Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374266468 ISBN 13: 9780374266462

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1996

It is while eating a plate of funny-looking ribs with thin vinegary sauce in North Carolina that Lolis Elie and Frank Stewart decide to investigate the nation's obsession with smoked meat. Their quest takes them from the barbecued cow heads of south Texas to the barbecued pig snouts (tasty if tough) of East St. Louis, Illinois. From the all-night barbecue binges on Chicago's South Side to barbecue competition circuit events like Memphis in May and Vienna, Georgia's Big Pig Jig, where people spend thousands of dollars to stay up all night smoking meat. They check out famous and obscure BBQ places from Kansas City, Missouri, to Hope, Arkansas, but ultimately come back to Memphis and Hawkins Grill, a barbecue oasis of Frank's youth, which he now mourns as "a dinosaur without a mate".
En route, Lolis and Frank introduce us to the men and women devoted to this demanding art, and, of course, to some good eating - with recipes for meat, sauces, and side dishes. With more than eighty photographs, Smokestack Lightning is a poignant and often hilarious story of culinary adventure that will make you very hungry.

Review:

Through vivid descriptions of restaurants and barbecue joints around the country, stirred together with legends and bits and pieces of barbecue history, Lolis Eric Elie profiles the largely American pastime of barbecuing. Traveling from Texas to the Carolinas, the author chronicles the lore and traditions of the barbecue belt and collects recipes, descriptions and photographs of everything from barbecued cows' faces to pigs' snouts, on his quest to determine barbecue's role in American culture.

From the Publisher:

*This new edition of what many consider to be the anthropological bible on the history and soul of barbecue features a new introduction, over 50 recipes, and 80 black-and-white photographs.