Barbecue Styles

Cafe Society
41

Your author definitely has a point. (And interesting in this thread that the food fight is about pizza instead of barbecue, lol).

I live in NC, so nuf said about what I’m partial to. I appreciate both Eastern and Western style sauce, though I like Eastern a bit more. I also am very fond of SC-style sauce because I’m pretty much a sucker for any sauce that has mustard in it, regardless of the the cuisine it’s meant for. Memphis-style is OK too, though I find KC-style to be a bit too sweet for my tastes.

A well-made pork shoulder, however, needs no such window dressing. It’s Og’s own food, all by itself.

42

There are tons of Korean barbecue joints in the Chicago suburbs, but the northern/northwestern suburbs. Niles, Morton Grove, Wheeling, etc.

43

I’ll be brief. The issue here is not whether Chicago has several types of pizza that Stranger disapproves of - they do. But you can’t hold a whole city responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole pizza industry? And if the whole pizza industry is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our dining institutions in general? I put it to you, SoaT - isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can say whatever you want about Chicago pizza, but I for one am not going to stand here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!

44

The corruption of pizza into forms unrecognizable as an edible product is but a symptom of a far more pervasive malignancy underlying American culinary culture. It is one thing to take a dish of foreign provenance and put a local spin upon it, or even to take food another culture and relabel it to make it more salable to domestic palettes, but America has the peculiar perversion of taking widely revered foods from elsewhere, categorizing them as “ethnic” to find shelf space in the grocery store, and then homologating them by transmogrifying them in horrific and repugnant ways, making them utterly unrecognizable to their culture of origin. From Taco Bell and McDonalds to Pizza Hut and Costco, such fake and unnutritious “food products” are universally recognized as intrinsically American.

But there is no more singularly worse food item than the “hot dog”, a facsimile sausage of pinkish proteinaceous slime of indeterminate origin squeezed into a cylindrical mold, embedded in a purposed-designed ‘bun’ to prevents its escape from the greasy grasp of small children, and then drowned in repugnant yellow mustard with no discernible flavor or spice. And what city above all prides itself on its hot dog based ‘street cuisine’? It should come as no surprise to the reader that it is Chicago. New Yorkers at least understand that the hot dog is a convenience food, not intended to be elevated or celebrated, but rather extracted from a bacteria-laden warm bath and quickly covered with a blanket of relish, consumed too quickly to taste walking down the sidewalk while dodging steam jets and panderers. In Chicago, on the other hand, they have actual storefronts centered around the hot dog as a culinary celebrity, even exporting this odd obsession west of the Rockies where people ought to know better, and covering the city with billboards and posters exalting this repugnant morsel of inedible fake flesh. When the hot dog took over American food culture and displaced more worthy competitors such as the bratwurst, the chorizo, and the kielbasa, we all lost a bit of our national soul.

Do not get me started on mechanically separated chicken, a stain upon our collective conscience. I have no problem roasting and eating any member of Phasianidae, but one should not do to any creature whatever is done to turn it into the foul breaded puck that is the chicken nugget.

Stranger

45

I kept a straight face until here.

Well done!

I’d join in on the Chicago mocking but @pulykamell sends me local giardiniera so I must decline lest I piss off my dealer.

46

Thankfully, the bratwurst, the chorizo, and the kielbasa (as well as the Italian sausage) regularly beat the hot dog, at least in the sausage race at Milwaukee Brewers baseball games. :smiley:

47

Having attended Brewers games many times and bet on the outcome of the race, I have come to the conclusion with statistical certainty that the race is rigged with the winner alternating between the brat and the Italian sausage, with an occasional victory thrown to the chorizo to keep the South Siders from rising up in protest. I don’t believe I ever witnessed either the Polish sausage or the hot dog in victory, although I once ran a 5K at the stadium where the hot dog handily passed me and beat my sub-twenty minute finish time by a large margin.

Stranger

48

The merguez and ping kai have not yet emerged from the CIA’s post-911 global detention system, I take it.

49

Oh, Lord. Bouchon in Las Vegas used to have a merguez hash on their brunch menu that was killer. Ah, here it is:

50

Too harsh on the hot dog.

I grant it is not the highest of cuisine and there are many better sausages out there but it’s ok and can certainly be enjoyed.

There’s that one hot dog you get on closing day at the baseball park which you know has been floating in there since opening day and absorbed all the fat from a season of hot dogs that is nirvana.

Just don’t put ketchup on it (don’t start…even though I started).

51

I ain’t got the time or energy to talk about the wide range of styles available here in Chicago when it comes to pizza. When Great Lakes pizza was around briefly, it was regarded as one of the best if not the best in the nation, and they did a Neapolitan-type pie. What I love about Chicago pizza is it has great examples of most styles around.

