In Search of BBQ

I've always enjoyed good barbeque. Because I've traveled a lot, I've had a chance to sample all styles of the craft, including barbeque on offer in places like Texas, New Mexico, South Carolina, Brazil, and China. I've tasted quite a variety of beef, pork, sheep, goat, chicken, and sausages made from their respective parts. I've had barbeque with dry rub spices, with tomato-sugar sauce, and with yellow mustard sauce. I've eaten meats cooked over wood, over gas, on a spit, on a grill, in a hole in the ground. Part of the pleasure of good barbeque is learning about the craft that the chef brings to the process. Part of the pleasure also comes from good sides. In the US, these tend to be white bread or corn bread, vegetables (usually boiled), beans, fried things, and cole slaw. Most good US barbeque places make desserts, usually cobblers or sweet quick breads that can be cooked quickly in large quantities; pecan pie is a common barbeque house dessert in Texas. A good chef will pay attention to the details of all these things.

I am not a strict follower of just one school--there are many paths to getting good smoked meat. I prefer pork ribs to beef but I'll never turn down an offer of the latter. While I'm not a paid food critic or a chef in my own right, I do think that I know when barbeque is done right.

I've not eaten good barbeque in some years now. I was on the hunt for a local source, and everyone raves about this family-run place in the next town over. I decided to give it a try.

It was horrible. Utterly horrible.

The cornbread was so sweet that I almost thought I had been served flan made with a dusting of corn flour. I like flan a lot. But I was expecting corn bread. I could taste nothing but sugar. I took two bites and left it.

The salad dressing was gelatinous, neon pink. Supposedly it was a raspberry vinaigrette. It is not difficult to whip up a simple vinaigrette on demand or even by the gallon each day of service. And local berry sources abound. No excuse for this nasty, processed crap from a bottle.

The sweet potato tots were fried in old oil. Under the slightly rancid flavor of the oil, I could barely taste the potato. They had not been made from pieces of sweet potato but pureed sweet potato and they were undercooked so they were mushy instead of crispy.

The sausage was identical in texture and color to the cheap "summer sausage" one buys at the grocery store, with one difference. This sausage had twice the normal amount of salt in it. There was so much salt that it made my tongue swell. I like salt. I usually add it to most of my meals. But this was extreme. I left most of the sausage on the plate. Artisanal sausage hit mainstream grocery stores years ago. There wasn't any excuse for this either. If they didn't have time to make it themselves, they could have easily obtained good quality sausage from other local sources.

The ribs were smothered in so much sticky sauce that I could hardly tell meat from bone. And the sauce had no flavor of any kind except sugar. I presume it once had other ingredients waved in its direction but it seemed to be a glaze made from sugar and nothing else. It overwhelmed the meat. It was so thick that it left me with no option of adding other sauces.

On top of this pile of disappointments, the meal cost USD 20. The portions were generous but charging this much for poor quality food was insult added to injury. 

I scraped the glaze off the ribs and brought them home for the dogs. Mimi ate one and threw it up around midnight. My feelings exactly.