Customer Reviews

America's Best BBQ: 100 Recipes from America's Best Smokehouses, Pits, Shacks, Rib Joints, Roadhouses, and Restaurants

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I own quite a few BBQ books. That's because I'm what's referred to as a "Pellet Head". I've been trying to learn BBQ techniques for a couple of years. That is what attracted me to this book.

This book is a bit unique for a BBQ book. It's so pretty that it's almost a coffee table book. That surprised me, since most BBQ books are no nonsense, functional endeavors.

"America's Best BBQ" offers up "selected" recipes from famous, semi-famous and even some obscure BBQ restaurants. But don't expect your favorite BBQ joint to give up their signature dishes. However, the recipes that are included are interesting. And since there are many restaurants in here, the whole adds up to a lot of decent looking recipes.

Frankly I was a little disappointed at first. I had hoped to find some "signature" dish recipes. But once I got over that, it was clear that the book covers a lot of ground and offered up some pretty unique perspectives and interesting ideas.

Pros:
* It's really pretty
* There are a lot of varied and even surprising ideas
* It gives me ideas of new place to try when I travel.

Cons:
* Don't expect your favorite restaurant to give up their signature dishes.
* Some of the recipes are vague and assume you know a lot about BBQ.

All in all, a good, interesting book for anyone wanting to BBQ or looking for a new BBQ joint to try out.

It's not often that I find a cookbook that is actually fun to read. They are usually very utilitarian, with little literary meat on the bones. This is clearly not the case with America's Best BBQ. I don't know what I enjoyed more, the authentic and varied recipes, or the barbecue stories and lore that they are steeped in.

While the book is historical, it also has an incredible variety of recipes. It includes everything from starters like Volcanic Goat Cheese, Rocky Mountain Oysters, and Fried Cheese Stick Grits, to Burgoo, to mutton ribs, and all the barbecue standards in between. The range of recipes is excellent. Even better, most of the recipes are from the originators themselves.

I found the following statement from the introduction very interesting.

"Each joint in this book is, in our view, one of the best in America. They are all on the same playing field, with varying strengths and weaknesses. That aside, we have each named our Top Ten joints in the back of the book."

Barbecue is very competitive and often chock full of ego, as is the restaurant industry generally. It's very refreshing to see the authors give their honest opinions about what they feel are the best.

If you love barbecue, its history, and great recipes, I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

When I ordered this, I knew that it wasn't going to be the traditional cookbook, and that proved to be the case. I regard it more of an homage to the BBQ culture, with some useful recipes thrown in. It wouldn't be fair to say that I had low expectations, so much as I expected to see the limitations of this format. It is OK as far as it goes.

Echoing some other reviewers, I also found the recipes a bit heavy on the pork. Other recipes seemed a tad bizarre (unless that raccoon is certified 'Grade A,' I'm not touching it), while others seem more interested in hawking a product than promoting good cooking. The recipes I found most useful tended to be the accompanying dishes and desserts rather than the BBQ itself. I will return to this book for a moderate number of recipes, but if I had to pay money for this, I'm not sure that I would.

To call this book a cookbook would be like equating Ted Williams with all other baseball players. America's Best BBQ contains recipes collected by the authors in their travels and networking. The book itself is more like a piece of Americana, a glimpse of a subculture that most of us only know superficially.
Davis and Kirk not only share some incredible recipes, but also introduce us to fascinating people and interesting places the reader might want to visit in his or her travels.
I really like the design and look of the book. It takes on its own ambience as one of the barbecue joints within might. There's plenty here to whet the reader's appetite and sate his curiosity. Open to any page and find classic neon, well-worn signs, incredibly vivid food photographs, simulated spots of BBQ sauce, brown paper, and more pig icons than you've ever seen in one place.
Like barbecue cooking, this book is meant to be enjoyed slowly so that one can taste all of the flavors proferred by the authors.

At the end of the book is a lengthy discourse detailing the pros and cons of gas vs. charcoal grilling with a tableful of tips for both schools of cooking. This section is so informative that I read it twice.

America's Best BBQ is obviously a work of love by the authors, a down home friendly book. I don't have interest in trying rattlesnake meat or bull testicles, but within the covers there's probably something of interest for most readers.

Interesting vignettes. The recipes were of limited value. I had no interest in smoking an entire pig, etc. I did try a few smoked rib recipes which were excellent and I can hands down recommend the banana pudding no questions asked!

