United States

Although regional differences in barbecue are blurring, as are many other aspects of U.S. regional culture, variations still exist, and it is still possible to get into heated discussions of the superiority or inferiority of particular regional barbecue variants.

[edit] Alabama

In Alabama, there are currently more barbecue restaurants, per capita, than in any other US state. Alabama barbecue most often consists of pork ribs or pork shoulder, slowly cooked over hickory smoke. Pork shoulder may be served either chopped or sliced; some diners also specify a preference for either "inside" or "outside" meat. Alabama barbecue is typically served with a spicy, tomato-based sauce. Two documentary films have been made concerning the Alabama barbecue phenomenon, "Holy Smoke over Birmingham" and "A Taste of Hog Heaven,"

Famous Alabama barbecue restaurants include:

Dreamland Bar-B-Que

Founded in 1958 in Tuscaloosa, there are now nine locations statewide. In the original restaurant in Tuscaloosa, there are no side dishes, only ribs, bread, and sauce served on paper plates.

Big Bob Gibson's BBQ

Founded in 1925 in Decatur, the people from Big Bob's have won many world championships in pork and chicken; they have also won awards for their sauces. They are particularly famous for their unique "white" sauce with a mayonnaise and vinegar base. This style of barbecue was well-documented in Fannie Flagg's bestselling book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

[edit] Arkansas

Arkansas is in some ways the crossroads of American barbecue. This is largely due to its location — firmly rooted in the Deep South but close enough to the Midwest and Texas to incorporate Kansas City and Texas-style barbecue traits.

Like all true southern barbecue, meat is never exposed to high or direct heat. Instead it is smoked at low temperatures for long periods of time (over 24 hours for many cuts of pork).

Pork and beef appear on almost all menus, although pork is more popular in the Delta than in the Ozarks. Arkansas-style ribs are a key attraction and similar to those had in Memphis, which lies across the Mississippi River from Arkansas.

A unique feature of barbecue in Arkansas is prevalence of chicken. Barbecue chicken, Arkansas-style, is always marinated with a "dry rub", smoked, and divided into edible portions only after it is completely cooked. Barbecue sauce is only applied by the eater.

Another characteristic of Arkansas barbecue is that a barbecued pork or beef sandwich is always served with a thin layer of cole slaw atop and/or underneath the meat. Arkansas cole slaw, which is not as sweet or creamy as found in other states, provides a toothsome crunch and prevents the sauce from soaking into the bread. Barbecue sandwiches are traditionally served on slices of white bread. Additional cole slaw and potato salad are traditional side dishes. Unlike in other states, onion rings appear frequently as an accompaniment to an Arkansas barbecue sandwich.

The best illustration of the confluence of culinary influences that come together to make Arkansas barbecue is the sauce. Most restaurant have a thin tomato base sauce that is vinegary and peppery, much like its Deep South ancestors, but incorporates some of the sweetness found in Kansas City-style sauces. To varying degree, Arkansas sauces contain a sweetener (usually sorghum molasses), but they are never thick and never taste syrupy. They are, however, noticeably smoother (i.e., less acidic) than eastern sauces, particularly those from eastern Carolina.

Arkansas sauces tend to be spicier than those found in other states. Most restaurants serve at least two different sorts of sauce — “regular” and “hot”. The “hot” variety incorporates more pepper into the already spicy “regular” sauce.

Notable barbecue establishments include McClards in Hot Springs, which developed a national reputation decades before one of its most loyal patrons, Bill Clinton, was elected president. Whole Hog Cafe in Little Rock also has developed a national following in recent years, winning dozens of national competitions.

[edit] California

Barbecued oysters are served at the Arcata Bay Oyster Festival, near Eureka, California, at the beginning of every summer.

In northern California many BBQ restaurants serve tofu, tempeh and Portobello mushrooms for vegetarians, in addition to barbecue. Oakland is a center for traditional BBQ and other soul food side dishes.

The most famous California barbecue is Santa Maria style, in the central part of the state, with its unique 2-3 inch cut of top sirloin or Tri-tip steak, pinquito pink beans and salsa. The tri-tip is rolled in garlic salt and pepper just prior to cooking over red oak wood or coals. Some old timers soak their tri-tip in flat beer the night before cooking it, others use a red wine vinegar and oil basting sauce during the cooking process.

