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Five years ago I wrote a story about a group of obsessive weirdos canvassing the city in search of true low-and-slow-smoked barbecue. Even after Calvin Trillin famously documented the Chowhounding phenomenon in the New Yorker, it was still relatively novel to see people taking notes and photographing rib tips, hot dogs, or jerk chicken posed al trunko, and diligently typing up their findings on the Internet. But one of those guys, an abdominous, black-clad personification of the Second Deadly Sin, fancied himself a barbecue guru to boot, and claimed he could smoke ribs in his backyard that were the equal of or superior to any of the handful of the city’s commercial shacks that were doing it right, smoking over wood in glass aquarium smokers and so forth.
So I became one of those disciples, and went through the program, which he’d posted online for free. Pretty soon I could say with confidence I made ribs in my backyard better than all but a few commercial joints in the city. Pulled pork and brisket? No contest. I’d even flipped a few vegetarians, which is probably the most satisfying compliment a barbecue cook can take.
