In the writing of this proposal and in preparation for this trip, I’ve been soaking my eyes in barbecue literature, particularly books focused on North Carolina (of which there are quite a few). I have yet to take on the intellectual sphere of BBQ academia, but as far as pages in public go, I’m getting a good idea the strengths and weaknesses of the barbecue sub-genre.

Some thoughts on what I’ve read so far for anyone looking to learn more about pork’s highest plain…

Searching for the Dixie Barbecue: Journeys into the Southern Psyche – Wilber Caldwell
Searching for the Dixie Barbecue is one of the worst paper products I have ever read, and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone who doesn’t want to see the human soul stolen from words right before his eyes.

A book that literally purports to answer the questions, “What is real barbecue?” “How do you find it?” and “What does it mean to be Southern?” this 108 page novelty, which resembles a Geocities web page circa 1997 more than anything on a book shelf, lands embarrassingly far from providing any kind of substantial insight into such topics.

What Caldwell offers instead is a collection of blood-drained photographs squeezed between a lurching series of tropes on Southerners and Southern food (including chapters entitled “Savoring Less Than Pristine Rural Ambiences” and “The Difference Between Black Barbecue and White Barbecue”). Writing exclusively in the second person (!), almost never referring to real people or real locations and taking every possible opportunity to convert perfectly normal words into an exoticized Southern lexicon – “barbecue” becomes “bah-bah-cue” in every other paragraph – Caldwell renders pretty much every subject he approaches unreadable.

While a couple of snippets of dialogue and an uncharacteristically detailed chapter on Brunswick Stew provide much needed relief from Dixie Barbecue’s tongue-through-cheek idiom, it’s not nearly enough of a saving grace to make this book worth anyone’s time.

Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue -John Shelton Reed and Dale Volberg Reed
Holy Smoke is a substantial and well-written exploration of North Carolina barbecue, the most religiously praised barbecue in America. Halfway to the university in its research on the history of barbecue, the demarcation lines of Carolina barbecue styles and the general evolution of barbecue as a traditional and mythic food, the writers Reed do an excellent job of plumbing the depths of North Carolina Q.

They also devote a good deal of effort to capturing the salient details of the barbecue experience; while not quite in the category of food entertainment, Holy Smoke exudes the certain joy of sharing a good story when it zeroes in on the legends of barbecue. The Reeds’ chapter on individual pit masters and barbecue business owners serves as exhibit A: While much of the storytelling gives way to extensive quotations from the barbecue masters themselves, it’s much more a move of humility than a weakness in writing.

The shortcomings of Holy Smoke lie in what I feel is a general drawback of BBQ literature: It seems as if the publishers of these books have little confidence in the attention span of its target audience. To that effect, the Reeds’ quality writing is constantly interrupted by factoids, recipes and asides that ruin both the flow and aesthetic of a book that deserves to be read from page to page. A thorough accounting of the origins of the word “barbecue” is boxed in by random chunks of barbecue trivia. A rich and wholly engaging chapter on the methods of barbecuing is a gold mine of information for those who want to understand the challenge of the North Carolina tradition, but the mostly unnecessary inclusion of barbecue recipes only detracts from a noble effort to impart its workman’s quality to readers.

The value lost in Holy Smoke’s delivery is, in the end, marginal. Mine are minor gripes with what is a great resource for anyone with more than a passing interest in North Carolina barbecue.

North Carolina: Flavored by Time – Bob Garner
Written by an arguably unparalleled expert on the topic, Flavored by Time is probably the best book on North Carolina Q on the market. The making of this book stems from Garner’s work as a television reporter with a great love for his native food, and this history of rooting out and presenting the details of barbecue to a general audience shines in Garner’s use of facts and anecdotes to tell the most straightforward story possible.

Starting the book with stories of his own North Carolina upbringing, Garner sows the seeds of an organic exploration of his favorite subject, one that fits naturally with his own personality and shares years of accumulated observation with the reader. While his writing does dry out on occasion, especially when he gets into the gritty, technical details of barbecue method, he never overreaches in content or style.

Garner’s everyman explanations of craft and consumption pay plenty of dues without losing sight of the book’s function as a guide – not only to the people and places that make North Carolina barbecue what it is today, but to the life that BBQ has taken on in its growth as a statewide tradition. For anyone who wants to know why North Carolina BBQ is such a big deal (and wants to know exactly where to go to test its status in person), Flavored by Time is all good things rolled into one easy-to-read book. I hope that it’s booked for an update and reprint as long as Garner continues to travel the state with a healthy appetite.

Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country – Eric Lolis Elie and Frank Stewart
The only barbecue book I’ve found that explicitly approaches the topic on a storytelling vector, Smokestack Lightning is by far the most pleasurable piece of writing on the subject and the closest thing to what I want to write in my own piece of the greater barbecue story.

Driving from one side of the country to the other, our two heroes – a Louisiana journalist and a Memphis raised, New York based photographer – explore the roots, manifestations and impact of barbecue, wrapping all of their experiences in stories that adapt to fit the scene. One chapter focuses on the visceral narration of traditional Tex-Mex barbacoa. Another reaches deeply into Frank Stewart’s formative years on the south side of Chicago. Yet another takes a detour from the Texas trail to document the simultaneously reverent and raucous Juneteenth, a relic of an independence day celebration for black America that continues to find expression in the state of its founding.

Always on the trail and concerned less with barbecue itself than the details that put barbecue in context, Smokestack Lightning makes no attempt to sell readers anything that it is not. Yet, in focusing on narrative with a journalist’s eye, it ends up being just as informative, if not thorough, as any other book on the subject. Few sweeping statements on barbecue rise from the print, but a broad sense of wonder and understanding is achieved nonetheless. Stewart’s photographs are used sparingly, the sheer artistry of each shot playing perfect counterpoint to Elie’s writing. The resulting product is simmering long form: vibrant in its respect for regional character, tactful in its blend of observation and rumination and honest in its conclusions about the journey. This is a book that cannot be recreated or grafted, and in this quality it stands head and shoulders above its peers in the Q canon.

In twelves hours I set foot on the hallowed barbecued grounds of the Piedmont.
Let’s hope a new story finds its way through the smoke!

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I’m in a bit of a transition period right now, wrapping up work at one job, training for new responsibilities at another and suffering from a mysteriously potent and lingering amount of residual stress that has stopped me from tending to my writing duties. I hope to be back up to speed with a weekly post beginning next week, and will be writing at my usual clip on Tuesdays instead of Mondays from here on in.

In the mean time, as a BBQ gift basket to new readers and tip of the hat to changes Amit and I are currently working on to make The Eaten Path much more interesting to browse, I offer this collection of stories on southern cooking:

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I have no problem believing that when Calvin Trillin typed out these words in the early ’70s, Arthur Bryant’s really was, as he likes to proclaim, “the single best restaurant in the world.” Having now eaten at the original Arthur Bryant’s smokehouse at 18th and Brooklyn in Kansas City, I have no problem believing that it still is the single best restaurant in the world. My taste buds have yet to catch up to my beliefs, but it’s a matter of fact that taste buds can evolve. Beliefs are at their best when unblinking and pathological.

As far as beliefs go, Bryant’s deserves its own Monopoly square. Walking through the front door of this red brick institution, which stands alone at a vacated intersection of Kansas City, is enough to make you feel like a union member. The scent of smoke is immediate, the seating is unadorned, and the service counter is as intact as any memory in publication, existing only as the medium between a man and his lunch. A particular sort of reverence for Bryant’s is reflected in the expressions of its customers, most of whom enter the dining room with a look of relief on their faces. It’s the same expression I wear when I walk into Colima Burgers or put on a pair of clean drawers straight from the dryer.

My first meal at Bryant’s was a short end pork rib sandwich. The ribs had the tough-smoked texture that can only be the product of long haul barbecue: crisp and chewy on the outside, hearty and tender on the inside and laid on a blanket of white bread only a few fluffy steps away from sugar. That said, while Arthur Bryant certainly has a chapter in the good book of ribs, for one reason or another his short ends have come up a bit less biblical than many would testify. While the texture of my meat was perfect, its flavor was a bit hollow in comparison to the greats of Memphis and Oakland. The fabled sauces that put Kansas City on the BBQ map were all sweet and no heat, leaving Trillin’s legend to fill in the gaps.