An example recipe can be found at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_28099,00.html

Tri-tip is the triangular shaped tips of a sirloin portion that many butchers consider waste and cut up into stew meat or grind into burger. It can be a tough piece of meat if you make the mistake of taking all the fat off or of cutting it into individual steaks for cooking. Cook it whole! If you put the fat side of the tri-tip on the fire first, the moisture will come up through the meat and make it tender. The tried and true cooking procedure is to sear the lean part of the meat over the fire for 5-10 minutes to seal in the juices, then flip over to the fat side for 20-25 minutes, depending on degree of doneness expected. When juice appears at the top of the meat, it is time to flip for another 25 minutes.The fat can easily be trimmed after cooking.

[edit] Florida

Both pork and seafood are barbecued in Florida, with butter and lemon or lime juice as the base for the sauce. Some restaurants are even known to barbecue alligator with a smoker.

[edit] Georgia

A state with a long and storied barbecue tradition, Georgia barbecue has become famous in many fictional and anecdotal representations of life within the state, ranging from Margaret Mitchell's epic Gone with the Wind to the more biographical (and humorous) reminiscences of Lewis Grizzard. The state's "barbecue reputation" has also been solidified by the fact that many Georgia-based food manufacturers (such as Castleberry's Foods, based in Augusta) introduced mass-market "BBQ pork" to grocery stores throughout the United States in the mid-1980's.

In general, it can be said that Georgia barbecue is based on pork, which is slow-cooked over an open pit stoked with oak and/or hickory and served with a sauce based on ketchup, molasses, bourbon, garlic, cayenne pepper, and other ingredients. However, the reality is that barbecue culture in Georgia represents an enormous range of styles, traditions, and influences. As such, Georgia can be accurately assessed as a melting pot of regional variations where almost any sauce or cooking style can be found.

Barbecue in the Eastern part of the state (from Savannah to Augusta) is somewhat unique in that it consists almost universally of finely chopped pork - usually from a shoulder or ham cut - served with a side of hash (a thick, tomato-based stew often flavored with meat drippings and other vegetables) over long grain white rice. Occasionally, ribs, chicken, and/or beef brisket accompanies pork on the menu, but all meats are slow cooked "bare" (i.e. without the addition of spice rubs or sauces) over wood coals and served accompanied by "hash and rice" and sweet pickles. Mustard-based potato salad or traditional mayonaise-dressing coleslaw often completes the meal as a side dish, and many of the most famous purveyors of this style of barbecue offer almost nothing else on the menu. Sauces typical of East Georgia barbecue consist of a ketchup and/or vinegar base with exotic flavors like worcestershire sauce, bay leaves, honey, and even clove sometimes added.

Middle Georgia barbecue restaurants (from Macon to Atlanta) most often serve Brunswick stew instead of hash, and are more apt to offer additional side items, including (but not limited to) french fries, onion rings, baked beans, and potato chips. The meat in "middle Georgia barbecue" shows similar diversity, as restaurants in this area regularly offer beef brisket, ribs, chicken, and sometimes smoked sausage in addition to the traditional shoulder-cut chipped pork. Accompanying sauces are often in the vein of the "bourbon and ketchup"-based styles described above.

Northeast Georgia barbecue - centered around the city of Athens and its neighboring counties, but extending upward along Interstate 85 into South Carolina - has much in common with the style of barbecue typically found in eastern South Carolina (see below.) Most restaurants in the region serve a more finely-chopped pork most often taken from a slow roasted whole hog, rather than just a pork shoulder. Meat is served with a thinner, vinegar-based sauce, and pulled pork sandwiches are especially popular.

West Georgia barbecue, centered in the city of Columbus, holds a great deal in common with Alabama-style barbecue. Restaurants in this area of the state typically serve a mustard and vinegar based barbecue sauce which often features the addition of jalapenos or other hot peppers. Meats in West Georgia barbecue are more typically cooked over oak (particularly White Oak) coals, and are often served along with dill (rather than sweet) pickles and/or grilled slices of Vidalia onion. The West Georgia style also typically features the greatest variety of side dish offerings, often including "country vegetables" such as sweet potatoes, collard greens, lima beans, and corn. West Georgia barbecue is sometimes served with cornbread, although the more traditional offering of white bread as an accompanying starch is still most common.

