Also by Ardie A. Davis The Kansas City BBQ Pocket Guide The Great BBQ Sauce Book Techniques for Grilling: 25 Essentials Techniques for Smoking: 25 Essentials Also by Paul Kirk Paul Kirk’s Championship Barbecue Paul Kirk’s Championship Barbecue Sauces Smoke It! 500 Barbecue Bites The Big Grill America’s Best BBQ © 2009 by Ardie A. Davis and Paul Kirk. Printed in China. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. For information, write Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, an Andrews McMeel Universal company, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Davis, Ardie A. America’s best BBQ : 100 recipes from America’s best smokehouses, pits, shacks, rib joints, roadhouses, and restaurants / Ardie A. Davis & Paul Kirk. — 1st ed. p. cm. E-ISBN: 978-0-74079022-5 1. Barbecue cookery—United States. I. Kirk, Paul, 1941-II. Title. TX840.B3D343 2009 641.7′6—dc22 2008047428 www.andrewsmcmeel.com Cover design by Tim Lynch Front cover photo by David Morris ATTENTION: SCHOOLS AND BUSINESSES Andrews McMeel books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please write to: Special Sales Department, Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106. For Gretchen. Ardie For Jessica. Paul Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. Starters Chapter 2. Main Dishes Chapter 3. Sides and Condiments Chapter 4. Desserts Our Favorite Barbecue Restaurants Legacy Recipes Barbecue Basics So You want to Start a Barbecue Business? Joints We Like to Visit Joints We’d Like to Visit Photo Credits About the Authors ACKNOWLEDGMENTS e’ve done research for this book for a collective total of more than a hundred years, although when we each got Whooked by barbecue, we didn’t have this book in mind. Thanks to our agent, Dennis Hayes, we got an offer from Kirsty Melville at Andrews McMeel that we couldn’t turn down. Two years later we had a book! We owe a debt of gratitude to our wives, children, and extended family for tolerating the time we spent researching and writing to complete this project. Extra doses of tolerance and understanding were required from our wives. Thus you’ll see their names on the dedication page. In all human endeavors we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. This is especially true in the culinary realm. Therefore we offer a tip of the hat and a sincere thanks to the millions of cooks, known and unknown, who have advanced today’s culinary arts, especially barbecue, from humankind’s primal beginnings. Thanks to barbecue friends Steve Holbrook, Vince Staten, John Raven, Johnny White, Tony Stone, Don McLemore, Chris Lilly, David Klose, Bill and Barbara Milroy, Guy Simpson, Carolyn Wells, Judith Fertig, Karen Adler, Rich Davis, John Willingham, Rick Browne, Bruce Bjorkman, Lolis Eric Elie, Roland Carrier, Paula Peck, Bob Lyon, Chef Louis Szathmary, and many others. Gary Wells, Al Lawson, Cousin Homer, Jim Quessenberry, and Giancarlo Gianelli and other late pitmaster friends, we will always miss you. May you rest in peace. Special thanks to Dennis Hayes, our friend, our barbecue buddy, and now our agent. Dennis had the idea for this book more than a decade ago. This book is due in large part to his vision and persistence and his passion for good eats, barbecue in particular. Finally, it has been fun and a pleasure to work with the Book Division