It seems that Tell me you're southern w/o telling me your southern has gotten derailed into a BBQ discussion. While that is a perfect fit for the thread subject, it’s not fair to OP.
So in consideration for her, let’s continue here.
Vinegar sauce or no? Favorite technique or food?
If it’s BBQ, serve it up here for everyone!
If it’s gonna be called barbecue, it’s got to be smoked whole hog with Eastern style sauce. That means vinegar based.
Brisket is good, but it’s not barbecue.
The less said about Alabama white sauce, the better.
One out of three. Your batting average is improving! 
In order of preference (subject to change without notice):
QFT. I mean, some I’m happier to see than others but I can’t think of any I’d refuse.
My response would be well into TLDR territory. As long as you’re cooking low and slow-ish over wood or even coals, I don’t care what animal it is or what sauce it is. You good… as long as we agree that barbecue ain’t about the sauce.
As with pizza, I am happy to consume a variety of BBQ types. While I like sauce and generally prefer it, a good BBQ doesn’t need to have it.
Pistols at dawn!
Brisket is my favorite thing to BBQ followed by pulled pork, pork ribs, and beef ribs. I prefer tomato based sauce but vinegar based sauce is nice too. Okay, confession time, I’m not big on white BBQ.
This. While I have definite preferences (very light on sauce no matter what, no overly sweet crap, and it better not be ketchup with a few drops of ‘smoke’ flavor added dammit), it’s more about technique, tender and juicy wonder, and the experience of eating it (especially with friends and family).
Cuts, critters, and everything else is a matter of preference.
Again, STRONG preferences, but…
The geography of barbecue is interesting, Texas and North Carolina are the kings of beef- and pork-based barbecue, but the rest of the Deep South is just weird. Alabama white sauce is an abomination.
They put mustard in their sauce in South Carolina. Georgia has no distinct style to speak of. I do like me some Memphis ribs and (occasionally) KC style barbecue, though, so I guess the border states are OK.
Close. I’d go with pork ribs rather than beef. IMHO the best spot is the Salt Lick in Driftwood. It’s the best barbecue in the world according to Bobby Flay, Adam Richman, and Duff Goldman. I agree with them…
I don’t. I am an acolyte of Smitty’s in Lockhart.
Okay. We can be friends.
Kansas City rub is for beef, not pork.
Salt Lick is fine, but there are (IMHO) much better options in Central Texas. The aforementioned Smitty’s, Franklins (worth the wait), Kreuz Market (sausage only), and more-recently Interstellar come to mind.
Yep, low and slow over wood or coals is the key. Sauce is sauce and I have my preference but it’s an add on. If done right I don’t really need sauce. I will also say dry rubs can be important as well, while not required.
@FlikTheBlue and @silenus - Barbecue from Salt Lick or Smitty’s will make me perfectly happy any day of the week. They are both great although I know they have passionate partisans.
I had the pleasure of going to Hutchins BBQ Christmas week. I would die happy with my last meal coming from there or any of the two mentioned above. I’m certain there are other spots in Texas I would happily add to that list. Vitek’s Market in Waco is one I recall fondly from my college days but no idea how it is today.
I’m hopping in here to defend Alabama white sauce. I like it. I also miss Dreamland’s aesthetic of just ribs and bread, but I believe those days are over.
I stumbled across a restaurant promoting its “American-style BBQ flavors!” while wandering the island of Malta. Normally on a trip like this I wouldn’t bother; first, I consciously favor local joints offering local food, so I can explore the culture via proper cuisine, and second, I avoid leaning on familiar “comfort” food because it’s rarely as good as what you know and want. In this case, the language and décor were so specific that the place caught my attention, and I had an uncommitted window for lunch, so I thought, what the heck. I didn’t expect it to be especially good, but I was curious.
I had their pork ribs. It’s hard to mess up ribs.
Their approach to BBQ ribs was, as far as I could gather by sampling the food and then watching the kitchen, to bake them just long enough to remove the moisture, but not so long as to render the fat and collagen and make the meat tender, so the ribs were simultaneously dry and tough, a neat trick. On cooking, they had been seasoned only with salt and pepper.
Then, prior to serving, they poured over the ribs a substantial splash of their own BBQ sauce, which, based on the flavor profile, started out as a ketchup-based recipe, but then, in a concession to the heavily-British-leaning tourist population, swapped out the ketchup for HP Sauce.
It was awful, bordering on inedible. The worst BBQ I’ve ever had, anywhere, by a wide margin. It made the McDonald’s McRib taste like something you’d get at Franklin’s.
I have no idea how they stayed in business.
Anyway, next time you’re in Malta, you should check them out! 
I agree with some others that BBQ is not about type of meat, or type of sauce, it’s all about cooking technique: low and slow and smoky. This thread has me craving BBQ now-- it’s been a little while since I BBQed anything. Unfortunately I have plans the whole weekend so BBQ will have to wait (at least, making it-- maybe will see if I can talk Mrs. solost into hitting a BBQ joint for dinner Saturday night).
My favorite meat is brisket, with pulled pork a close second. Pulled pork is easier to get right, but a properly BBQed brisket is a beautiful thing. Here’s a post I made this past June in which I followed an America’s Test Kitchen / Cook’s Country recipe for perfectly BBQed brisket on a kettle grill- it turned out amazing: Barbecued Beef Brisket! Ribs are good, but not a lot of leftovers for almost the same amount of work. I’ve also BBQed plenty of chickens and turkeys.
Sauce: depends on the meat and the mood I’m in. For pulled pork I like a hybrid Eastern/Western North Carolina-style sauce: thin and vinegary but with a little bit of tomato sauce added. The acidity is a nice counterpoint to the fattiness. I don’t generally use much if any sauce with brisket or poultry.
I’ve always been a skeptic in that I’ve always believed that this debate is traditionally way overdone and, in fact, all barbecue is pretty much the same EXCEPT for the sauce.
HOWEVER … I was once at a party where they were actually slow cooking a whole pig in a pit over a couple of days. They had it stuffed with bananas, I think, and prepped in other ways I can’t remember. My God, the smell!! I had the urge to jump into the pit and tear it apart like some crazed carnivore! I’ve never before or since smelled anything like it.
Because the cooking was being done in a pit outside, there were at least two guys standing guard over it at all times until the process was complete. Unfortunately, it wasn’t ready to eat until I was gone, so I never sampled it.
Oh, dear, no. Every barbecue place I go to I try the barbecue with sauce on the side. And they are not all pretty much the same. Smoke levels differ. Flavors differ from whether it’s cooked direct or indirect and what temp its cooked at (some have a fat-in-the-fire flavor if cooked over the wood and coals, like Chicago aquarium-smoker barbecue has a distinct flavor to me.) Some have more assertive rubs. The texture differs depending on the cooking method and pitmaster. Etc. The sauce is an accent, sometimes an important one, but barbecue isn’t defined by/about the sauce. I especially hate those places that just stick a shoulder in the oven, no smoke, and douse it in Sweet Baby Ray’s or their house sauce. That is not barbecue.