Barbecue of North Georgia, particularly those counties around Chattanooga shares many traits with the typical "smokey" Tennessee style, while South Georgia Barbecue, centered in and around Albany, Thomasville & Valdosta, shares qualities with its North Florida neighbors, including the use of dry spice rubs and a hickory-based smoke for cooking. Vienna, Georgia is notable as the home of Big Pig Jig, one of the Southeast's largest pork barbecue cook-offs, which has been featured on the Food Network.

Atlanta truly epitomizes the reputation of Georgia as a "melting pot" of barbecue styles, as virtually every style found within the state - as well as those typical of Kansas City, St. Louis, Texas, Chicago and the Caribbean - are not only present but commonplace. Yet despite the tremendous diversity of barbecue styles present in Georgia, one factor remains constant throughout the entire state, the presence of "sweet tea" as the perpetual accompanying beverage to a barbecue meal.

Arguably, Georgia's most famous original contribution to the barbecue world is Brunswick stew, named after Brunswick, Georgia where tradition holds that it originated. Famous (but not necessarily the best) Georgia barbecue restaurants include Twin Oaks in Brunswick, Sconyer's in Augusta, Smokey Pig and Fat Freddie's in Columbus, Wall's Barbecue in Savannah, Fincher's Barbecue in Macon, Carithers (now Carithers 'N Scott Barbecue) in Athens, Melear's in Fayetteville, Sprayberry's Barbecue in Newnan, Leroy's Barbecue in Valdosta, Williamson Brothers Barbecue in Marietta, Rib City BBQ in Marietta, Vandys Barbecue in Statesboro, Daddy D'z BBQ Joynt in Atlanta and Jack's Old South in Vienna and Cordele.

[edit] Kentucky

See also: Cuisine of Kentucky

In Kentucky, barbecue also has a long and rich tradition. Mutton is the most notable specialty in Western Kentucky, where there were once large populations of sheep. However, mutton is virtually unknown in The Purchase of the extreme west, where "barbecue" without any other qualifier refers specifically to smoked pork shoulder. A vinegar- and tomato-based sauce with a mixture of spice and sweet is traditionally served with the meat, though not always used in cooking. The Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn in Owensboro is the most famous of all Kentucky BBQ places, and Owensboro hosts an International Bar-B-Q Festival every year during the second weekend in May. Western Kentucky BBQ (more specifically, Purchase BBQ) has also been transplanted to Lexington by way of Billy's BBQ near downtown, a favorite among University of Kentucky basketball and football fans. A great deal of "Kentucky barbecue" has found its way into southern Indiana, where it has earned widespread favor.

[edit] Mississippi

Like its neighbor Alabama, Mississippians prefer pork to other meats, usually pork shoulder, or whole hog. Most restaurants serve only pulled pork, though some also serve chicken halves. Unlike the surrounding states, a purely vinegar-based sauce is preferred; in fact, many sauciers take a great deal of pride in using absolutely no tomato in their creations.

Though most barbecue in Mississippi is pork shoulder slow-cooked in a smoker (either a drum, or a converted shed), special events call for open-pit barbecue, which is still common practice in some parts of Mississippi. A whole, freshly slaughtered hog is brought to the site very early in the morning while a pit, generally half a foot deep by several feet wide and broad, is filled with hickory wood. The wood is allowed to burn to coals before a grill is laid down, and the hog is smoked whole over the embers. The process usually takes an entire day, and if begun early enough, is ready for dinner. There are numerous pig-cooking competitions throughout Mississippi each year, one of which is the "Pig Cookoff" at April's Super Bulldog Weekend at Mississippi State University.

Famous barbecue joints include Leatha's Bar-B-Que Inn in Hattiesburg, The Little Dooey in Columbus and Starkville, Sonny's in Starkville (both favorites of Mississippi State University students), and Sonny's Real Pit BBQ (no relation) in Jackson.

[edit] Missouri

In Missouri, beef is the dominant meat for barbecue, especially in St. Louis and the Ozarks. Often the beef is sliced and a tomato-based sauce is added after cooking. About half of the supply of charcoal briquets in the USA is produced from Ozark forests (e.g., Kingsford brand), with hickory "flavor" being very popular.

