Baloo: Got a hunk of salt pork in my ice box even as we speak.
Ogre: We need to talk turkey about barbecue (how’s that for a perfect mixed metaphor?). Let’s start with ribs.
Buy the meatiest ribs you can find. They should have a fair degree of streaking to them (i.e., fat). Avoid frozen ribs as they can be very dry from the freezing and thawing processes. If you really want to throw your money away, buy “baby back” ribs. The concept of boiling or roasting the ribs is for crude beginners and will not be discussed further. I still shiver to think of my beginner days when I would cut up the slabs and simmer them off in Chris and Pitts’ tomato based garbage sauce before grilling them over an open kettle.
Per The Rendezvous, I soak my ribs overnight in a bucket of 50 / 50 apple cider vinegar and water. If spoilage is a concern, toss in a sack of ice. Be sure to stir the tub every so often, as the vinegar will settle and chemically cook the ribs on the bottom. Better yet, every few hours, turn the ribs in the tub moving the top ones to the bottom. Be sure to save the marinating mixture for mopping and humidifying the ribs.
In the morning, get the ribs out of the tub and dry them off completely. Be sure to get under the flap meat too. I usually lay out the ribs on a slit open (unused) garbage bag. Get out your dry rub (dry rub pointers to follow) and sprinkle it all over the ribs. Cover with plastic if you are concerned about hygiene and bee bugs. About this time place a generous handful of hardwood chips in a bowl of water and weigh them down with another plate or bowl to keep them submerged. Hickory and apple wood are my favorites.
Get outside and light off your charcoal. Be sure to pile all of your charcoal to one side of your kettle. Avoid using lighter fluid. I just shave up some wood and start it all with some newspaper. Electric charcoal lighters work fine too. If you are in a hurry, use a hair dryer to fan the coals. Yeah, you look a little silly styling your kettle, but you’ll have coals in less than a half an hour. Put the grill over the coals to burn off the encrustation from the last time. A wire brush can also help with this.
Before starting the ribs, put a clean tin can full of the marinating mixture on the grill over the coals. This will provide a moist environment for your barbecue. If you have a small kettle or a large quantity of ribs you may want to have some more coals ashing up in another grill to be added to the main one during the cooking process. If you are using a propane grill start both sides on high to warm up the entire grill. Before placing the ribs on the grill, turn off one side and place the ribs over the unlit section. The placement of the coals to one side and having one side of your propane grill unlit both accomplish the same thing. You want INDIRECT heat to cook over. If you want charred and crusty inedible crap on your table, go ahead and cook directly over the coals.
If needed, oil the grill ahead of time. Place the ribs bone side down on the grill. ALWAYS cook your ribs bone side down for the entire duration of the cooking period. Only if you are in a dreadful hurry should you ever flip your ribs to the meat side. I usually just stack about three or four slabs on top of each other. Be careful not to scrape off a lot of the dry rub when placing the ribs on the grill. If needed, patch up any bare spots with a sprinkle or two of dry rub. At this time add a small amount of the soaked hardwood chips to the coals. Check to make sure the tin can of marinade is topped off and place the cover on your kettle. Choke off the kettle’s airflow to a bare minimum to keep the coals burning and watch / listen carefully for any flare ups. If flare ups occur, use a spray bottle to douse them.
Every so often, check the ribs and rotate the bottom slab to the top. If you have a fancy propane rig with the middle and top racks, use them for excellent results. Again, be careful not to bust off too much of the dry rub crust when rotating the slabs. Once the crust has set well, you may occasionally mop the slabs with some of the marinating liquid. Always check the tin can and top it off whenever it needs it. Use tongs to avoid piercing the meat and drying it out. Remember to add some of the hardwood chips periodically in between beers. Remember to heat your barbecue sauce somewhere around this time.
The ribs are done when the meat pulls back from the ends of the bones by about 1/4"-1/2". There should be a nice glaze on them and they should be moist and tender. Cut off one of the tiny end ribs to check. The end rib should be thoroughly cooked so that the larger ones will then be at the perfect state of doneness. It is at this point that the fist fights can begin. All of you pantywaists can feel free to apply some sauce during the last stage of the cooking. Any sufficiently prepared rib will not benefit from this. You will merely mask your splendid dry rub and stop your guests from appreciating the magnificence of a dry rubbed rib. Nuff said.
Prevent your guests from charging at you by using pepper spray or a Taser as you bring the slabs to the table. Singulate the ribs and dispense them with the righteous and kingly air that you deserve. Try to remember to have some sauce on them, but be sure that your guests try a rib or two without any sauce so that they understand the culinary magic that has been woven in front of them. Take a bow and keep your recipe well hidden from prying eyes.