Real barbecue is transcendental. It's taking inexpensive cuts of meat and turning them into some of the best tasting food around. In other types of cooking, the quality of the ingredients makes a huge difference in the final product. For barbecue, however, it's more the technique: cooking and seasoning.

In this book, Davis and Kirk write about real American barbecue. They provide thorough coverage. There are recipes for seemingly every type of American barbecue: mutton, rattlesnake, raccoon, pig snouts, and the oft referenced Rocky Mountain Oysters (bull testicles). I may never try those recipes but it's important they include them. The reason for this is: this book is like a graduate level (Greasehouse University?) text, going well beyond the usual "barbecue" books.

Most other barbecue books start with grilling basics and then present loads of recipes, maybe separating the different meats into separate chapters. Not this book. It starts with an explanation of how this book evolved and what their criteria are for judging. Then it has chapters on appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, desserts, and then finishes with a section on barbecue basics and miscellaneous information (including a helpful page about starting a barbecue business). The recipes sometimes call for specific rubs or sauces, but they do include some recipes for those and others could be improvised somewhat. The authors even mention that your results won't be exactly the same but still fantastic. I should also mention that the recipes themselves are not overly complex, many only requiring a few ingredients.

This probably isn't the right book for the complete novice. It doesn't really go into enough detail on the basics and there aren't any hamburger/grilling recipes. But for those beyond the basics, it's easy and fun to read. It's almost like taking a road trip with a couple of college buddies. They take 'cue seriously but aren't serious. Well worth reading.

So, I was pretty stoked to get this book, thinking that there would be all sorts of awesome recipes, and in that respect, I think I was disappointed. There are 'recipes' on how to prepare certain meats in smokers, but to have a 'recipe' say, basically, prepare the smoker, prepare meat, smoke for 18 hours and enjoy, that is a cop out for a recipe. To me, that is the sort of thing that one would find in a basics/introduction section of any cookbook. Clearly the authors love barbeque and that shows in the choices they have made and the stories of great lengths they have gone to to get some lip-smackin' good food. The reason why I am giving this 2 instead of 3 stars is because I do not like the way the pages are set up; it makes things so hard to read! The pages are composed of pictures of dirty menus, dirty napkins and whatever else came to mind. I often found myself trying to wipe off the page. I did try to go back through to find something and had to flip through the entire book three times before I found what I wanted, buried beneath a faux barbeque sauce stain. This book is too cluttered to be easy to read and enjoy. I am also discouraged to see that they printed a recipe that can be found for free online. What? Sorry, this book just wasn't successful for me in the way I want a cookbook to be. Maybe if it had been touted as a barbeque travel guide I would appreciate what the authors were trying to acheive.

I bought this book for the recipes and I was pretty disappointed. The recipes aren't great and a lot of them aren't practical at all (roasting a whole pig). It was nice to look at but not a great recipe book

My family loves barbecue. We've taken road trips and lengthy detours to try new BBQ restaurants and visit old favorites. We've visited a few of the places in this book, and our all-time favorite--Ridgewood Barbecue in Bluff City, TN--is included. But this book is more than just a guide for travelers looking for good BBQ: it's a scrapbook of barbecue culture, with photos and history notes. It also includes 100 recipes--some original "top secret" and some "copycat" versions--for the specialties of each restaurant. Each pair of facing pages includes details about a restaurant, photos, and a recipe or two.

The book is divided into sections as a menu is: Starters, Main Dishes, Sides and Condiments, and Desserts. The Starters chapter includes recipes for traditional and regional favorites such as onion rings, Brunswick stew, burgoo, and Rocky Mountain oysters. Main Dishes, of course, is all about the 'cue: ribs, pulled pork, barbecued pig snout, and more. The Sides and Condiments section is not only cole slaw--white, pink, red, you name it--but also baked beans, cornbread, hushpuppies, and potatoes. Dessert recipes include Lexington banana pudding, bread pudding, apple crisp, and fried peach pies.

I highly recommend this book!

This book is great because it takes all the best BBQ recipes from around the nation and fits them into one book. However, there is a problem in that all the recipes use specific ingredients geared towards their own region. So recipes are either easily made or you will have to substitute ingredients. This recipe book is organized well and easy to read. It tells interesting facts about many BBQ places from around the world. My favorite recipe had to be from Williamson Bros. in Georgia. This book actually makes you feel like you have been to each BBQ restaurant or that you wish you were there as you're reading.