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 Peregrine wrote:
BBQ is pig + vinegar sauce.

So, I don't think I've ever had vinegar sauce, really. There is one BBQ place near here that has really good sauce, and it's a bit vinegary.

I just so happen to be smoking a pork butt as we speak, so I decided to try googling and then making some vinegar sauce.

1 1/2 cups (360 mL) apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup (120 mL) ketchup
2 tablespoons (30 mL) mustard
2 tablespoons (30 mL) brown sugar
1 teaspoon (5 mL) black pepper
1 teaspoon (5 mL) salt
1 teaspoon (5 mL) cayenne

I decided to replace the cayenne with some dehydrated scotch bonnet peppers that I grew in my garden last year.

Anyway the sauce is cooling now, and the pork butt is still smoking - but this sauce is incredible. It's a saucy epiphany.

2 thumbs up.

Hm...maybe instead of pizza or hamburgers, BBQ is the dish of America. I never realized until this thread how wide spread and loyal its BBQ people are. This is the kind of stuff brings a tear or pride to my eye

 KingCracker wrote:
Hm...maybe instead of pizza or hamburgers, BBQ is the dish of America. I never realized until this thread how wide spread and loyal its BBQ people are. This is the kind of stuff brings a tear or pride to my eye

It's the dish of the South. You'll notice that no place mentioned has been north of Missouri or west of Texas. Aside from some laughable food trucks in California.

I didn't eat much BBQ when I lived in Kansas, but I don't recall enjoying it that much. I don't like the Memphis-style sauce as much as other varieties.

The best BBQ I've had is definitely in Texas.

http://www.oldsmokehouse.net/aboutus.html That place taught me about the beauty of pork ribs.

There was another place out in west Texas that I'd stop at on my way to/from college that was amazing. Meat would literally melt in your mouth, but it was crisp on the outside.

Honestly, pork and beef are both great for any style of BBQ, but screw chicken. I've never been impressed with BBQ chicken anywhere. It's always been dry.

I remember a number of years ago at the Kentucky state fair I had some BBQ mutton. Was amazing. Not something you normally see though.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:
Hm...maybe instead of pizza or hamburgers, BBQ is the dish of America. I never realized until this thread how wide spread and loyal its BBQ people are. This is the kind of stuff brings a tear or pride to my eye

It's the dish of the South. You'll notice that no place mentioned has been north of Missouri or west of Texas. Aside from some laughable food trucks in California.

I didn't eat much BBQ when I lived in Kansas, but I don't recall enjoying it that much. I don't like the Memphis-style sauce as much as other varieties.

The best BBQ I've had is definitely in Texas.

http://www.oldsmokehouse.net/aboutus.html That place taught me about the beauty of pork ribs.

There was another place out in west Texas that I'd stop at on my way to/from college that was amazing. Meat would literally melt in your mouth, but it was crisp on the outside.

Honestly, pork and beef are both great for any style of BBQ, but screw chicken. I've never been impressed with BBQ chicken anywhere. It's always been dry.

Except I previously mentioned my state of Michigan. Around the Flint area BBQ is a big deal and holy hell is it tastey

Yeah, but that's more than likely a byproduct of the mid 20th century African-American diaspora bringing BBQ north. Culturally, it really is a southern dish.

 trexmeyer wrote:
Yeah, but that's more than likely a byproduct of the mid 20th century African-American diaspora bringing BBQ north. Culturally, it really is a southern dish.

Culturally it is an eastern dish, if you are wanting to get incredibly picky about it, as it originated in the Carolinas. It has since grown in all directions. I mean, Chicago has a major BBQ festival and competition every year. This is an American thing, don't try to make it something it's not.

FETH.

A thread about BBQ...I must have died and gone to heaven.

 trexmeyer wrote:
Yeah, but that's more than likely a byproduct of the mid 20th century African-American diaspora bringing BBQ north. Culturally, it really is a southern dish.

Well technically BBQ originated from a Arawak/Timucua word which became the Spanish word Barbacoa. Which ultimately means a "framework of sticks on posts" to cook meat on.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
Yeah, but that's more than likely a byproduct of the mid 20th century African-American diaspora bringing BBQ north. Culturally, it really is a southern dish.

Culturally it is an eastern dish, if you are wanting to get incredibly picky about it, as it originated in the Carolinas. It has since grown in all directions. I mean, Chicago has a major BBQ festival and competition every year. This is an American thing, don't try to make it something it's not.

This guy gets it!

