It is with lip-smacking anticipation that I await my first Foodsville foodie trip for bbq next month. BBQ has always been in my veins having been brought up in Kansas where the best barbecue reins supreme. The Kansas City BBQ Association is one that governs many of the cook-offs through out the country including the annual Massachusetts sanctioned event held near here.

  Now 'cue affiliation is one that is extremely personal to each of us and something each area of the U.S. will attest as the best. It is as vast a field as how one takes their martinis!  For true afficiandos the rule of thumb is that only pork is considered barbecue...like it or not, it is the one thing true barbecue-ists will attest to. Texas is not even considered barbecue country because they use beef (but Texas, being Texas, could care less what the rest of us think since they know best, do every thing better and really did secede from the union years back--and do their own thang anyway!)

  But, I digress...the cut of meat as does the sauce varies from region to region as to what constitutes true 'cue.  North Carolina is as different from South Carolina where they have chopped and sliced pork served with a peppery vinegar based sauce along with a side of hush puppies and S.C. has the same chopped and sliced but serves a mustard-based sauce along with an organ meat hash, on the side. 

Every region of each state may have their own twist on bbq.  In Kentucky you'll find mutton barbecue as a favorite.  This is the South and they take their bbq as seriously as their hell and brimstone Sunday sermons!!!

  The central South does the "pulled" thang with a sweet tomato-based sauce being the finger-licking sauce of choice.  Memphis, well-known for its' ribs offers the slab and pulled chicken, as well. In ol' Alabam, they kick things up a notch with a spicier sauce and can offer pulled or chopped pork along with their slabs o'meat.  Arkansas has as many tomato based sauces as regions and will offer most styles and cuts of meat.  Texas, as mentioned before, loves their big-assed beef ribs with a red based sauce and the fixin's on the side and as you head west you will get into beef based bbq - much to the chagrin of the true southern barbecuers...who usually blame this outrage on the damned yankees (the Colonials, not the team) for messing up a good thing with pork...for pork is and shall evermore be, king in the south.