sorry my great pal.. but still not buying it! no one is hereby "dissing" the bar b que of kansas city. i just do not believe that it is the best the world. i would mention that you would afford a bit of a bias there, due to your grandfather's excellent skills learned in kansas city. however, my family hails from the cajun / creole areas of louisiana.. and i can assure you that they are some of the finest cooks ever! you have mentioned your family friend.. well, please allow for me to mention my uncles. these gentlemen relative's of mine, were born in louisiana, and hereby raised in beaumont, tx. my uncles, were a bit famous in the beaumont area, for their homemade.. from scratch.. bar b qued links and sausages. i see that you have described your grandfather's hand dug ground pit. (which of course, i find a brilliant strategy of cooking) well, my uncles designed and constructed a walk in stone smoker, that was built to perfection. i recall as a boy, walking into this edifice while it was in action.. and gazing at the rows upon rows.. of perfectly lined made from scratch sausages and links. my pal, i'm talking links that would literally melt in your mouth. and please trust me, i really don't even want to start upon their beef vs pork ribs... you would kill for those... please trust me my good pal, when people mention stories regarding "east texas bar b que". BELIEVE IT!
Before this gets into a full blown feud, monarch! Lets make one thing very clear before we go to dueling pistols at dawn! I once had a girlfriend from Slidell, Louisiana. That was a long time ago, back when I was in my early twenties. When I visited her and her family one Christmas New Years, I gotta tell ya that I never had better brisket than what her Daddy cooked. I also gotta tell you that I did not have better que there in Slidell until we went across the tracks so to speak, to a place that Becky's Dad described as the Juke Joint ... now I do not remember if he actually called it that, but that is what it was ... Juke Joint by night and que joint by day. Well they told me that that que joint had the best ribs and links in Louisiana. I am afraid that I do not remember for sure whether truth was told to me that day or not, because I quickly became enamored with the gumbo, and the catfish, the oysters, and the crawdads, mudbugs as I knew them. I had never eaten anything quite like that. It sure was good. To this day, I am the best gumbo cook I know. I started out red and I moved to gumbo black earth tones as I matured.
I learned something that day. There is no such thing as a best anything ... there is only the best that is set in front of you that day. If you come to Austin, and you want some good posole. I have a place that I can take you, and you will love the posole. One week it is better than the next, I am sure that they alternate the posole cook on the weekends. I will take you there because the posole is so good because If I ask ,they will bring us avocado sauce to go with the chips, and that avocado sauce makes the posole better, even if it never touches the posole except maybe in my estomogo. Also, if maybe you decide you would rather have caldo de pollo. It will be the best caldo de pollo maybe because the salsa avocado makes it so.
My point is that there is no best ever. There is the best that you can have, that day. Que is universal. I cannot say that Austin, Texas que is better than Kansas City que, or que that I have had with Korean or Taiwanese or Indian friends. Nobody makes better Kansas City ribs cooked in a ground pit like my grandfather made, with no sauce by the way, because he no longer can make them. Those were the best of those that I ever had. No one can make bulgogi like the wife of my Korean friend, Jae Sook. I am the ultimate anti-foodie. I refuse to wait in line for the best of anything when there are wonderful discoveries to be made in a mom and pop down the road. Please, do not get me started on Pittsburgh and Polish corned beef and Turkish food! We discovered Pittsburgh on the way back from Maine last year, and I gotta tell ya that we are planning a vacation back to Pittsburgh just for the food and and the Fall color. I am happy to wait for food, if I get to sit with the people who are making it, talking, and getting to know them, not waiting for some foodie experience.
By the way, I hope that everybody understands that I think that this is all in good fun! Dayum all of you for your questionable taste! The food is only as good as the stories that you tell!
