Kirk Davis - Americas Best Ribs

ver since Adam decided he could spare one, ribs have played an important role on our planet. While were sure that Eve was indeed a beauty of a rib, she would have been hard-pressed to top the beauty of the Grand Champion award-winning ribs at the Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational Barbecue each year. Ribs connect us to our primal core, like the hunters gathered by the fire, hunched over and happily grunting and chomping away at a Fred Flintstonesized brontosaurus rib. Ribs, especially barbecued ribs, stir primal passions in carnivores, omnivores, and recovering vegetarians and vegans alike. They are perhaps more popular than any other barbecued meat, as they are easier to eat, easier to cook, and delicious, and may be the one common meat found at all barbecue joints everywhere. Thankfully, that ready availability means we no longer need to chase down a mastodon to get our barbecue fix, but when it comes to making ribs at home, some people seem to be intimidated.

Ardies good friend Stan Nelson shared a story about a reunion of Stans former air force buddies in Aix-en-Provence, France. Stan said, About fifty pilots and their wives were invited to a wine tasting at the French Air Force Academy. It was a lovely afternoon spent at a long table under some trees. On the table were eight or so bottles of French wines separated by trays of finger foods. People crowded around the table, but not being that interested in wine, I stood back, next to a French pilot who had been in my flight class. I told him I presumed he also was not that interested in wines. He corrected me and said, no, he had a wine cellar of about a thousand bottles, and he recorded the characteristics of many of his wines annually to determine whether age improved them. I asked him about those characteristics, and in a casual manner he launched into the subject and spent considerable time on wine complexitythat feeling about a wine that comes minutes or longer after the wine is swallowed. Looking for the bottom line, I asked, In your years of studying and quantifying the characteristics of wines, what factors make the best wine? He smiled and said, The best wine is the wine you like.'

We know some barbecue aficionados who can match wine or cigar connoisseurs with the complexity of their rib talk. One bite of a rib and they can tell you what breed of animal it came from; the age, gender, and diet of the animal; its grazing terroir; its last meal; and how and where it was killed and processed. Then theyll tell you how it was cookedthe fuel, the seasonings, the wood smoke, the length of timeand sometimes theyll tell you who cooked it! Dont be intimidated. They may know all that about a rib, or maybe theyre blowing smoke. It comes down to this: the best rib is the rib you like! Our goal in writing this book is to help you cook your personal best ribs, whether theyre country style, loin, or baby backs.

So how can you trust us to deliver the goods on Americas best ribs? We wish we could claim that ribs have been our favorite food since infancythat we teethed on rib bones and ate blended ribs from a baby food jar before we could chew. Thats almost true. We each have fond memories of rib enjoyment dating back to childhood. Grilled ribs or ribs slow roasted in the oven with barbecue sauceor, on special occasions, slow-smoked ribs from a local barbecue jointsustained us through our early years. Then, more than three decades ago, we got involved in competition barbecue, where pork ribs smoked slow and low are the ultimate ribs.

Paul, a.k.a. the Baron of Barbecue, is now a professional chef, restaurateur, and winner of more than five hundred barbecue awards, including seven world championships. Ardie, also known as Remus Powers, PhB, founded the Diddy-Wa-Diddy National Barbecue Sauce Contest in 1984, which spawned the American Royal International Barbecue Sauce, Rub, & Baste Contest, as well as the Great American Barbecue Sauce, Baste, and Rub Contest. He is a longtime backyard barbecuer and a barbecue historian, and since he doesnt compete in contests, Team Remus is undefeated. Between the two of us we bring more than a hundred years of experience with barbecue, including barbecued ribs, and we have judged more contest ribs over the years than many people eat in a lifetime. Trust us.

Although our first choice in ribs is lightly seasoned pork spares (its what we grew up with, smoked slow and low), we like the whole mainstream rib spectrumpork, beef, bison, lamb, and mutton. Weve focused on those most popular ribs cooked with tried-and-true recipes instead of obscure meats and cooking techniques. If you want recipes for fish ribs, alligator ribs, or other exotics, you wont find them here. While we love ribs that are oven-roasted, fried, or slow cooked in a crock, the recipes here are for smoked and grilled ribs, since thats our area of expertise. In our own cooking we draw the line at using aluminum foil or boiling ribs before throwing them on the cooker, so you wont find those in this book, either. What you will find are seventy-five recipes that range from basic, traditional, American classics to more adventurous flavor fusions. They represent a cross section of American food culture, including Korean, Chinese, European, and Indian flavors. Many are marinated or rubbed, some are glazed and sauced, others are served dry, and we even cover brining, so we hope theyll give you a variety of techniques to experiment with.