The Backlot Barbeque

The Spaniards have gone too far! Yes, those molecular gastronomical-asses in Spain have dared to mess with my beloved barbeque. What am I talking about you ask? Recently, a friend of mine sent me a link thinking I would be interested in crystallized barbeque sauce. The caption is what got me, “the flavor of ribs without the mess.” This reminded me of another common misconception about barbeque: the taste comes from the sauce or the rub. While these components are often essential, the real flavor in barbeque comes from long hours of low temperatures and the fat dripping and running all over whatever cut of meat you are smoking. Barbeque sauce is not a way to make your cooking process better, because the crux of any good barbeque is having someone who will take the time to cook the meat properly. Sauces and rubs do not give you the taste of barbeque. Sauces and rubs are ways to enhance or vary flavor, because barbeque is really the blending of that smoky flavor with whatever type of rub you apply.

In fact, while we are on the subject, sauces should never be applied during the smoking process until maybe 30 minutes before the cooking process is complete. In some barbeque cultures sauce is non-essential though. The reason you have to wait on applying sauce is because if you apply sauce too early it will burn off on your meat and give you a burnt flavor – you don’t want this.

Alright, I think that is enough talk about what to do with your meat for one day. I am presently counting down the days until a nice spring weekend allows for a proper cookout to happen. I hope you are doing the same.

Introducing: The Backlot Barbeque

Barbecue is more than a food. Barbeque is a culture, an art, a way of life. Ok, ok, ok – perhaps I am being a bit extreme. But once you try some of the real stuff (more on this later), you will want to join a barbecue cult. Trust me.

But first, what is BBQ? Who makes it and how? Most do not know the answers to these questions because they have never tried the real stuff. Barbeque is really a cooking method, not an actual food. Beef is a food. Pork is a food. Barbeque is a process. So when you hear barbeque, I want you to think two things: low and slow or cooking under low temperatures for long periods of time. This is barbeque; this is the real stuff.

What has your dad been cooking all these years on the grill, you ask? Well contrary to population belief, food cooked over direct heat is not in fact barbeque. Your dad was simply grilling food. Don’t get me wrong, I love grilled food. However, the process you are using and the product you end up with is not barbeque.

I am from one of the major cities in the Barbeque World - Kansas City, Missouri. In KC, we are known for our BBQ sauce, something you might have known already. KC Masterpiece is the best selling BBQ sauce of all time. However, in places like Memphis, sauce is only an afterthought and not an integral part of the process. Every other Wednesday I will use this forum for these types of BBQ debates, to tell you about the techniques I personally use to barbeque, and where to find some of the real stuff in and around the District.