St. Louis-style barbecue features a sauce that is typically tangier and thinner than its Kansas City cousin, with less vinegar taste. It somewhat resembles the Memphis style sauce. Maull's barbecue sauce is representative of the St. Louis style. The most famous barbecue competition in St. Louis is held annually during the July 4th holiday at Fair St. Louis.

A quick and easy Missouri-style barbecue sauce can be made from mostly ketchup, some brown sugar, a little mustard, and a dash of Worcestershire sauce.

[edit] Kansas City

Arthur Bryant's Barbeque at 18th and Brooklyn in Kansas City

Main article: Kansas City-style barbecue

Kansas City calls itself the "world capital of barbecue." There are more than 100 barbecue restaurants in the city and the American Royal each fall claims to host the world's biggest barbecue contest.

The classic Kansas City-style barbecue was an inner city phenomenon that evolved from the pit of Henry Perry from the Memphis, Tennessee area in the early 1900s and blossomed in the 18th and Vine neighborhood. Arthur Bryant's was to take over the Perry restaurant and added molasses to sweeten the recipe. In 1946 Gates and Sons Bar-B-Q was opened by one of Perry's cooks. The Gates recipe added even more molasses. Although Bryant's and Gates are the two definitive Kansas City barbecue restaurants they have had little or no luck exporting the barbecue beyond the Kansas City metropolitan area.

In 1977 Rich Davis, a child psychologist, test marketed his own concoction called K.C. Soul Style Barbecue Sauce. He renamed it KC Masterpiece and in 1986 he sold the sauce to the Kingsford division of Clorox. Davis retained rights to operate restaurants using the name and sauce. Only one of the restaurants remains in the suburb of Overland Park, Kansas.

[edit] Nevada

The city of Sparks plays host each Labor Day weekend to the Best of the West Rib Cook-off in Victorian Square. To denizens of the Reno/Sparks area, this is an event of quasi-religious significance and proves that when it comes to BBQ in Nevada, ribs are king.

[edit] North Carolina

Within North Carolina, there are two regional barbecue traditions, both based on the slow-cooking of pork, served pulled, chopped, or sliced. In eastern North Carolina, typically the whole hog is used, and the dominant ingredients in the sauce are vinegar and hot peppers. From the Piedmont westward, Lexington-style barbecue is the norm. It is prepared from primarily pork shoulder and served with either a vinegar-based or tomato-based sauce. The tomato-based sauce, called "dip" by some, can be made with ketchup and is thinner and less sweet than most bottled barbecue sauces available nationwide. Except for the "whole hog" preparation, hams are not generally barbecued.

Throughout the State, the term "barbecue" usually refers to slow cooked pork, but it can also refer to a backyard cookout. Any meat basted in a barbecue sauce and cooked over heat can be called "barbecued," for example, "barbecued chicken" or "barbecued ribs." A common home preparation called "chicken barbecue" is oven-braised chicken pieces with a sauce, usually thin and slightly spicy.

Barbecue is prepared by placing a pork shoulder or half a hog (that is, a side) in a "hog cooker" over prepared wood coals and cooking very slowly, usually overnight. Which wood to use is subject to debate — often oak or hickory, but never pine. For convenience, gas, electric, or charcoal heat may be used, alone, or in combination with a wood, although most will agree that regardless of primary heat source, long exposure to hardwood smoke produces the most flavorful barbecue. Other variations involve cooking times, turning frequency, and basting methods.

When the meat is finished, it may be cut up or chopped by the cook, or diners at a pig pickin' may pull the desired quantity directly off the bone. A "Pig pickin'" is a popular type of gathering centered on the consuming, and possibly cooking, of barbecue. Pig pickin's are popular for church gatherings, family celebrations, reunions, weddings, funerals, and pre-game parties.

Common side dishes include hushpuppies, barbecue slaw, french fries, boiled potatoes, corn sticks, Brunswick stew, and collard greens. In the popular NC State Legislative Building cafeteria, accompaniments include deep-fried dill pickle slices. Also popular is the "barbecue sandwich," consisting of barbecue, vinegar/pepper sauce, sweet cole slaw, and perhaps a little yellow mustard, served on a hamburger bun. A "barbecue tray" is a thick paper rectangular bowl with barbecue and french fries or hushpuppies served side-by-side. The meat may already have sauce mixed in, or the diner may add his own.

