Each region of U.S. has its own distinct flavor of barbecue

Isaac Weld, the author of "Travels Through North America During the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797" described a barbecue as follows: "It consists in a large party meeting together, either under some trees, or in a house, to partake of a sturgeon or pig roasted in the open air, on a sort of hurdle, over a slow fire; ... it generally ends in intoxication."

However it ends, as Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby note, "Barbecuing is a ritual, inseparable from the culture that gave it birth, and that it in turn reinforces and nurtures." It is unique to the United States and, just as jazz is our indigenous musical form, barbecue is our most authentic food.

Thus, as Lolis Elie, author of "Smokestack Lightning," a book chronicling his travels around the country in search of the best barbecue joints, observes, "Barbecue is a metaphor for American culture in a broad sense, and ... a more appropriate metaphor than any other American food." As he explains, "Barbecue alone encompasses the high-and lowbrows, the sacred and the profane, the urban and the rural, the learned and the unlettered, the blacks, the browns, the yellows, the reds, and the whites."

Maybe this is why barbecue has been resistant to the sort of homogenization decried by John and Karen Hess in their book "The Taste of America." They contend that we are increasingly conditioned to processed, artificial, tasteless convenience food and as just one piece of evidence cite the case of a New England church that renounced cake sales because nowadays the only cakes contributed by members of the congregation are either store-bought or made from a mix.

In contrast, barbecue, as Elie discovered, "has been branded with the accent of each region in which it has found a home." Hamburgers, hot dogs, and fried chicken might vary little from coast to coast, but not barbecue. As John T. Edge, director of the University of Mississippi's Southern Foodways Alliance puts it, "Barbecue is the closest thing we Americans have to wine and cheese. You drive 50 miles and it changes." Moreover, we tend to be fiercely loyal to our local version. As Schlesinger and Willoughby affirm, "People who generally couldn't care less about food will argue subtle differences of barbecue passionately and knowledgeably -- and endlessly." They identify five types of barbecue prevalent around the United States:

Eastern North Carolina Style consisting of either whole pig or pork shoulder cooked over hickory, then chopped, minced, or pulled and mixed with a light vinegar-based sauce, some experts claim this is the real original barbecue. It's typically served on a white bun with sweet coleslaw.

Western North Carolina Style. This is also pork barbecue, only unlike its eastern counterpart, it's served with a tomato-based sauce. To the uninitiated this may seem like a trivial distinction, but as Schlesinger and Willoughby point out, "Mention a tomato-based sauce east of Raleigh, and you had better be prepared to do some quick explaining." In the world of barbecue even a difference this small is considered significant. No wonder barbecue was an issue in last year's North Carolina senate race between Erskine Bowles and Elizabeth Dole. (Neighboring South Carolina, by the way, is the only state in the union in which the three dominant types of barbecue sauce -- vinegar, tomato, and mustard-based -- coexist.)

Texas Style. Barbecue in Texas is invariably beef brisket, an especially tough cut of meat that requires 10 to 20 hours of slow cooking over mesquite or oak to make it succulent. Barbecue sauce in Texas is ketchup-based, often containing chili powder or cumin. Some folks, mindful of the large number of people from Tennessee who died at the Alamo, argue that Texas barbecue is nothing more than an attempt by transplanted Tennesseans to recapture the flavor of their home state.

Memphis Style. Ribs and shredded pork are the meats of choice in Memphis, which fancies itself the barbecue capital of the world. The shredded pork is mixed with a sweet, tomato-based sauce while the ribs are preferably served dry, i.e., without sauce, having been rubbed with a mixture of dry spices that form a crust during cooking.

Kansas City Style. Owing to its location, the beef barbecue tradition of Texas and the pork barbecue traditions of the South converge in Kansas City. Consequently, its residents think it, not Memphis, is the nation's barbecue capital. The Kansas City Barbecue Society, for example, boasts that it is "the most advanced barbecue group in the world" and, after all, the town is the home of Arthur Bryant's, the little hole-in-the-wall barbecue place that was once referred to by Calvin Trillin as "the single best restaurant in the world." Here spareribs and beef brisket are dominant, and the sauces, of which there is a tremendous variety, are tomato-vinegar-based and robust.

Regardless of these variations it's important to remember that real barbecue, what Cape Girardeau's own barbecue champions Ruth Knote and the late Charlie Knote in their book on the subject call "true blue barbecue," is not mere grilling. Grilling involves quick cooking over intense dry heat. Barbecuing, on the other hand, involves slow cooking at low temperatures with moist hardwood smoke in an enclosed pit, what Schlesinger and Willoughby call cooking over "real wood, real slow, for a real long time." No one quite knows for sure just who invented this technique (one intriguing theory suggests it was first devised to make delectable the most formidable of all meats -- human flesh), but award-winning food writer Jeffrey Steingarten is surely right to pronounce real barbecue "one of the most delicious foods ever devised by humankind."

Barbecued Ribs, Missouri Style

This recipe, adapted from Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby's informative book "The Thrill of the Grill," comes about as close to true barbecuing as you can get at home. The secret is cooking the ribs slowly in the oven, then finishing them on the grill. The term "3/down" refers to the weight of the ribs, 3 pounds or under for each slab of 10-12 ribs.

Ingredients:

2 full racks of 3/down pork spareribs

2 tablespoons salt

4 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons ground cumin

2 tablespoons chili powder

4 tablespoons paprika

Directions:

Combine salt, sugar, pepper, cumin, chili powder, and paprika and rub thoroughly onto ribs. Bake at 180 degrees for 3 hours. Remove from oven and place on grill with rack set as high as possible over a very low charcoal fire and cook until a light crust forms and ribs are heated throughout, about 30 minutes per side. Serve "dry" with your favorite barbecue sauce on the side or "wet," coating with sauce just before removing from grill. Serves 5.

Listen to A Harte Appetite at 8:49 a.m. Fridays and at 11:59 a.m. Saturdays on KRCU, 90.9 FM. Write A Harte Appetite, c/o the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semissourian.com.