Fat Guy

It was a great run. Thanks for letting us be a part of it.

Seriously, although I stated it provocatively, I do think that if there's no actual glb-chefs organization in New York then all such chefs should feel free to use eGullet as a community center of sorts. We are highly inclusive. And if there is such an organization, somebody please tell us about it -- but I have a feeling there isn't.

Not just gays either. We welcome all reviled groups here on eGullet: Jews, blacks, Tony Bourdain, Mexicans, even French people. Bring us your hungry, or however it goes.

There's a great organization for gay chefs, foodservice employees, and gourmets: it's called eGullet. I know for sure that our founder, Jason Perlow, is gay, and I think most of our senior managers are either gay or latently gay. I think I may be gay -- yesterday at the Big Apple Barbecue a redneck called me a faggot because of the pants I was wearing. So really we are like a gay site for chefs already.

Heh! You got a point! Believe it or not, most locals here don't go to The Salt Lick that much, but we are so lucky to have so many great places that, frankly, are a lot better that SL. Maybe they will invite Smitty's or Kreutz's, or even Mueller's next year! There seemed to be about 2,000 locals there the day I went! But I certainly agree there is better barbecue to be had in that region, especially in Lockhart. At last year's BABBP, Kreuz's was the representative from Texas. This year, there was a barbecue competition and festival in Lockhart that prevented any of the big names from there from coming up to New York. I was glad we got to see the Salt Lick come through the BABBP cycle, though -- it's one of the best known places and it was nice to be able to welcome them here. I'd vote for someone from Lockhart next year, though, if the schedule allows.

Cell phones and hats can be useful, but what you really need are walkie-talkies. Ellen and I utilized our Motorola Talkabouts to great effect -- these are what we use for comminicating at events like this all over the country. They offer enough frequency options that, even in the middle of Manhattan, it's a simple matter to find a clear channel that nobody else is using. The trouble with cell phones is that, when you get into crowded situations, it's often difficult to get an open circuit, and the person you're calling usually can't hear the phone. The Talkabouts are much, much louder -- you can hear their signal beeps even at an outdoor concert -- and you never need to worry about the crappy American cellular infrastructure. A pair goes for about 50 bucks at Costco or from Amazon.

Really one's choice is between inclusive and exclusive definitions of the barbecue culture and its ownership. To me, any group that makes a good faith effort over a period of time to call something having to do with meat and fire "barbecue" is entitled to shares in the barbecue enterprise. Clearly the Southerners own an outsize number of shares because they devote more energy and seriousness to the craft and have the richest traditions, but, sorry, they don't get to define it for Australians.

Just working my way backwards. I'm getting to all that.

It predates the 1970s. James Beard's barbecue book came out in the 1950s, and as the Beard Foundation's notes describe it: If you run a search in the New York Times archive you will find thousands of pre-1960 uses of the term "barbecue," most of which I think refer to the grilling/cookout concept. For example, from 1941, the headline "New Things in the City Shops: Barbecue Grills and Fittings." From 1931, "Roosevelt to Speak at Barbecue Today." 1928, "NYU Holds Barbecue." All the way back to 1876, "The Great Brooklyn Barbecue."

He uses a combination of charcoal and whole logs.

Yes, in my experience the most common presentation of barbecue in North Carolina is as a sandwich on a white-bread roll with the meat and coleslaw stacked one atop the other. This weekend what we got was more like what you'd get on a barbecue "tray" in North Carolina: meat and slaw alongside one another, somewhat commingling but essentially separate, with the starch served on the side (in this case, they were using Martin's potato rolls, but you would not see those in the South -- I thought they were a terrific twist, though). I like it fine that way. I like to be able to taste the meat and slaw separately, and also to be able to have bites where the slaw is a condiment.