Lexington's well-known annual Barbecue Festival is normally held on one of the last two Saturdays in October. Some North Carolinians deny that real barbecue exists outside the State. Attesting to its popularity, Carolina-style barbecue restaurants are scattered along the Eastern seaboard and tubs of NC chopped barbecue can be found in many grocers.

[edit] Oklahoma

Oklahoma barbecue reflects the state's geographic location. Located south of Kansas City, north of Texas and west of Memphis, Oklahomans like the beef brisket favored by their neighbors in Texas, the sweet spicy sauce typical of Kansas City and the pork ribs that are found in Memphis. However, Oklahoma barbecue also includes pork, chicken, sausage, and bologna. In Oklahoma, barbecue refers to meat that has been slowly cooked over wood smoke at a very low temperature, for a very long time. The woods most commonly used for smoking meat include hickory, oak, and pecan. Some of the most popular barbecue joints in Oklahoma include Bad Brad's in Stillwater & Pawhuska, Smokehouse Bob's in Muskogee, Elmer's, Stutt's House of BBQ, and the Knotty Pine in Tulsa, Head Country in Ponca City, Earl's Rib Palace in Oklahoma City, and Van's Pig Stands in Shawnee, Norman and Moore.

[edit] Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania, 'barbecue' refers to various sweet and mild concoctions in the tradition of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) cooking techniques. Especially in central PA, barbecue is generally a mixture of browned ground beef, or in some cases shredded roast beef, with varying combinations of ketchup, mustard, molasses, brown sugar, white sugar, salt, pepper, pickle relish, and vinegar. This dish is reminiscent of the meat on a Sloppy joe sandwich and can be used as a hot dog topping. As served at most any type of event in central PA, a 'barbecue sandwich' consists of ground beef barbecue on an inexpensive white hamburger bun.

[edit] South Carolina

South Carolina is the only state to have four types of barbecue sauces: mustard, vinegar, heavy tomato, and light tomato. The meat used in South Carolina is consistent throughout the state, slow-cooked pulled pork. In the Pee Dee and Lowcountry coastal region, a vinegar and pepper sauce is prevalent, though the region is home to Sticky Fingers, a rib house who uses all four sauces. In the Midlands area around Columbia, a mustard-based sauce sometimes referred to as "Carolina Gold" is the predominant style. Such establishments as Melvin's (2 locations in Charleston, SC), Maurice Bessinger's "Piggy Park", Shealy's and Jackie Hites* (both located in Batesburg-Leesville) and Dukes BBQ (3 locations in Orangeburg, SC) use gold sauce made from mustard, apple juice, pear juice, and other ingredients. In upcountry around Rock Hill, one finds the light tomato and the rest of the upcountry stretching down past Aiken is home to the heavy tomato sauce. In addition to pork, other popular BBQ dishes include hash and ribs.

[edit] Tennessee

While Memphis dominates the culture of Tennessee barbecue, some other restaurants in other cities have achieved some notoriety outside of their local markets. Ridgewood Barbeque in Elizabethton has been featured in national publications and network television for its smoked sliced pork, drenched in a light, spicy tomato-based sauce. Still in its original location, Ridgewood has served a variety of notable clientèle over the past six decades, including country music stars and NASCAR drivers who race in nearby Bristol. Bar-B-Cutie Bar-B-Que in Nashville is a popular destination for tourists, and Sticky Fingers, a chain based in Charleston, South Carolina, but whose founders hail from Chattanooga, has overcome the stigma that hardcore barbecue fans tend to attach to chains and is widely regarded throughout the southeast for its ribs. Traditional Tennessee "barbeque" (the preferred spelling)^{[citation needed]} is saucy, slow-cooked pork ribs or pulled/sliced pork shoulder, though beef brisket (and sometimes sliced roast beef served with sauce) is also popular. The molasses content in the sauce usually becomes less pronounced in middle and east Tennessee, causing the sauces there to be thinner and less sweet. These eastern varieties more frequently use ketchup as a base, sometimes adding small amounts of Tabasco sauce or jalapeño for flavor.