As for barbecue, Chicago barbecue is interesting, as least in reference to West Side and South Side African-American barbecue. I would say the iconic dishes of Chicago barbecue – which is pork at these places – are ribs, rib tips and hot links as exemplified at such places as Uncle John’s (RIP, although his kin have offshoots – still the best hot link in Chicago), Barbara Ann’s (where Mack, the pitmaster and founder of Uncle John’s used to work), Lem’s, Honey One, Leon’s, etc. Tip & links go together such that they are a standard combo at pretty much every bbq joint in these neighborhoods.

Chicago barbecue is typically served in a styrofoam clamshell container with french fries, about a tablespoon of coleslaw in a little plastic container, and two slices of Wonder Bread (or even cheaper alternative) on it. It is ladled with sauce (hot and/or mild) unless you ask for sauce on the side (or none.) It is typically smoked over hardwood in an aquarium smoker. Here’s what one looks like (not my photo):

I believe they were manufactured in Wisconsin, and the only other place I’ve seen them outside this area is at Cozy Corner in Memphis, TN. They are kind of slowly dying out as more automated and controlled methods of smoking are around, but I just love tips & links churned out of one of these things by a pitmaster who knows what they’re doing (like James Lemons, of Lem’s, pictured above.)

Now the Chicago hot links are a pork-based sausage, not like the Texas hot links which are beef-based. They can be coarse ground or fine ground, but I prefer the coarse grind. Mack Sevier’s hot links are strong on the sage and black and red pepper, so they end up tasting like a smokey spicy breakfast sausage. I freaking love those things.

(This type of) Chicago barbecue isn’t about sides. Don’t expect to find mac and cheese, greens, beans, or anything like that. If you’re lucky, maybe potato salad in addition to the coleslaw and fries. And none of these types of places (or rather, very few) have seating.

53

The book is very positive about Chicago barbecue but suggests that some of the better places “serve your meal through a bullet-proof window”. Canada was a largely a mishmash of Indigenous Natives, Britain, France, Europe and America before being further improved by many successive waves of immigration. I thought I kind of understood the US (Canada is pretty similar) until Trump convinced me otherwise. I assume the book is accurate but being melodramatic.

I’m not going to comment here on hot dogs or pizza though have strong opinions. I will say I have enjoyed hot dogs in Chicago more than anywhere else but buy better sausages at home.

I’ve visited Chicago 3-4 times. I have not travelled much in the US but Chicago is one of my favourite cities. I saw a Stanley Cup game once there which went into triple overtime. Some barbecue would have come in handy.

54

That sounds awesome and sent me googling. Sorry to read he has passed on. But next time I’m in Chicago (sigh if there ever is a next time)…

55

That is correct. Most of the places I mentioned are/were like that (a couple of them have closed). They had the bullet proof glass as well as a lazy susan type of partition where you’d put your money and they’d give you the food through. You’ll find this set-up at the chicken shacks (like Harold’s Chicken) down in that part of town, too. Frankly, a good number of take away food establishments in those neighborhoods have that set-up.

56

I grew up – and still work in – Eastern North Carolina…when you talk about “barbecue” around here, you’re typically referring to the vinegar-based stuff (pork of course!), ideally prepared by smoking. I also enjoy Western North Carolina-style tomato-based sauce, which tends to be the version that shows up in non-barbecue restaurants for some reason.

South Carolina barbecue is regarded with suspicion here.

57

Could you explain the differences, @WolfpackJeep ?

58

Nathan’s. The original next to the Boardwalk in Coney Island, not the ones you encounter on the NJ Turnpike. Don’t put ketchup on it. That’s for the fries.

59

In a nutshell: North Carolina is whole hog. Likely served chopped on a bun with a vinegar-based sauce, loaded with red pepper. West of an ill-defined but definite line down the middle of the state they add ketchup to the sauce. They also use this sauce in their cole slaw (Lexington #1 rocks!). Western NC BBQ is pork shoulder. Both styles have hush puppies as a side.

South Carolina favors a mustard-based sauce that most right thinking people regard as an aberration if not an outright perversion.

60

Some parts - see one of the famous SC bbq maps. Honestly some of the best ribs I’ve had (probably not THE best, but pretty darn good) were some crock-potted, mustard-sauced ribs in SC. Heresy to many non-locals, I’m sure :wink:

61

Oh, please do, when the mood takes you. :smiley:

I wish I had experience with barbecue sufficient to add commentary of at least middling note to this thread, but I was raised in non-barbecue country, at least as we commonly understand the meaning of the term ‘barbecue’ in most of these United States. I have even less familiarity with this chicken nugget. Thus, I am relegated to the status of Mere Engaged Reader.

Not that it is of any particular importance to anyone, but for the record, I unabashedly love this thread. It is currently my favorite thread in the forum and I am savoring every, uhh, word. Thanks to all contributors.

To think I had never even heard of The Sausage Race!!