American

Because brisket can be tough if not cooked properly, some other barbecue competitors will actually prepare more than one at a competition. I don’t want to cook but one brisket when I compete, and I’m sure not going to do a backup brisket at home. One brisket should be all you need to get the job done. Just pay attention to these steps, and read the info in the box on page 92, and you’ll have the one the way you want it, too.

When you’re talking cow, there are the short ribs (which are good) and there are the back ribs, the big guys, which are tenderlicious. The reason beef ribs are so tender and succulent is because the rib roast, a prime piece of meat, sits right above this section of ribs. So they’re prime, too. Cooking them is second nature to me because they happen to look and act a lot like pork baby backs, except of course they’re a lot larger. I don’t marinate my beef ribs because they come from one of the most marbled areas of the cow, which means they’re loaded with natural flavor already. I like my food to be nicely seasoned, but I never want my seasoning to overpower a meat’s inherent flavor; seasoning doesn’t ever need to be over the top.

My favorite rib to cook and eat is the baby back, because I learned competitive cooking at MIM contests and that’s their rib of choice. I just developed a real love for them. They’re fun to cook and fun to eat, and they almost always earn me money. Even I can’t ask for more than that!

St. Louis–style ribs do very well in KCBS contests, and because they’re larger they tend to be a little bit easier to handle. A lot of folks favor them because they’re surrounded by more fat to flavor the meat, and when they’re cooked right, they’re tender and bursting with real hog flavor. I cook four racks of ribs at competition, so that’s what these recipes call for; that should serve a nice-size group of people, depending on appetites and on what else is on your menu. If you’re going to cook fewer ribs, you’ll still need to make the rub, marinade, and glaze. You can either cut those recipes in half or you can save the leftovers and use them on other meats (the rib rub, for example, would be great on a pork loin roast), and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what you can do with leftover glaze (I like mine on burgers, though). Regardless of how many racks you’re cooking, the cook time stays the same.

Sometimes when you’re barbecuing, you want to get a little fancy—maybe to impress the neighbors or something like that. Hell, I’ve been there, believe me. And I can tell you from experience that stuffed tenderloin will get you that “wow” factor.

When you cook a whole hog, one thing you should never do is throw out the skin. It’s the key ingredient for one of the tastiest by-products in the world. If you’re not cooking a whole hog, I’m not going to fool you by saying it’s easy to pick up some pig skin, but you might be able to get some from your local butcher or from someone who is cooking a whole hog, a ham, or a pork shoulder and is willing to part with it.

A whole hog can weigh anywhere from 75 to 180 pounds. I like to cook the big ones the best, because they’ve got the most meat on them and can serve a huge crowd. Now, some ’cue cookers may tell you that smaller is better because it’s easier to handle, but I don’t truck with that. The quality of the meat on a smaller hog is no different than a bigger one, and if you’re going to go to all the trouble to smoke a whole hog, then you might as well get as much as you can for your efforts. For more than eight years now, I’ve been buying my hogs from Elmer Yoder at his business, Yoder’s Butcher Block. He is located in a rural Mennonite community about fourteen miles from my home in Unadilla, Georgia. I get my hogs from Yoder’s not just because he’s close to where I live but also because the quality of Yoder’s meat is very high. His heritage demands it. I know I can count on Yoder to supply me hormone-and drug-free meats that are as naturally raised as possible. Raising animals this way is a skill that has been overshadowed by the large meat processors, but Yoder has found his niche here, processing deer and hogs and everything in between, and he has dedicated customers. The quality of his pork is top-tier. End of day, he helps me be a champion. Now, in other parts of the country it is hard to find whole hogs. My best suggestion is to order one from a good, reputable butcher. A few things to know when ordering a hog: First, determine what size will fit in your smoker. Measure the inside length of your cooking chamber. It needs to be at least four feet to be able to cook a 50- to 80-pound hog, and five to six feet if you want to cook a bigger one (up to about 200 pounds). Tell the butcher that you want the hog to be “round,” which means split and gutted but not butterflied (you’ll do that yourself and then you can be sure to lay it out like you want it). Getting a hog this way saves a whole lot of time and energy. I like the head left on but the feet removed for presentation purposes, but that part is up to you. If you want to cook a whole hog, this recipe will take you through every step. But if you really want to know how to cook whole hog like a professional, I suggest that you attend my barbecue class (or a good local barbecue class) to familiarize yourself with the process. Cooking a whole hog is not for the faint of heart, and it sure ain’t for first-timers.

