Eaters of Earth,

I was hoping beyond hope to get my usual New York story up today, but the fact that I leave for the 2010 World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest at 8am tomorrow has placed an all-stop on my regular blogging commitment.

While walking along the banks of the Mississippi, I’ll be hanging with the Mills family, of 17th St. Barbecue fame, wandering from pit to pit, and providing day-by-day coverage and a feature story for Serious Eats!

I’ll also be cross-linking here and saving one story of my own for The Eaten Path. Stay hungry, and I’ll be writing from Soulsville, USA before you can you say, “Thanks, ribs!”

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!

The name on the return address was Matt Allen, the man I’ve been proud to call my boss since the day I responded to a Craigslist posting by a company named Ice Cream Man. Aside from being the most genuine and caring employer I’ve ever dealt with (I suppose it goes with the territory of running a business based on giving away ice cream), Matt has managed to win my respect through his love for all things soul. That said, I fully expected that a box shipped overnight to me from Memphis and bearing his name would contain some form of greatness. In short: I was correct. At length…

…The first layer of the package was a t-shirt from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. As Ice Cream Man’s outreach director, I had organized a free ice cream social for the patients and staff at St. Jude, so while this gift was not a surprise, it was certainly a welcome addition to my summer wardrobe. Beneath the shirt rested a bundle wrapped snugly in a blanket of packing foam. The bundle itself was mummified in plastic and packing tape, taking up more space than a bottle of wine. Two paper bags flanked the Hefty cocoon, allowing the lasts wisps of the dry ice they contained to vanish as I exposed them to the warm Southern California air. I tossed the packing foam aside and tore through the adhesive and the protective to reveal a simple white take-out bag. After all of the fussing and fighting, I beheld an image I had not seen in well over a year, the time that had passed since I had last seen the banks of the Mississippi.

The dancing pigs, hooves locked in noble celebration as they turn to the tune of their own delicious demise, are the trademark of The Bar-B-Q Shop, my favorite BBQ joint in Memphis. On the morning of June 11, 2008, courtesy of the most famous ice cream man in the world, they surrendered their sweet song to me, 1,775 miles from their home and moments from their destiny.

While I’m not a member of the purist camp of American BBQ, I cannot overstate the difference that authentic slow smoking makes when it comes to a rack of ribs. Even I had nearly forgotten the unmistakable scent of Southern BBQ by the time it began to waft from the oven door. White flakes of coagulated fat melted, sizzled and popped as they were awakened from suspension. The complex aroma of grease and smoke tenderly filled the kitchen, as if history were paying a curious visit to the faceless parlor of suburbia. I inhaled the sweet, subtle soul of the meat. Then, I prepared to eat.

The pleasure of eating Memphis ribs is a sensation that can only be levied by a master of the craft. A subtle smoky flavor permeates every morsel of every rib, from the crisp, crackly, crust to the tender, browned meat to the chewy bits of cartilage subjugated by smoke for the diner’s consumptive convenience. No blackened corner is left untouched, no portion of the rack left unblessed: If cooked properly, a rack of Memphis ribs is enjoyable down to the bone and even two bites beyond.

This is certainly the case with The Bar-B-Q Shop, made apparent by the fact that I unknowingly gnawed my way halfway through a rib bone before realizing I was eating the skeleton of a pig. If that pig could still move, I’m sure its Danse Macabre would be nothing less than an invitation back to midtown Memphis, where the spirits of Soulsville have yet to rest, and dancing pigs aren’t afraid to do the dog right along with them.

The Bar-B-Q Shop
901.272.1277
1782 Madison Ave
Memphis, TN 38104