2.4.1.3.1.1.1.1.1
OFF THE EATEN PATH
Leave the old standbys of KC Barbecue behind and find some new favorites.
story by maggie koerth
photos by john nowak
Kansas City is literally overflowing with options for a barbecue lover. The sheer number of restaurants can overwhelm even professionals. The Gastronomical Appreciation Society of BBQ, or GAS BBQ, is a group of faculty from Johnson County Community College and University of
I don't know about space aliens, but I can think of better reasons than a mere steak to steal a cow. Brisket, for one, and smoky, crispy burnt ends wallowing in sauce. Barbecue. Kansas City is famous for it and I'm out to find some of the best. More importantly, I'm out to find amazing barbecue that isn't from Gates or Arthur Bryant's. Those places do serve good food, but they aren't the only joints in town.
Saturday morning flea markets flank the edges of Merriam Lane in Kansas City, Kan. The clusters and rows of simple tents and makeshift markets that fill the abandoned parking lots pave the road to Quick's Bar-B-Q, where I'm headed. At one boarded up gas station a billboard hovers above the purveyors of Smurf toys and vintage clothes. It features a huge, well-seared steak reclining seductively on a platter. Next to it are the words "Why Space Aliens Steal Our Cows."
Kansas Edwards Campus that have been tasting and rating KC barbecue for more than five years. Many members also double as semi-professional barbecue judges. But even they don't know everything. Founding member Dan Mueller remembers The Kansas City Star published a story about barbecue that included joints GAS had never heard of.
Once upon a time there was only one place to go for barbecue in Kansas City: Henry Perry's. Perry started selling barbecue out of a pushcart in 1907, says Doug Worgul, author of The Grand Barbecue: A History of Places, Personalities, and Techniques of Kansas City Barbecue. Perry, and the entrepreneurs who followed him, created a unique style of barbecue in the city. Worgul says this style is actually an amalgamation of older barbecue styles from the Carolinas, Memphis and Texas, brought to Kansas City by freed slaves who followed the rivers and the railroads to new lives.
Today, the Kansas City flavor is based on three things: first, it uses a wide variety of meats, including pork, beef, sausage, chicken and turkey. Second, it's topped with a sweet, tomato-based sauce often blended with molasses, unlike the vinegar and mustard-based sauces that predominate in other barbe-