Having never tasted yours -- my great loss! -- let me take a step back to look at the issue of smoke flavor. I find it to be a very difficult flavor to pinpoint and analyze, especially in foods that are "hot smoked" as most barbecue is. In "cold smoked" foods like lox and other fish examples in that style, you can taste a very specific smoke flavor that you probably wouldn't mistake for anything else. But when you get into, for example, a pork shoulder cooked over hardwood coals, a few things start to happen. First, there are two types of smoke that seem to come up off the coals: one of them is from the wood itself, and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of that because by the time you get down to coals your wood is relatively clean-burning; the other smoke source seems to be a mix of smoke and vaporized grease that rises up from the coals after it drips down from the meat. This occurs pretty much regardless of your heat source. It's the whole point of the Weber Gas Grill Flavorizer Bars, and it certainly occurs with charcoal as well. Of course there is some smoke component that comes up off charcoal too -- you will notice in the BABBP photos that there was plenty of charcoal in use, albeit mixed with some wood (though in moments of candor the pitmasters will tell you the wood probably doesn't make a difference). Second, there is a fine line between the flavor of smoke and certain flavors that arise spontaneously from cooked flesh. Both caramelization and the Maillard reaction offer a bit of smokiness, and meat that actually gets burned tends to have its own smoky component. Beyond that, internally when you cook very large pieces of meat there are interactions going on among the skin, fat, and muscle that over time produce smoky notes. Remember, barbecue has been grilled. It sits on a grill over heat. And as I mentioned in an earlier post it's not always cooked at particularly low temperatures. In Lockhart, where some of the meats are cooked in just a few hours over coals that are at what most everybody would agree are grilling temperatures, there can't possibly be much smoke flavor attributable to the actual wood. Ditto for whole hog barbecue, where the enterprise of penetrating and permeating that much flesh with smoke would surely take about a million years.

Nonetheless that usage is prevalent most everywhere in the English-speaking world outside of the US South. Even in this era where deference to the Southern noun-based concept has been growing, you have books coming out like The Barbecue Bible, from Steven Raichlen, which is mostly a book about grilling around the world. To most people outside the South, it's obvious that Raichlen's book will be about grilling and not about pit-cooking whole hogs. Rescuing a definition from common usage is always an uphill battle, so before embarking upon it one might consider whether it's desirable to do so. I don't think the Southern barbecue contingent is ever going to be able to do more than take possession of some hyphenated terms.

My big North Carolina barbecue revelation came from focusing on the best rather than on the average. The first couple of times I went to North Carolina, I had no guidance, so I had many specimens of the cat-food-and-ketchup school of North Carolina barbecue, which is well represented at the larger chains and in the prepackaged frozen supermarket product that so many North Carolinians seem to love. Later, thanks to the guidance of the Varmint, I started tasting a substantial number of peak examples of the shoulder-only Eastern/Lexington style (where the tomato component is all but unnoticeable and really only announces itself in that style of slaw) and a few of the whole-hog Western. Still, I strongly prefer to order against the prevailing fine-chopped style because it tends to ruin the texture. So at places where rough-chopped (the best) or sliced (good enough because you can sort of pull it yourself) can be ordered, that's the way to go. When you go to Memphis, you basically never get bad barbecue. The worst barbecue starts at very good and the best is as good as ribs and pulled pork get. In North Carolina, unless you have guidance, you usually get bad barbecue. But really, it's the best examples we should be concerned with, and my current feeling is that the best North Carolina barbecue (especially the whole hog, though I like the shoulder too) is my favorite. Ironically, the two times I've had Mitchell's barbecue in New York it has been better than the time I had it in Wilson. I don't know what's up with that. Ah, regarding the temperature issue: this doesn't seem to be something the North Carolina places give a crap about. I've had lukewarm barbecue on-site at a dozen North Carolina barbecue places.

I waited longer at the Salt Lick in Texas than on the Salt Lick line in New York, or on any line at the Big Apple Barbecue for that matter!

