Barbecue Ribs Put to the Test
Barbecue fans celebrate the ultimate comfort food at the American Royal Barbecue.
July/August 2009
Carol Crupper
 |
Barbecue ribs ruled the American Royal Barbecue in 2009.
iStockphoto.com/John Peacock
|
RELATED CONTENT
Meat may be seasoned in a variety of ways. Here are three....
Some of the best barbecue cooks share their favorites....
When preparing your favorite barbecue recipe, keep these helpful hints in mind....
Culinary pros in California and Nevada are invited to compete for cash....
A billowing cloud wafts through chill morning air, so tangy you can almost taste the barbecue ribs. Tents and recreational vehicles encircle Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, as legions of campers hover over an army of grills, waiting to taste anything from barbecue ribs to barbecue brisket to burnt ends. Colorful flags lift a leisurely salute. A guitarist strums as garbage crews make their sweep.
Welcome to the American Royal, where barbecue teams have traveled from across the country to compete for bragging rights and $100,000 in prize money. Here, lawyers, biologists and garage mechanics seize the chance to go grill to grill with full-fledged restaurant owners.
Banners announce The Slabs, I Que, Mason Dixon Swine, and more than 500 other teams vying for honors in open and invitational events. Some have spent Friday night partying, others tending their fires. This morning, they’re all set to take up the gauntlet.
This annual October competition celebrates one of America’s favorite comfort foods.
“Barbecue is the hot new old food,” says Carolyn Wells, executive director and co-founder of the Kansas City Barbeque Society. And she’s not kidding when she says “old.”
Although finer points of barbecue history remain subject to debate, most agree that early cultures preserved meats in the sun and that, in the Americas, indigenous people added smoke to ward off insects. West Indies natives called this process barbacoa, although some give naming rights to French-speaking pirates who termed the Caribbean whole-hog feast de barbe et queue, “from beard to tail.”
Historians trace the beginnings of barbecue in the United States to the South, particularly the Carolinas, where imported and native swine thrived with little care. Cooks found that smoke and slow cooking helped tenderize tougher cuts of meat, and vinegar helped preserve the meat and enhance its flavor. Pits and smokehouses began to replace traditional drying racks.
Reports of this type of cooking in the United States date to the 1600s. For the poor, barbecue became the art of turning less desirable portions of the pig into something tasty, yet some of our nation’s founders mention gatherings around fires to slow cook meat, as well.
Page: 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
Next >>