Southern Barbecue With a Fiery Dip and a Deep History

Sorry, grilling is not barbeque. While the word barbeque is often misused outside the United States e.g., in Australia where grills are called barbeques, in the US, we should stick to precision. In Germany, for example, where people take proper barbeque as seriously as many in the US, they properly differentiate. The New York Times, the paper of record, should also.

As bbq aficionado and resident of Tompkinsville I can attest to the fact the shoulder is not shoe leather tough. The mopping while cooking helps to keep it tender. Our small town has 5 bbq joints. Each has the same basic offerings with the difference being style of preparation and the sauce. Each sauce has a similar base with a different flavor profile. Shoulder being the common thread among all 5 locations. People line up and wait their turn to order. Customers are a cultural mix from lawyers,farmers,retired people and blue collar workers all sharing conversations from discussing bbq to local gossip. There is something about this bbq that gets in your blood and leaves you craving it by Thursday as Thursday thru Sunday are the usual days they are open . One overlooked offering is ribs. If you want ribs get to R&S early or call ahead as they are a quick sell out. I promise this style of bbq will not disappoint even to the pickiest Texan.

Mike Mills, of 17th Street Barbecue in Murphrysboro and Marion, Illinois, says the pork shoulder steak cut is a Midwestern thing (and especially from the southern Midwest, where he is). He has a recipe in his and Amy Mills's cookbook, Praise the Lard, for his version, in which the piece of meat first dry rubbed, then smoked, mopped with sauce (his own recipe or your choice), and finished on the grill. The steaks he calls for must be a lot thicker than these, since they should be a pound each.

[[green beans are boiled to within an inch of their lives, in true Southern tradition.]] Yeah. Stop doing that. Boiling vegetables until they turn into slop is not how they should be prepared.

This is all nonsense. There is only one recipe for BBQ, and I haven't even told it to my wife.

Pork shoulder steaks are called pork blade steaks in my part of the country. Better than a pork chop and comparably, much cheaper.

I was born & raised in Tompkinsville, and have eaten an embarrassing amount of shoulder in my lifetime. I'm also a huge fan of Steven Raichlen. While I'll give props to him for painting a fairly accurate picture of Monroe County BBQ, I'll add say that it's one of those things you just can't really understand unless you try it. On paper, it can sound somewhat unappetizing. Words like "lard" and "jerkey" don't exactly get the mouth watering for most people. But I will also say that I've never met a single person (this isn't an exaggeration; not one) who has tried our BBQ and didn't like it. If you're ever in the area (for the life me, I don't know why anyone would be), give it a shot. You won't be disappointed. And if you are, that's fine too. "To each his own," as they say. Just don't write this off because it's not shredded and sweet. Unless you're vehemently opposed to spicy stuff, in which case you should stay FAR away. Even the "mild" sauce isn't for the weak at heart.

I love eating and reading about different types of barbecue. We have our own, unique style in my state. I am going to try this pork shoulder recipe with the fiery dip. There’s only one kind of barbecue we refuse to let cross our state line: pulled pork. We do. not. like. pulled. pork.

Pork steaks are indeed popular in St. Louis, but treating them with Maull's the much advertised bottled sauce is in no way a standard practice. Here, we use apple wood or pecan wood chips soaked in water to get smoke flavor (or hickory). But the approach to sauces is divides between the Kansas City tradition which is hot and smokey sweet but not tomato based like Maulls, and African American approaches you find in dozens of smokey shacks throughout the city (North and South) featuring barbecue which bring heat minus the tomato. I'm among a growing number who experiment with Jamaican jerk and coffee based, inflected with malt vinegar and Louisiana hot sauces for spice. Pork steaks are enjoyed everywhere, tho there's more preference for thicker cuts that take to the fire and smoke better and emerge flavorful and lot less dry than the thin cut.

Very strange recipe. But the way the author describes these stakes makes them quite mouthwatering, especially at the beginning of the cold season here in Chicago, when the body craves for more calories to stay warm. Hmmm...

Hooray for these men and women keeping a local tradition alive and thriving. This kind of food and the history behind it is real Americana . It is also an interesting intersection of Afroamerican and poor white cultures in the south

Pork BBQ? Adding lard? Pfft. Beef BBQ is the best BBQ! Texans knows how to BBQ.

Huh, I learned something new today! I always thought pork shoulder was called a "Boston butt" because the shoulder is where you rest the butt of a rifle.

I moved to this area as a new bride, and was excited when my kind husband offered to take me out for barbeque. Off we went to the local joint on the Tn-Ky state line. Upon receiving my order of a barbeque plate, I popped open the lid--and my heart fell. I whispered to my husband that my order was wrong. He took a look and asked what was wrong about it. I said, "This isn't barbeque." He replied, "Well, it is around here." In 20 years I've come to love the food, the people, and the small-town culture in this corner of the world! (But this East TN gal still dreams of the pulled pork with a thick red sauce at Firehouse BBQ in Johnson City, TN.)

My local Shop Rite usually sells thin cut pork-shoulder steaks. Some times they're packaged with thin cut bone in chops as part of an assortment and relatively inexpensive. We always dipped them in seasoned flour and slipped them into a well seasoned iron skillet with hot oil for quick frying. I'll have to try Steve's recipe as I don't recall ever have grilled them over wood coals. When frying, we'd usually serve them with sauerkraut laced with caraway seeds, fresh applesauce and crusty rye bread with butter.

Tompkinsville is my hometown, and while I live only a couple of hours away, the distance in barbecue miles is vast. Those of us who are sauce locked by the the thick, gooey, sweet style of condiment, tend to keep some Monroe County sauce in the refrigerator for all events or cravings for our down home , almost genetic need, for that beloved concoction. Every single trip home requires a purchase of the "family feast" package of shoulder. My feast always includes a pint of baked beans, a pint of vinegar slaw and a pint of sauce. With each feast there is always half a loaf of the freshest Sunbeam sliced bread, which soaks up the sauce without getting soggy. My hoarded sauce is used to marinate portobello mushrooms for the grill, seasoning for the best baked beans you will ever put in your mouth and for dipping sauce to accompany a slow cooked pork tenderloin. The article did not mention the other meats available at R&S. Chicken halves cooked slow and daubed with sauce the entire time, funeral hams slow cooked with a crust of sauce and charred fat, hamburgers, hot dogs and a pork chop if you are lucky. They always go fast. I think it is time for a quick trip home to replenish my stores and feed my soul. Ms. Anita always knows me when I walk in the door. "How you doin' Nancy Clay?"

I can't help but wonder about the texture of a thin cut of pork that is cooked for 30-40 minutes. Slow-cooked pork butt is mighty tender, and flash-cooked steaks can be kept medium-rare if they're cooked over a really hot fire, but pencil-thin and cooked, even over low heat, for half an hour sounds like a recipe for shoe leather. Or does the hot sauce numb the mouth enough not to notice? Maybe the author could comment?

"Lard reinforces the porky flavor of the steaks and keeps them rich and moist. If it’s unavailable, use more butter." Words of wisdom, indeed. I very much enjoyed this exploration of local lore, the mini-profiles of the different characters involved, and the very important reminder that pickled eggs are underrated.

Of course, to each one one's tastes, and "tongue-torturing" dips on porc parts may be as pleasurable to some as a filet steak. But I am surprised that wild boar is not a staple food in that part of the country. Cadiz, Ky., in the Southwestern corner of the State, is a center of ham production. Even there, though, no wild boar ham is to be had, only wild boar meat in season (I do not know about the minimum amounts, prices, and conditions of shipping it elsewhere).