If this does not make for the finest ribs you’ve ever had. I will personally refund every penny you paid for these pointers.
Some dry rub pointers:
A. You will have to pry my recipe out of my cold dead hands.
B. Use more sugar than salt.
C. Use both brown and white (cane) sugar.
D. Careful with the powdered Cumin, it takes over in a hurry.
E. Use a little cornstarch to help bind the rub to the meat.
F. Keep the heat down, you can always add it later.
I hereby declare Zenster an Honorary Southerner! Huzzah! Huzzah!
You are obviously a gentleman and a scholah, suh! We should spend an evening drinking mint juleps and eating fine ribs.
Seriously, your recipe sounds very good, and if you ever make to this neck of the woods, I will make sure you never go without a good meal, preferably some fine ribs. I have eaten at Rendezvous (the Voo), and at many other places (in Memphis and out.) The Voo is excellent, but I’ve had better, believe it or not. I’m not trying to be smug at all. It’s just that every rib joint down here is on a Holy Grail quest to make the perfect rib. Some of them come damned close.
By the way folks, if you don’t cotton to what the good Mr. Zenster and I are talking about, and you think that Applebee’s makes some fine ribs, thankyouverymuch, oh my friends, I challenge you to try out Zenster’s recipe and taste the difference. Applebee’s will be beneath your notice for the rest of your life. I promise.
I accept your honorary title with great respect. You are far too kind and obviously appreciate the finer things in life. Namely, barbecue. I mention the Voo only because it was the finest example I was exposed to at the time. I am salivating at the mere prospect of finding even better ribs.
To all others who are reading this. Please try my method. It is the product of painstaking research and experimentation. I will not itemize the dozen or more spices that go into my dry rub, but that should give you an idea of the complexity of the concept.
My daddy ate 'em, fried, but the rest of us never had the nerve to try them. He also put sliced jalapenos on his hamburger the way other folks use pickles. Daddy had a strong stomach. But even he wouldn’t eat a chicken neck.
Hickory makes for good barbeque, I agree, but you simply MUST try the mesquite version.
Chicken hearts, ya gotta love 'em. Dredged in some herbed flour and tossed into a hot buttered skillet. I scoff 'em down like popcorn. With the gizzards, you really have to cook them for a while to get them to the correct stage of tenderness. As for chicken necks, too much work for too little meat. Nuff said.
I must share this, Gentlemen.
A couple of my New England In-Laws visited on the way to going somewhere else. Very nice people, if they do talk funny.
At any rate, Cousin X asked me at the bar, (since she noticed that people wore shoes and that I had a job working on computers)“This…is…the SOUTH, isn’t it?”
I reflected for a moment.
“Well, we lost The War.”
The Publix I work in was a Bruno’s until they filed for bankruptcy and pulled completely out of Tallahassee. As a result, it’s one of the strangest Publix stores you’ll ever see. It’s got publix signs and equipment, but Bruno’s floors, lights, layout, and that damned golden arch over the cash registers.
On a slight hijack, Bruno’s building design is horrible compared to a REAL publix. The facilities are too small to support a sales floor that size (it’s a 53,000 square foot store), the stupid checkout arch impedes the flow of air, causing out cashiers undue stress from the heat. The stock hall looks like they forgot to finish it, and isn’t air conditioned. In addition, it’s so small you can’t fit all that you need inside. We had to back a spare trailer to one of the doors and leave it docked there, just to use as extra space. Add that to the fact that the produce dept., deli, and bakery don’t have offices for the managers, and they had to build a free-standing room for the pharmacy to make room for a training room!). It also confuses customers, who walk inside, look around, and say “All the OTHER Publix stores look the same, why is this one so CONFUSING!”
Sorry about the hi-jack, hunt me down and maim me if you must. Back to the regularly scheduled arguement about Southern-ness
I am with you all the way on this one zero. Whoever is responsible for the black bean fad needs to be forced-fed a pound of grits covered in sugar. (Also thanks for being the first ever to comment on one of my posts. Yipeee!)
