Excerpts

Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW EDITION The best thing to do with a book about barbecue is wipe your hands on it. That's how we began the first edition of this book twenty years ago, and another thousand barbecue joints later, we feel the same way. No matter how brilliant the prose (and some of it is darned brilliant), reading about barbecue is like hearing about a hot date: It's interesting, but it's nothing like being there. The whole point of "Real Barbecue" remains to bounce you out of your Barcalounger and into the delicious world of great eating, from America's best BBQ joints to your own back yard. After publication of that first edition, Willard Scott called us the Masters and Johnson of barbecue. Playboy labeled us barbecue's Rand-McNally. We prefer to think of ourselves as the Lewis and Clark of barbecue, blazing new trails, exploring the back roads of barbecue, discovering places previously known only to natives who lived in the neighborhood. When we headed out to find the great joints, there was nothing to guide us but smoke in the air and recommendations from friends. It has been two decades since we first published 'Real Barbecue.' In the interim our little ode to the slowest of the slow foods has become a cult classic. Which means it didn't sell very well first time out. But that was before Amazon.com and the Internet. Now we're back to tell you that real, slow-smoked, pit-cooked, fall-off-the-bone barbecue isn't a lost art. Finding the real thing isn't always easy, and preparing it yourself requires a little effort, but it's there to be had. And it is truly the pinnacle of culinary creation, the most coddled and cared-for food in the world. Eating it is the goal; reading about it just gets you there. Luckily, your loyal and hard-working authors are back to assist you. We logged 40,000 miles for the first edition, visiting nearly 700 barbecue joints and burning the hair off a couple of knuckles rounding up and testing the very best this country has to offer. This expanded and revised edition incorporates eighteen years of leisurely sampling and another twelve months of serious swallowing, involving another 10,000 miles (not including air miles). It was a lot of eating, but it was worth it. We found sauces so rich and luxurious that we wanted to climb in the pot and bask in them. We found sauces with more snap than a set of new suspenders. There were ribs that had people speaking in tongues, and sandwiches that had businessmen sneaking them home in briefcases. In the end we regretted that we had but one gall bladder each to give to the cause. Besides the barbecue itself, there were the barbecue chefs - a friendly, entertaining and colorful bunch of folks who have dedicated their lives to a food that gets them up at four in the morning to stand in a sweltering room. Their determination to produce a product they can be proud of, no matter how demanding the effort, is evident in every steaming bite. It is what elevates barbecue joints, despite their modest means, above restaurants staffed with Cordon Bleu chefs and decked out in designer finery. Although this is called a travel guide, we prefer to think of it as more. We consider it a cultural anthropology of barbecue. And as much as barbecue is about great food it is also about great stories. We ended the original Introduction this way: Barbecue is more than a meal; it's a way of life. Twenty years later we can only add: Amen. Excerpted from Real Barbecue: The Classic Barbecue Guide to the Best Joints Across the USA --- with Recipes, Porklore, and More! by Vince Staten, Greg Johnson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.