Okay, so that's about it for the "live" coverage and you all should feel free to post on this thread from here on in. One thing that was so great about having these pitmasters here in New York was that it brought back memories of visiting their home bases. And for those who have never been to those home bases, it offered a taste and a chance to get up close and personal with the people behind the experiences. I'd love for those who have been to those places to help flesh out this thread with first-hand accounts. I mentioned our visit to Mitchell's in Wilson, which was part of the research for my forthcoming book. I'd also like to take the opportunity to reminisce a bit about the Salt Lick. My notes are now a couple of years out of date, but allow me to reproduce my impressions from Summer '02: +++ Almost anyplace you go to eat Texas barbecue, you'll find yourself not only dining but also participating in a party. At the Salt Lick Bar B-Q, in Driftwood, it seems as though that party is both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party during convention week. The place is so big, it would be insulting to measure it in football fields. You'd want to jump straight to multiples of New York's Central Park to get the right order of magnitude. I believe 2,000 customers can be accommodated at once between the indoor and outdoor dining facilities, and it seems another 2,000 are waiting on line, and of course in Texas each person arrives individually in his or her own 4x4 truck and takes up two parking spaces. When you enter the Salt Lick premises, a guy with a gun (it's Texas) directs you to the parking area. Do not, as we did, attempt to unload your passengers and then go park because the guy with the gun (who is an off-duty sheriff's deputy) will scream, "No unloading!" while gesturing towards the sign that says, "No unloading!" You'll also be cautioned, twenty minutes later when you've hiked back from your parking space, not to register with the hostesses unless your party is complete. "Liars will be prosecuted," reads the sign, which I assume is in jest because everybody lies and says there's a complete party waiting to be seated. Given the hour-long wait, it seems a harmless fib. Seating, whether inside or out, is at picnic tables. If you haven't eaten at three other barbecue places in the same day, the thing to do is order family style. $13.95 per person buys you infinitely replenished platters of brisket, sausage, pork ribs, potato salad, coleslaw, beans, bread, pickles, and onions. You can also just order barbecue plates and sandwiches. Hays County, where Salt Lick is located, is a dry county -- alcohol is not available for sale. So Salt Lick is strictly BYO, and boy do Texans know how to bring it. Relatively small groups of diners arrive with coolers so large they need wheels to be moveable. This isn't particularly reassuring since everybody dining at Salt Lick had to drive to get there. Certainly, though, it keeps the costs down and allows you to drink whatever you like so long as you're willing to schlep it. We were joined at Salt Lick, incidentally, by eGullet.com member NewYorkTexan and his wife, who it turns out have -- among others -- a dog named Fluffernutter. The current owner of Salt Lick is Hisako T. Roberts, who I believe is Japanese and the widow of Thurman Roberts (the co-founder). It is alleged that the recipes and techniques in use at Salt Lick -- which boasts one of the only open-pit barbecues remaining anywhere -- have been handed down from generation to generation in the Roberts family since the Civil War. There is also apparently some sort of Asian influence in the barbecue sauce, but I couldn't detect it. You'd think with such popularity and so much hoopla (Salt Lick has been written about effusively in GQ, People, and just about everywhere else) the place would be overrated, but it actually produces first-rate, technically correct barbecue that puts most other barbecue to shame. +++ So it was great fun having the Salt Lick represented here in New York, even though I personally felt their brisket was not up to the standard of what they serve back home or even particularly good. I did enjoy the sausage, if not the sauce. I'd also like to extend a heartfelt thanks to all those who have contributed in-depth comments and photos to this thread. Where else in the universe could you possibly go to learn so much about the Big Apple Barbecue? This is the sort of thing that makes eGullet so special.

The whole enterprise of defining barbecue is fraught with difficulty. The low-and-slow definition falls apart when you start to include Texas barbecue as practiced at places like Kreuz's and Smitty's in Lockhart, where they deal exactly in grilled meat. You'll also find that whole hogs, considered by many to be the pinnacle of barbecue, pick up so little smoke flavor that they are not so terribly different when cooked with wood, charcoal, gas, or electricity. Nonetheless, many in the whole hog crowd will tell you that only a whole pit-roasted animal is real barbecue -- that everything else, such as cooking ribs and chicken no matter how low and slow, is grilling. The sauce-based definitions all collapse because the sauces are as different as ketchup and mustard. As I commented a couple of years ago, when writing about Texas barbecue: "Stylistic definitions are a bit more insightful, but it may be that there are no clear barbecue definitions anymore (if there ever have been at all). They certainly can't be derived from the menus on offer at barbecue establishments (only about ten percent of a typical barbecue menu will conform to the alleged regional traditions), or from the ordering habits of locals (chicken, which as far as I know has no barbecue tradition behind it and which doesn't make for particularly good barbecue anyway, is a big seller almost everywhere), or from the history books (I suggest you not read about culinary history at all if you want to believe there are very many traditional, local, authentic foods anywhere in the world). Even the much-discussed distinctions between Eastern North Carolina and Western North Carolina barbecue fail to hold up consistently in the real world as you travel across that state. The most authoritative-sounding definitions tend to come from the rulebooks of the regional barbecue associations that administer barbecue competitions, but these hardly seem relevant outside that circumscribed arena." The barbeculturists, then, tend overwhelmingly to offer definitions that proceed from regional assumptions: they gather up all the barbecue styles and say the sum total of what's served in America's traditional barbecue regions equals barbecue. They tend to be fearful of excluding any Southern or Southern-derived (as in the barbecue satellites in Illinois and California) barbecue style, yet they have no problem at all defining everything else as not barbecue. So it winds up being a steadfast but ultimately tautological definition tantamount to "French food is the food traditionally served in France" and by extension a chauvinistic one as well: "French food is food cooked only by French people." Elie seems to be focused on the issue of giving credit to African-Americans for their role in the creation of barbecue. And he's certainly right that the redneck white supremacist crowd has tried to expropriate barbecue history. But to me, the whole issue of credit and ownership is just that: history. There is a compelling case for giving credit where credit is due, but it ends there. Barbecue now belongs to all of America and all Americans, as much or (because it is largely indigenous) more so than pizza, hamburgers, tacos, chili, bagels, and deli. I think it's great that there are folks out there who seek to preserve regional barbecue styles and especially the diversity of those styles. And I appreciate all the research that goes into doing it. I certainly give the African-American community a ton of the historical credit for the development of barbecue. But once those points are made, isn't it time to get over this whole notion of ownership? The seminar was entitled "America's Barbeculture: Who Owns It?" That's just not a hard question to answer. It's answered by the very form of the question: America owns "America's Barbeculture." Who do you think owns it? France? But hey, if they want to cook it and eat it in France -- and I'm sure they'd do a nice job if they put their minds to it -- they can own it too. And while I understand there is a nomenclature variance when it comes to Korean barbecue and Chinese barbecue, I'd be reluctant to say, sorry, those things aren't barbecue. At most I'd say they're not hyphenated Southern-barbecue or any specific hyphenated American regional style.

