven. Nope. Kansas City.

Sometimes, home-cooking is best. The Gibson family's "pig-picking" begins in the early hours.

On and on goes this debate about the South's best barbecue. While y'all argued, we ate. Charles Walton, the best food photographer in America, and I sniffed out nearly 100 restaurants, joints, and dives from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City, Missouri. We found that the heart of barbecue beats in Memphis. Tar Heels and Texans cook mountains of it, and between them run rivers of sauces and islands of styles. A vast feast spreads across the South. Come savor it with us.

As long as there's been a South, we've loved barbecue, the one food that defines us most as a region. It suits our Southern sense of comfort, society, and the passage of time--friends and family gathering around glowing embers, drifting smoke scenting the air and seasoning the meats of animals that grazed the grass of our prairies and rooted the mast of our forests.

Barbecue has moved from home to restaurant. In our Readers' Choice Awards, we asked for your favorite barbecue places. You submitted more than 7,500 restaurants. A full 47 of them sported "Bubba" somewhere in the name--from Bubba's Barbeque in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, to Bubba's Ribs & Q in Tifton, Georgia. All those Bubbas--and so many more--set a very long table of meat, sauces, and side dishes.

"There are four barbecue meccas," says Carolyn Wells, a Nashville native and now the executive director of the Kansas City Barbeque Society. "The Carolinas form the cradle of American barbecue. Memphis is the undisputed pork barbecue capital of the world. The entire state of Texas considers itself a capital. Kansas City is the melting pot, where all regional styles come together."

Later we'll tell you what we think is the best barbecue in the South. Travel Assistant Tanner Latham, informed of our foolhardy claim, leveled a gaze at us and said, "You do realize that readers will send death threats?"

Yes. We expect them, but when you write us, please include names of your favorite restaurants so we can cover them in the future.

[wardaddy]

I dunno.

Does being born at Seymour Johnson and owning a vacation home at Hound Ears by Grandfather Mountain count?

[wardaddy]

I used to get good BBQ off SPID in Corpus back in 1982...the brisket was great.

Memphis is OK for ribs...in all fairness.

[TC Rider]

North Carolina has the best barbecue.

Could have finished that article right there.

[sinkspur]

Texas, you say? How 'bout Railhead in FW, TX?

Charlie Geren's place, rated #1 in Tarrant County for Barbecue. He's opened a second location, in Grapevine, and we're in there every ten days. Some of the best brisket around, though my favorite ribs are still Angelo's north of downtown.

Baker's Ribs in Dallas is pretty good too.

[gubamyster]

How 'bout Railhead in FW, TX?

Nope. Only been near FW to see the Cowboys and Rangers.

[wardaddy]

Cole Slaw on BBQ here in the mid South is quite common...especially with a drier vinegar based sauce....pulled pork and slaw at the Perfect Pig out past Kingston Springs west of Nashville on US70 is a great example.

[sweetliberty]

"From what I've seen of BBQ threads on FR, this should have been posted in 'Religion'."

You got that right!

[lodwick]

Someone done gone and smoke your links.

[TC Rider]

I agree that Bar BQ should be Pork. I once lived in Texas and loved the state but I never did think Mesquite was all that good for BBQ.

"Just so you know, we're ashamed beef BBQ is from Texas."

[sinkspur]

It is commonly served with BBQ tho.

Oh, I eat coleslaw with my Q too, on the side, but I ordered a brisket sandwich in Mississippi and it came with the coleslaw on the brisket.

[sweetliberty]

You trying to stir up trouble?? Hehehe...

[yarddog]

Now that you mention it, I think I have had cole slaw served on the meat.

I thought you said "cole slaw sandwich".

[yarddog]

BBQ Beef or chicken is not really bad but it is definitely something entirely different and not as good as BBQ pork.

[sweetliberty]

"folks tell me that's common in the south."

I think it depends on the region, but it is quite common. Growing up in southern Virginia, slaw was always served on barbeque (always pork), unless you ordered it without. Here in Arkansas, the really good barbeque places serve it with slaw as well. I like it both ways. Not sure about the origin of it though.

[hardhead]

Once I was at a bluegrass festival in Summersville, WV, and we took a trip to Clay (not too far) to visit some relations of our friends and at this hotel, all they served at lunch was 'boiled hotdogs topped with slaw and called slawdogs'. Nothing fancy but a beer tray laden down with slawdogs, and with the beer, they tasted mighty good. I just about lost my cookies when I was looking at all the 'celebrities' who had stopped in to have slawdogs and wouldn't you know it but there was a signed photo of that senile old cuss who brings home the pork for WV from the U.S. senate. Do I need to mention his name?

[sweetliberty]

"The wife swears by Porky's in Memphis"

Porky's or Corky's?

[wardaddy]

The best BBQ sauce I ever had came from an old fellow in Coy Alabama (near Camden/Selma). His name was Claude McKinley and he was a project super for my dad's pipeline company. He was about 75-90% old Creek Indian and red as a stop sign with really serious eyes and coal black hair but very warm.

He made it by the gallon glass container...it is was highly secret and used tomato base and some cane sugar and many others spices and he stewed it outside on an open fire.

I loved that stuff....I've never had anything close since. I'm sure ol Claude has likely passed on...a fine fellow. .

[sweetliberty]

Hi Loddy. How you doing?

[okie01]

"From what I've seen of BBQ threads on FR, this should have been posted in 'Religion'."

Damn betcha.

Pass the beer.

And Amen!

[sweetliberty]

"we're ashamed beef BBQ is from Texas"

Now you 've gone and done it. You'll draw indignant Texans from all over FR who really believe that barbeque is beef.