The French fries— not just any fries, but fresh potatoes deep fried in pure lard— told a different tale. According to Bryant (according to Trillin), “Pure lard is expensive. But if you want to do a job, you do a job.” Cold as they were, the fries piled next to my short ends confirmed the value of the most heart-clogging, PETA-insulting work ethic in America. Where most fries would have chased the light, crisp archetype of that classic McDonald’s side, Bryant’s lard fried potatoes delivered a punch of meaty heft that could have constituted its own meal. It was as if the founders of In-N-Out had decided to turn their noses at health-conscious California and plant their fry baskets in the Buffalo graveyards of the Oregon Trail.

There are many who say that lunch hour at Bryant’s BBQ has overstayed its welcome. My own late lunch at 18th and Brooklyn may be proof of that dismissal, but in my own words, it’s just as much proof that Calvin Trillin’s undying devotion to the single best restaurant in the world is not misplaced. After all, when it comes to BBQ, I’m a believer.

Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque
1727 Brooklyn Ave
816.231.1123

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In the southeast corner of Kansas City, directly in front of an impound lot at the intersection of Blue Parkway and coal mine road, stands a small smokehouse named LC’s. It’s the kind of scene that overwhelms the senses: When you open the front door, a tide of smoke washes through the entrance and begins to saturate whatever fraction of your dresser drawer is currently on deck. You descend into a modest space of six to eight tables. There is no barrier between the dining room and the smoke pit, which stands directly behind the counter and opens directly in the face of the customer. This is the craft and the culture of barbecue at its best, taking no steps to dress, mask or otherwise protect the simplicity of its task from those who would dare attempt its undertaking on their own.

It’s a scene that I would be ashamed to photograph. LC himself permanently occupies one of the tables, beset with books, notepads and papers that ostensibly account for his success as a proprietor. When customers approach the gap between his table and the counter, however, they treat him more like a mafia Don.

“Mr. LC, do you have ham today?” asks an older man who, I can only assume, is a churchgoer.
“Yeah, you can get ham,” answers LC, who goes on to remind his customer of the extensive benefits the Cosa Nostra keeps in reserve for a hungry family with loyalty to offer.
“I seen you at the church,” the pitmaster chimes in as he inspects a brisket and pushes it back into the smoker. “Why you ain’t come around last week?” The ham loving, God fearing man shuffles his feet and offers some excuses out of earshot. Chuckles are exchanged and he gets his dinner plate to go. LC nods silently at the end of the transaction.

LC doesn’t acknowledge my existence until I step up to the counter and order a plate of burnt ends. A bovine counterpoint to pork rib tips, these fatty morsels of meat are whacked from the ends of a smoked brisket and placed back in the pit for a final burn. LC’s burnt ends are a hallmark of Kansas City BBQ. Each chunk is just big enough to fill the cradle of a human hand. Hearty, juicy, and multi-layered, each burnt end presents a sophisticated argument for beef. Its edges are crisp, red and black deposits of smoke. Encased within their candied protection is a tender, generously marbelized cut of meat that, when chewed, fires bolts of savory, fatty juice through clouds of smoky, well-done flavor.

LC’s burnt ends are blanketed in the archetypal Kansas City BBQ sauce: a sweet, rich tomato-based gravy designed to fill the crevices of any meat on the table. Like any good sauce, it completes the dish without overpowering the beef or exposing any weaknesses in its preparation. Most importantly, LC’s sauce provides the crucial service of melding beef with white bread in one messy, savory, superb mess that any man of honor would jump at the chance to clean up.

LC’s beans use a similar approach to inducing family loyalty. Heartened by chunks of smoked meat and sweetened by some combination of molasses, tomato and possibly brown sugar, they constitute a meal all their own, not unlike the Brunswick stew simmered in BBQ shacks of the Deep South.

The combination of burnt ends and beans at LC’s is a proposition for satisfaction that is carefully monitored by LC from the moment I place my order. Keenly aware that a third man has cut right to the heart of his operation, he surreptitiously watches every bite and tracks every movement without ever pushing back his seat. He watches as I clean out my beans. He watches as I chew on the fattiest morsels of burnt end beef he can serve. He watches as I slide my plate into the garbage can and make my way toward the door. It’s only when I am about to leave LC’s den that the grizzly godfather of Kansas City Q looks me in the eye and delivers a silent nod. In the underworld of barbecue, I am a made man.

LC’s Bar-B-Q
5800 Blue Parkway
Kansas City, MO
816.123.4484

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