I find that panel discussions tend not to get really good until there's a second round of commentary and the panelists start to engage one another. I was therefore disappointed that Walsh chose to do a single round of speeches followed by questions from the audience. I was glad the eGulleters dominated the questioning, though, because it put the level of the questions several notches higher than the average ones you tend to get from an audience. Every single question was asked either by one of us or by the professionals from Smokie O's. I threw out the pastrami question because I wanted to see if anybody would allow for Jewish barbecue. Of course, the answer was no even though pastrami is a spice-rubbed piece of meat that is slow-cooked in a smoker. It was ironic to me that Lolis Elie chose to frame his comments in terms of Northerners giving Southerners no respect about barbecue. What the fuck is he talking about? Northerners worship the Southern barbecue culture. If there is any across-the-board failure of respect, it is a failure of the Southern barbecue culture to respect outsiders. Elie's comments echoed so many others I've heard in that they exhibited a sense of ownership of the tradition. He was primarily concerned with racial ownership, whereas others might be more concerned with regional ownership, but in the end there is often that sense of ownership. Meanwhile, there we are in the middle of the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, where all the pitmasters are out there trying to spread the word. Heck, Mike Mills is the consultant for Blue Smoke. I wish there had been at least one real Southern pitmaster on that panel. They seem to be more generous with the tradition than the Southern food writers.

Historical perspective can be acquired from books. No, it's not the same as having lived through it, but if you're willing to put in a few days with Last Days of Haute Cuisine and a pile of old restaurant reviews, and you get yourself some mentoring from old timers, you can get up to speed on the evolution of the American dining scene. My understanding is that Frank Bruni is the kind of guy who will do this. The latest I heard was that he was just out at French Laundry, gathering a basis for comparison for a forthcoming Per Se review. Word is also (and this was in print as well) that he has done some traveling to prepare for the job. He has the luxury of being able to devote himself to this effort 24/7, with a virtually unlimited budget, and with access to just about any expert source he needs (except, due to the system under which he labors, in-person access to chefs and restaurateurs).

One thing that I heard from multiple sources (including the three cops my brother-in-law befriended today -- he's on the job in New Haven and somehow cops everywhere recognize each other) is that there was a barricade shortage in the city on account of the logistical needs of the Puerto Rican Day parade this weekend (an event many times the size and scope of the BABBP), so the organizers' original orders for barricades were underfilled. Last night they figured out that there was a construction site near the park, however, and they traded barbecue for a loan of barricades today. In terms of the placement of the booths, what I was hearing is that the politics of dealing with the city on something like this are incredibly intricate. I'm sure it's a lot harder to get Madison Avenue than it is to get 26th Street, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's simply impossible to get fire department approval for combustion in the now-heavily-wooded park. My mother and father both did multiple stints as president of the West 69th Street Block Association. When I was a kid, it was a simple matter to close down a block for a community event and create as much smoke and noise as you wanted. It was a different time, the '70s, right before the liability explosion and the latest big phase of the expansion of the regulatory state. We used to have a bandstand that some guys on the block had cobbled together out of scrap lumber. It was stored in the basement of one of the buildings every year and was so rickety when assembled that everybody was sure one day Howard McGhee's band would fall right through the stage. There were all sorts of near misses with the charcoal kettle grills. The meat for the hamburgers was stored out in the sun. As regulations got tighter and America's notions of risk assessment and public safety evolved, it became harder and harder to have our block party. The same thing was happening to community groups all over the city. Eventually, professional organizers came into existence -- they were the only ones who could effectively navigate the bureaucratic maze. So block associations would simply let these organizers run their block parties. The West 69th Street block party traded itself in for some shares of the Columbus Avenue festival. Predictably, most block parties aka street fairs in New York are now totally homogenous and sucky. I give the USHG and the other event sponsors a lot of credit, then, for doing something truly special and unique, reminiscent of the best of the old-style block parties of the past. Next year, maybe they'll ask my mother for advice, though -- she could get the whole thing fixed up.

