Amazingly enough, Jackson seems to be terribly lacking in decent BBQ. Everywhere I've been to try BBQ in the metro area seems to be flavorless, without good smoke, and could easily have been chemically flavored, packaged, and then served by a pimple faced 16 year old with no concept of good fatty pork shoulder that's been slow smoked for many hours over indirect heat from any combination of fruit, pecan, oak, or hickory wood.
If you see a place that sells BBQ, and it doesn't meet one of these criteria, keep on driving. 1. It smells smoky in the parking lot. 2. There is an old black man tending a smoker made from an old oil drum. 3. It is sold from a building never intended to be a restaurant, and in a part of town you wouldn't visit otherwise. 4. It is too clean.
Good BBQ should be as much an olfactory sensation as a tastegasm. The smell should compliment the taste. It should be just as delicious without sauce as with. It should be tender, and not stringy. You should see black bits in the meat, proving it was rubbed in the cook's secret blend of salt, sugar, pepper, and various other spices before being slowly cooked over actual coals, being steadily bathed in the carcinogenic clouds of smoke. It should be unctuously moist but not fatty. The bun must be of bleached white flour; not toasted; moist, but not too fragile.
The sauce is a complex proposition. Should you sauce or savor the meat and all it's natural perfection? Should the sauce be vinegar based or tomato ketchup based? Sweet? Spicy? Southwest fusion? Asian? Hawaiian? I'd say that all of those are viable options which should be experimented with based on the eater's mood and personal tastes. I'm a sweet vinegar fan, myself. I've you've ever been privileged enough to try my Rob-B-Que sauce, you've experienced my interpretation of BBQ perfection.
Over the rest of this year, I am going to, with no particular haste, eat my way around the state trying BBQ as I go. I'll report my findings here after I've tried someplace. I'd also like to get comments letting me know if there's anyplace that I should be sure to try.
There' s this BBQ place in Brandon you should try. It's called Sonny's :)
ReplyDeleteHa! That's funny! A BBQ place called Sonny's! There must be 2 places in Brandon named Sonny's then.
ReplyDeleteCome to Austin. We probably have more BBQ places than the entire state of MS. Pulled pork is a little less common, but it can be found. Here it is all about the brisket. You know you want to make the trip.
ReplyDeleteIt's tempting dude...
ReplyDelete