I drink Lipton tea, have black-eyed peas with my cornbread, have a granny, a maw, mamaw, and papaw. Growing up I felt like I was the only one who didn’t have an Aunt Nell. We had taters and red meat with almost every meal (cept Fridays). Although we did have the occasional chicken n rice (with big clumps of butter melted in to make sure it wasn’t too healthy). Noon meal was dinner and evening meal was supper. Lunch was what we ate at school. My mother loved greens and okra oh and boiled cabbage. We had a garden out in the yard where we grew okra (super itchy to pick), tomatos, watermelon, corn, cucumbers, carots and a dozen other things. About the hundreth time I reached to pick a tomato and came back with a handful of goo (from where a worm munched on the other side) I began to hate tomatos. Also, does anyone else remember shelling peas? Purple hull peas, I think it was, that made my hands turn purple. I had almost forgotton about shelling peas with my mom and granny. Also, I have to put in my two cents about the Cracker Barrel. I work there and am staking the place out for my co-workers at my other job, so we’ll all know when they start selling the Coca-cola cake again. Yum! Almost as good as maw’s 'nana pudding (with nilla wafers, of course).
The Clippers are the gold standard of suck in the NBA. If I recall correctly, they have won just one playoff series in their entire existence.
The Mavericks, on the other hand, were considered by some to be on the verge of something pretty happening during their brief Jason Kidd/Jamal Mashburn/Jim Jackson period.
Oh, and the Mavericks were quite good in the 80s with Rolando Blackman and such. Had they only drafted Karl Malone like they had promised him they would instead of Detlef Schrempf (not a bad guy, but no Malone).
I simply have to stop all this talk about basketball. The only Southern sports are:
Football (high school, college or pro)
Baseball (when it’s too hot for football)
Huntin’ (all year ‘round)
Fishin’ (if there’s water in the crick)
Swimmin’ (if there’s water, but no fish)
Anything that involves a motor vee-hickle (my family favored motorsickle racin’, but cars or trucks is okay)
Golf (After you had retired.)
And not necessarily in that order. (Track and field isn’t sports; it’s what football and baseball players do to stay in shape.)
In short, if it’s more often played indoors than out, it ain’t a Southern sport. Basketball is a Yankee sport, played either indoors on a wooden floor or outside on asphalt or cee-ment! Horrors! Asphalt and cee-ment are for cars. Basketball was invented in Massachusetts! How Yankee can you get?! (I realize football and baseball were invented up North. But Southerners improved baseball [Ty Cobb, anyone?] and Southerners [especially Texans] perfected football.)
I knew Texas was becoming less and less Southern when folks got as excited over the Houston Rockets and the San Antonio Spurs as they did over the Cowboys, the Oilers, the Longhorns and the Aggies.
And don’t get me started on hockey. Ice is for tea, man!
All right, it’s official. I am now desperately in love with Ogre
Alas, I post from work and he seems to post after 5:00 pm. (Sigh)
And yes, you can use what I said before as your sig. I’m not going to keep the hate alive in the Pit by responding there.
When he was in the Army, he was stationed in Tenessee/Kentucky (the post was on the border). Whenever he mentioned he was from California, everyone would say “EEEeeeeeeeeeww! Y’all get earthquakes!” My nephew usually replied “Well, at least when my house moves, I don’t have to go look for it in the next county.”
There was some duplication in the list. I think I removed all the redundancies (and forgive any I overlooked):[ul][li]Don’t be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store.[/li]Don’t buy food at this store.
[li]Remember, “y’all” is singular, “all y’all” is plural, and “all y’all’s” is plural possessive.[/li]
[li]Get used to hearing “You ain’t from round here, are ya?”[/li]
[li]You may hear a Southerner say “Ought!” to a dog or child.[/li]This is short for “Y’all ought not do that!”, and is the equivalent of saying “No!”
[li]The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper.[/li]
[li]If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It doesn’t matter whether you need anything or not. You just have to go there.[/li]
In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush green lawn is to pour gravel on it and call it a driveway.[/ul]
Jab - Aint’ you never heard of Dean Smith? Gawd damn, son, the ACC Basketball tourney is a holiday here in VA. I been to many a barn burner at U Hall in Charlottesville (thats pronouned Charlottesvul) Ah for the days of Ralph and Jeff Jones as Wahoos, Michael Jordan at NC State with Jimmy V, and Georgetown just handing the ball to UNC (“Here, you go win the game. I don’t want to play anymore”). John Thompson choked on his towel that night. Hockey - now that’s a damn northern sport. Ice ain’t good for nuthin’ ‘cept puttin’ in tea.
A wonderful quote about football in the South (particularly the college game):
Someone asked Bear Bryant why football was such a revered tradition at Alabama. His response - “When’s the last time you saw 80,000 folks pay to watch somebody take a chemistry test?”