Fried chicken is a Southern staple, and to be a good Southern cook you better know how to make it. I do. I like to use small fresh chickens for frying because the flavor of the meat is better. And speaking of flavor, I like to fry my chicken in pure pork lard, which gives it a richness and down-home essence that vegetable oil just can’t replicate. You can buy good high-quality lard—and I’m not talking about the soapy-looking white blocks sold in some supermarkets—from any reputable butcher. What makes my fried chicken special is the mixture of spices I use—note that both chili powder and sugar are involved—and the tangy richness that buttermilk lends.

Cooking a whole chicken in the smoker is probably the easiest thing you can master. I say that a whole hog (see page 53) isn’t for beginners, but a whole chicken sure is. Whenever you cook anything in a smoker, you risk drying it out. My chickens are never dry because the pan of apple juice underneath keeps the meat tender and circulates moisture and sweetness throughout the smoker. So the chicken is smoky in flavor and melt-in-your-mouth in texture. If you are a real “skin person,” meaning the skin is your favorite part of the bird, you should know that the skin on this chicken becomes soft enough to bite through and is delicious (that said, if you prefer crunchy skin, see my fried chicken recipe on page 45). If you like to make pulled chicken sandwiches, this is the recipe you need to start with. Simply cook this chicken and then, wearing food-handling gloves, pull the chicken meat from the bones and place it on a platter. Let your guests assemble their own sandwiches with buns and your favorite garnishes, such as Basic Hickory Sauce (page 22), Mama’s Slaw (page 119), and pickles.

Nowadays chicken is cut into eight pieces: two legs, two thighs, two breasts, and two wings. Traditionally, though, when I was growing up, butchers used an eleven-piece cut: two legs, two thighs, two breasts, two wings, the neck, the back, and the wishbone. I created this recipe with the old-style cuts in mind because I like the way it gives you more pieces to enjoy and because it’s an homage to an old-fashioned way of doing things. It’s a recipe that relies on the flavors of smoke, of course, mingled with brown sugar, which caramelizes the skin. It’s a wonderful take on classic saucy-style so-called barbecue chicken. The easiest way to do this is to ask your butcher to cut up a whole chicken into eleven pieces. Then you’re done. However, if you’d like to try it yourself, I’ve included instructions opposite.

Coca-Cola was born in Atlanta in 1886, when pharmacist Dr. John Stith Pemberton took his new creation to Jacobs’ Pharmacy—where minutes after it was first sampled, it became a sensation. I love the stuff, in no small part because it’s a fantastic global brand from Georgia . . . just like me. What a lot of people outside of the South don’t realize is that Coke can be more than a “delicious and refreshing” drink; it’s a great ingredient to use in a marinade because it’s sweet and because the carbonation can be useful in tenderizing meat. It needs some balance, though, which is what the bacon does here: it adds a salty flavor and a crisp texture to the chicken. This dish is great for afternoon barbecues when you’re chilling by the pool. Serve it with your favorite potato salad (see page 116).

I decided to make lobster the last recipe in this book so I could give myself the gift of a lobster dinner to celebrate. My father’s family in Montpelier, Vermont, were all passionate lobster-lovers. Being in an inland state, cut off from the sea, only made them more avid for a good lobster dinner, and they frequented The Lobster Pot on Main Street for every kind of celebration. My aunt Marian, after she became a widow, would often stroll down to The Lobster Pot to have dinner by herself, and it was there that she taught me the ritual of eating a lobster—sucking the juices and little morsels of flesh from each leg, and always saving the big claws for the last, because to her they contained the most delicious meat. So, for my treat, I stopped at Citarella’s in Manhattan and asked for a 1 1/4-pounder. The fishmonger held one up to demonstrate for me how lively the little lobster was as it wriggled and pawed the air with its tentacles. I was even asked whether I wanted a male or a female, and of course I said female, so I could enjoy the roe. But when I got it home, there was only the tomalley—the green-gray loose substance that is the liver; there was no roe. I looked in Julia Child’s The Way to Cook and realized that I should have checked first for the little swimmerets under the tail: the male’s are “clean and pointed,” whereas the female’s are “fringed with hair”—a test that is not easy to execute when the creature is wriggling desperately. I have always preferred steaming to boiling, because that way the lobster doesn’t get too immersed in water, and the small amount of steaming water becomes more intense. So I hauled down my largest pot, and arranged a collapsible steamer inside it.

Every summer, I get my share of the syrup from my maple trees in northern Vermont that my cousin John taps in the spring. I particularly like the dark syrup he produces, and I devise ways to use it in old-fashioned desserts like this one. I also use the tart apples from a Duchess tree that embraces the house. So I consider this dessert a gift of nature, and I hope you’ll find your own good sources for its ingredients.