I'd love it if we could get a volunteer to post a summary of today's seminar, on a new thread, and post a link here. I think there's enough fodder there for a lengthy and heated discussion, especially since there wasn't much frisson among the panelists, all of whom seemed to be taking fundamentally similar views of the issue.

I think, as we've discussed elsewhere with respect to pizza and many other things, there's a difference between a stylistic preference (for example preferring ribs to brisket, or wet-mopped ribs to dry-rubbed ribs) and a qualitative determination (example X of brisket is better than example Y of brisket because it conforms best to criteria A, B, and C of brisket). Even then, I think we're hearing stylistic preferences as between the Kansas City and Texas styles of brisket. Then there are all the issues of service, like the temperatures and batch variations, that inevitably arise at a 5,000-portions-per-day scale. I do believe that within each of their stylistic categories, the pitmasters at the BABBP were all putting out strong product ranging from a very good example of its genre to a peak example of its genre. My stylistic preferences with respect to barbecue have evolved quite a bit over the years. I used to be a total rib chauvinist. I think wet ribs and the Memphis style of pulled pork shoulder are the most intuitively lovable styles -- they hit all the highest notes of salty, sweet, and fatty. Today I am more likely to prefer whole hog and brisket, which I think are less intuitive styles -- the whole hog in particular presents a lot of different flavors and textures. I think there is great barbecue in every category, but my feeling at this point in the evolution of my barbecue education (I'm at sort of the elementary school level right now, but I've definitely moved out of the kindergarten) is that the whole hog sits at the apex of the craft. By all the standards we typically use to measure unlike cuisines -- complexity of flavor, difficulty of technical mastery, etc. -- whole hog is da bomb.

Tan, I would try one of three things: 1) call Alain Ducasse at the Essex House and see if they can sell you a copy 212-265-7300; or 2) see if you can get it from Amazon.fr (it's on the site; I don't know how the mechanics of ordering and shipping would work); or 3) ask if Kitchen Arts & Letters can get it for you -- though I'd warn you that KA&L is likely to include a hefty markup. Here's the link on Amazon.fr: http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2848440031

It was a great pleasure to see eGulleters turn out in full force at the panel discussion, and I was amazed to find another whole group of eGulleters over on the left flank of the seating area, and then another cluster next to the Shake Shack (which, sometime towards the end of the seminar, did start serving custard -- a happy taste to end my day), and finally another at the back of the audience. Certainly there were more than 50 of us in the vicinity -- I hope you'll all post a hello here. Photos, stories, etc., to come later tonight. And then tomorrow morning we'll start hearing from those who weren't at the event -- thanks for holding on to your questions and comments during the documentary phase of this thread.

That's just called living in New York City! Seriously, I'm sure the event's organizers would love to hear some constructive thoughts on how to improve the situation. My own thought, which I expressed early to the managers of the event, was that there should be 3 lines at each place, defined by shitloads of rows of metal barricades, that they should start perpendicular to the booths and then curve out and away, and that they should be clearly labeled. I also think they should have roving ticket vendors, which I believe they did last year, and various ways of distracting the people on the lines (sell them ice cream, soda, whatever; give them brochures; etc.). It is, however, a fallacy to assume any of this would alter the waiting-time equation in a particularly significant way. If the outer limit of service is X number of people per minute, then no matter what you do in terms of crowd control you will still be having people wait on line for as many minutes as it takes to work through the group. So for those who fundamentally can't stand waiting, there is no good solution. All you can do is make the wait a little more pleasant and better organized. I'm at Starbuck's if anybody needs counseling.