In recent years it has become increasingly common for restaurants in the far eastern part of the state to serve the meat "dry" and offer customers a choice of either tomato or "Eastern Carolina-style" vinegar-based sauces. The use of cole slaw as a condiment on sandwiches varies from location to location. Typical side dishes include french fries, baked potatoes, potato salad, corn on the cob, barbecue beans, cole slaw, green beans, white beans, dinner rolls, and collard greens. Most barbecue restaurants are locally owned, no-frills establishments, though a handful of fast food chains (such as Buddy's BBQ in the Knoxville area) and several more upscale "rib houses" have proven popular regionally.

[edit] Memphis

Memphis-style barbecue is known for

• wet ribs, made with a mild, sweet barbecue sauce that's basted on the ribs before and after smoking;
• dry-rub ribs, made with a spice rub applied during or right after they've been cooked; and
• pulled or chopped pork sandwich topped with sweet, finely chopped coleslaw and served on inexpensive hamburger buns, which some locals insist^{[citation needed]} is Memphis barbecue's highest form.

For people who simply can't get enough barbecue, there's also barbecue spaghetti, barbecue pizza, and barbecue nachos.

Memphis is also home to the "Memphis in May" World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (WCBCC), an annual event which regularly draws over 90,000 pork lovers from around the globe. The title of "the largest pork barbecue cooking contest in the world" was bestowed on the WCBCC in the 1990 Guinness Book of World Records [1].

It is also home to over 100 barbecue restaurants, including Corky's, Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous, the Germantown Commissary, Leonard's, Pig-N-Whistle, Central BBQ, the Bar-B-Q Shop, Hog Wild Barbecue, Interstate Barbecue, Gridley's, Three Little Pigs, Tops Barbecue, and Cozy Corner. Several have been so successful that they have branches dedicated to shipping barbecue overnight via FedEx (especially convenient for these restaurants, as the primary hub for FedEx is Memphis International Airport).

[edit] Texas

Sliced brisket, sausage, and pork ribs are the most popular meats in Texas barbecue. Central Texans often refer to these three meats as The Holy Trinity. Chicken, beef ribs, and chopped beef are also often found. Even more exotic variants such as turkey, pork loin, pork chops, prime rib, mutton, and cabrito are sometimes available. The Mexican name often seen on signs is barbacoa and is most often barbacoa de cabeza—barbecued head(cow). This is very popular to eat on Sundays in the Hispanic community.

In Texas, barbecuing refers to what others call "hot smoking"—cooking with both smoke and low heat for hours over woods such as oak, mesquite, or pecan. Cooking with direct heat, such as a propane-fueled flame, is not referred to as barbecuing, but is instead known as grilling. Meat prepared by Texas barbecue often has a red tinge even when fully cooked, and a pink smoke ring around the edges of the meat. This is caused by myoglobin in the meat reacting with carbon monoxide in the smoke to form a heat stable pigment. The pink smoke ring is very tasty and a major focus of fans of this style.

If used, traditional sauce consists of tomatoes with a vinegar base. It can be sweet or spicy and thick or thin, depending on the chef. At barbecue cookoffs in Texas, however, meat is generally judged without sauce, as sauce can cover up for poor-quality meats and cooking. Commercially available sauces usually bear little resemblance to traditional barbecue sauce, and are frequently made from tomatoes and corn syrup.

Since creating proper barbecue requires considerable expense of money and time, in that one needs a specialized smoker and has to start smoking many hours before the meat is ready, most Texans simply visit a local restaurant known as a barbecue joint. Such establishments typically serve the meat in a no-frills manner, on a plastic tray and butcher paper with white bread or crackers, or, to-go, in a brown paper sack. Traditional side dishes include potato salad, coleslaw (mustard or vinegar), pinto beans, which are often spicy. Banana pudding, peach cobbler and Blue Bell ice cream are popular dessert options. However, they are not always available—the film Kreuz Market: No Sauce, No Sides, No Silverware depicts a popular barbecue joint in Lockhart that lacks the three items mentioned in the title.

Slight regional variations in Texas barbecue exist. In Central Texas barbecue is more likely to consist of leaner meats, while East Texans prefer more fatty cuts. It is possible, however, to find both kinds of meats all over the state. In South Texas, beef fajitas, beef briskets, beef ribs and chicken are probably the most popular, along with small cuts of pork called 'carnitas', of course all cooked over a mesquite fire. Side dishes include flour tortillas, pinto beans, Mexican rice, potato salad, and of course pico de gallo (a garnish made with cilantro, jalapenos, onions and tomatoes.)

