COLUMBIANA—I am eating barbecue. Good barbecue. The kind prepared in an establishment that looks like a hunting cabin. A spot called Tin Top Barbecue. I believe God lives in the back room.
I cannot eat barbecue without first saying grace. It’s not like this with any other style of cuisine. For example, I recently tried eating sushi. Not only did I forget to say grace, apparently I also forgot to make sure my food was dead.
But with barbecue it’s impossible to look upon tender, carbon-encrusted glistening pork and not remove your hat to say a few words of heavenly thanks.
You cannot find barbecue like the kind I’m eating at mere restaurants, eateries, or cafés. You only find it in backyards, pit trailers, or at places my people call “joints.” These are usually establishments with gingham table cloths, rough-milled walls, napkin dispensers, and Merle Haggard on the radio.
I’ll bet Merle always said grace.
I remember the first time I ever ate the bounty from this particular joint:
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-WiscoDave
Everyone's got their favorite BBQ joint, and I'm graced to having two...when we abandoned Connecticut in 2011 and moved to the upstate of South Carolina, I discovered Circle M in Liberty...Marion makes the best dry rubbed smoked ribs in the upstate, a good old boy and the description y'all gave of his place is spot on...but, 3 1/2 years ago we moved to the low country, by the coast and I was worried, until I found Choo-Choo BBQ in Bluffton, SC...as good as Circle M, but don't tell Marion, he was a skeet shooting champion at Clemson! Now Tom, who cooked on Hilton Head jntil he had the idea for Choo-Choo, is originally from Long Island, but don't hold that against him, his dry rub ribs are epic, and a rack will run you $20...Anyway, if any of y'all venture to SC, here's where you eat, brothers...
ReplyDeleteIf it is the place I am thinking of it is south of Birmingham. Good stuff
ReplyDeleteMy daughter lived in Memphis for 6 years. I have become a rib snob. I can recreate all of the big BBQ houses ribs if I have their spices.
Columbiana, just north of Chilton county, in Shelby county. Some of my old stomping grounds. Praise the Lord and pass the sauce.
DeleteAmen
ReplyDeleteDamn, I'm hungry now!
ReplyDeleteI used to work with 3 southerners, and at least once a month, I’d have to endure the argument as to which is the best among North Carolina, South Carolina, or Tennessee BBQ. There was a BBQ place on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and these guys were all in agreement that it was not real BBQ.
ReplyDeleteIf it dont have a pit it aint legit.
DeleteSomething my Tennessee brother-in-law said one time, "You know, Texas is the only place you can get barbecued beef." That explained the funny looks I got before in Arkansas and Tennessee when asking for beef ribs.
ReplyDeleteA Georgia native, I attended a class in Kansas City back in the previous century. The vendor brought in BBQ for lunch the last day. I said, "Gee, they think you can barbecue beef here." The locals were not amused.
DeleteMelear's (RIP) in Union City, Ga, was the definition of barbecue to generations of those growing up in the Atlanta airport area.
KANSAS CITY, where I am from, is Barbequed BEEF country also. Gates and Sons is my favorite barbeque joint there. But I also like other styles of BBQ. Bozo's Barbeque in Mason, Tennessee is another of my favorites as well as Maurice's Piggy Park barbeque in South Carolina is another favorite. But I have had great barbeque in many places.
DeleteThat Sean Dietrich is a good writer. I love reading his stuff.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest reason I miss Alabama, the out of the way, tucked in joints where only the locals knew about.
ReplyDeleteLordy, Lordy do I evah knowed wha cha sayin. The further back in the boonies the better the barbecue. I remember in Tenn. about 5a you could smell them firing up the barbecue.
ReplyDeleteI used to go to this place every few months. been a while. now I have a need to go LOL
ReplyDeletehttp://goodycoles.com/
of course there's always this place, not far from Padawan (I'm trying to get her to start commenting again,honest!)
https://www.ribshack.net/
If you're in the Ft Worth area check out Railhead Smokehouse on Montgomery St.
ReplyDeleteI little off the beaten path and worth the drive to Stephenville TX is Hard Eight Barbeque. As the Hawaiian's say "Broke da mouth."
Scurvy
The best BBQ ribs I have ever had was in a most unusual place.
ReplyDeleteCleveland Ohio.
Yes, that's right. Cleveland.
It was a little hole-in-the-wall place across and down a little from the Thistledown racetrack. It was carryout only and was run by an older black couple. They had what appeared to be an old boiler in the back that they had converted. As I said, it was carry-out only so the ribs came wrapped in a foil blanket. You took them home.
The first time I had them, I was attending a long training session and was staying along with the rest of the class at the Randal Park Holiday Inn which was also just across the street from Thistledown. A bunch of us were having a poker game and one of the guys suggested those ribs for supper. Oh man, they were sooo good! (...and NO it wasn't the liquor speaking.)
After that, I had those ribs nearly every night while I was there. They were that good.
Did I mention that this was in the very early 80's?
I came back to Cleveland several years later. The place was gone. But so was the Randal Park Holiday Inn, and the very large mall behind it, and all of the businesses surrounding it. The only thing still there was the racetrack itself. It also appeared that the neighborhood had turned a bit, shall we say, dicey.
Too bad. The couple that ran the place were old even then, so I suspect they have since passed on. For all I know, they may have been immigrants from Memphis. Whatever, those ribs were GOOD!
Dammit! Now I'm hungry!
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