The Marrow of the Bone of Contention:
A Barbecue Journal

Until I had moved to New York, the phrase “good barbecue” meant nothing
to me.

In Alabama, there was only barbecue — and a food either was or was not
barbecue. Barbecue was ultimate good, and there were no degrees to
perfection.

For years, we ate only at Bar B Q Bob’s, a large A-frame joint as far
across town as a place could be. It looked as though it been an
International House of Pancakes at some point, and someone should have
remembered or asked, but nothing — not the strangeness of ski-lodge
architecture in an Alabama town, not the chips or cracks in the veneered
tables or booth-benches, not the absolute sequestration of the kitchen —
could make this seem important. As long as hickory smoke rose as from a
thurible into the cathedral heights of Bob’s, this could be nothing else
but The Seat of Barbecue. At least a dozen other restaurants in town
claimed barbecue in their names, but there was only one barbecue.
Like religion, barbecue was pure. And purity, once accepted, will brook
neither proof nor comparison...

~ For complete story,Go he http://groups.msn.com/ThePracticalBarBQr

Click on "Stories", then click on "Story South Link"
--
Mike Willsey
http://groups.msn.com/ThePracticalBarBQr