In honor of today's flight to get some BBQ (because what else would you do when you have a plane and a friday afternoon free?), here's an example of what real BBQ is:



Note a few things here:

1) The food. The BBQ is pork. Smoked over long hours in whole-hog-size pieces, then served like this. The sides are slaw, baked beans, and hush puppies. Slaw is standard, but other vegetables (usually cooked in pork fat) or breads (cornbread, rolls) may be substituted. The sauce is a thin vinegar-based sauce. This is central NC BBQ sauce, with some tomato added in contrast with the tomato-free eastern NC sauce (my preference). Note that the sauce is still thin and heavily vinegar-based, the tomato adds a bit of color and flavor but does not turn it into ketchup like non-NC sauces. Finally, note the presence of beef on the plate. This is brisket. It is often found at BBQ restaurants, but it is no more BBQ than the slaw.

2) The setting. BBQ is not fancy food. You can get a hint of this in the cheap-looking plates (including styrofoam plates for the fried pickles we had earlier). The food is what matters, not what it is served on. Off-camera the location is in rural NC, at a random airport the owner built because why not have an airport with a BBQ restaurant? It's cash only, because why pay credit card fees when you can tell your customers to bring cash? The parking lot is full even at 5pm, and there's a whole lot of trucks. Oh, and that airport I mentioned? Despite this being just a typical humble NC BBQ restaurant people will pay hundreds of dollars to fly in for a meal. This is what happens with good BBQ, people in the know will go far out of their way to get there.

If you want to get good BBQ find a place like this in NC. Skip all that ketchup-covered-cow nonsense, you won't miss anything.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
Yeah, but that's more than likely a byproduct of the mid 20th century African-American diaspora bringing BBQ north. Culturally, it really is a southern dish.

Culturally it is an eastern dish, if you are wanting to get incredibly picky about it, as it originated in the Carolinas. It has since grown in all directions. I mean, Chicago has a major BBQ festival and competition every year. This is an American thing, don't try to make it something it's not.

That's blatantly false. BBQ is a southern dish.

The core region for barbecue is the southeastern region of the United States, an area bordered on the west by Texas and Oklahoma, on the north by Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean. While barbecue is found outside of this region, the fourteen core barbecue states contain 70 of the top 100 barbecue restaurants, and most top barbecue restaurants outside the region have their roots there.

https://www.questia.com/read/35708391/mcdonaldization-revisited-critical-essays-on-consumer

The earliest mention of the word comes from Lederer's travels in Virginia and the Carolinas.

https://books.google.com/books?id=VAsOAAAAIAAJ&q=barbecue&dq=barbecue&hl=en&ei=KwkATvyQEsydgQeRt4zNDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBDiCAQ

Pork, a staple of barbecue to the point where beef barbecue strikes many as odd, was the staple meat in the pre civil war South.

Another good article on the subject.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-evolution-of-american-barbecue-13770775/

Just because it's nation wide doesn't mean you get to deny it's origin. When I've lived/traveled outside of the south barbecue has been non existent. I don't recall eating it once in Washington, Wisconsin, California, or Alaska for example.

trexmeyer wrote:The earliest mention of the word comes from Lederer's travels in Virginia and the Carolinas.

So, it originated in the east? Gotcha.

Also, all of the states you mentioned have annual BBQ festivals.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

trexmeyer wrote:The earliest mention of the word comes from Lederer's travels in Virginia and the Carolinas.

So, it originated in the east? Gotcha.

The Carolinas are Southern, despite being coastal.

As for Michigan having some decent barbeque, well yeah ... Michigan and Ohio were heavily-populated by Southerners that went up for jobs, or in the wake of Civil Rights, and the food went with 'em. What you often see listed as "Soul food" up north is just southern food. Those two states can make a claim to being honorary southern states due to the population blend. (As opposed to Florida, fully half of which is very much NOT southern, despite being the second southernmost-state. Culture defies your "geography"!)

So wait, the Carolinas are southern despite being east coast state's and Florida isn't southern because.... reasons?

I'm going to start telling people I'm from out west, by way of Illinois.

Just ate at 3 BBQ places in TN. One on I-57 outside of a Love's travel plaza, one at famous dave's, and one at Tim & Jake's (the best!). Seriously, BBQ is the best thing about the south!!

 Dreadwinter wrote:
So wait, the Carolinas are southern despite being east coast state's and Florida isn't southern because.... reasons?

Florida isn't considered Southern because it's so full of inbred white trash that even Southerner's think it's pitiful. Nobody wants to associate with Florida.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Just ate at 3 BBQ places in TN. One on I-57 outside of a Love's travel plaza, one at famous dave's, and one at Tim & Jake's (the best!). Seriously, BBQ is the best thing about the south!!

I used to work next door to a Famous Dave's, and it's still really close. When I went to Tennessee I got really excited about finally having "authentic" BBQ, and turned out, Famous Dave's was better than nearly all the places I went to.