In Texas, barbecue, and the best barbecue joints, are popular topics both in individual discussions and the media. The documentary film Barbecue: A Texas Love Story depicts the culture associated with Texas barbecue. Texas Monthly magazine periodically performs roundups where they rate scores of barbecue joints across the state. The most recent roundup was in 2003.

[edit] Upper Midwest

In northern Illinois (including Chicago), Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, and Michigan, barbecue typically means a cut of meat with bone-in, either slow-cooked or cooked over an open flame. No-bone cuts of meat are usually said to be grilled, and are almost exclusively seared using dry direct heat. Fire, in the Upper Midwestern style, is necessary for barbecue; similar slow-cooked meat dishes prepared in an oven or a Crock-Pot are quite tasty, but not barbecue. Most of these bone-in meat cuts are beef and pork spareribs, and chicken quarters (thigh and drumstick together). Beef brisket has become increasingly popular in recent years. Restaurant chains named "Carson's Ribs", "Famous Dave's", and "Robinson's" use these meats with a variety of sauce styles.

Michiganders, particularly in Western Michigan, use the term "barbecue" loosely, allowing the consumption of beef ribs and stewed meat. They also allow the designation of Famous Dave's and Tony Roma's as authentic (or add the prefix "Texas style-" to appeal to ethos). In portions of Michigan barbecue is also a name for a sloppy joe sandwich.

Upper-Midwesterners typically serve barbecued meat with corn on the cob and baked potato (with butter, sour cream and chives) as side dishes, and sometimes baked beans and potato chips.

Chicago is an exception to the rule in the Midwest. It has a very large population of African Americans who migrated from the Mississippi Delta in the middle of the 20th century. The million or so African Americans who live in Chicago today inherited the food, music, and religion of their parents and grandparents. The barbecue described in the Memphis, Arkansas, and Mississippi sections of this entry has become a part of the Chicago landscape and has evolved since leaving the South. South- and West-side Chicago is noted for smoked ribs and Deep South style rib sauce.

Many of the migrants to Chicago came for jobs in the meatpacking industry at the time Chicago was still known as the hogbutcher to the world. Pork spare ribs served with hot or mild sauce are a product of this happy cultural confluence. While barbecue is typically associated with tough cuts of meat, barbecue ribs in Chicago tend to be from very good cuts of pork, perhaps because of the abundance of good meat and resulting higher expectations in this meat industry town.

[edit] Virginia

It is arguable whether Virginia has a BBQ tradition of its own—other than to realize that BBQ is a noun, never a verb. Much of the BBQ that exists in Virginia is found near the Tidewater region. Pork is the main offering, but chicken is often available, as are pork ribs. Meat from pork shoulders—"Boston butts"—is pit or smoker cooked. The more North Carolina-inclined places serve the meat dry and offer vinegar-based and tomato-based vinegary sauces. Some places offer smoked, minced pork in a light tomato/vinegar sauce, perhaps best fitting the appellation "Virginia BBQ" although very similar to some North Carolina BBQ. Most will, however, serve cole slaw on the sandwich as part of the deal. Given how many restaurants and stands offer "North Carolina BBQ" it is permissible to let the reader decide for himself whether there is a genuine variation or not.

[edit] Washington State

In the Pacific Northwest, barbecue is approached using different smoking techniques and is primarily used for cooking salmon. In early spring, Native Americans living near the Columbia River celebrate the first appearance of returning Chinook salmon with outdoor feasts, which are repeated, in backyards and restaurants, until the middle of fall.

Through the summer, when silver and pink salmon can be cheaper than hamburger in the market, grills are crowded with the tender flesh of salmon. A few places in Seattle cook salmon the ancient way (on cedar sticks), while others add twists of their own.

Traditionally, the salmon are cut in long, wide strips along either side of the backbone. Then the fillets should be speared on skinny cedar sticks, while smaller twigs are used to stretch the fish sideways. When completed, this looks like a rib system, but it keeps the salmon from curling while cooking.

The fish-on-a-stick is then placed upright, about three feet from the firepit, and cooked slowly for about half an hour. This method keeps the juices intact; placing the fish any closer to the fire dries it out. When finished, the meat will break away in moist layers.

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