E-Dogz is head­ing to Kansas City! 

On April 6th as part of the Speakeasy exhi­bi­tion, E-Dogz will col­lab­o­rate with Pit­mas­ter Bill Emer­son to bring you:

Mid­west­ern BBQ Migration

Like hot­dogs and pizza, BBQ is one of those foods with fierce regional alle­giances. In projects such as the Inter­na­tional Hot­dog Forum, E-Dogz has set aside such argu­ments for the sake of cel­e­brat­ing the diver­sity of all the great work­ing class food tra­di­tions. On April 6th as part of the Speakeasy exhi­bi­tion, E-Dogz will be show­cas­ing the sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences of Kansas City and Chicago styles of BBQ, while chart­ing the his­tory of these great traditions.

In terms of his­toric doc­u­men­ta­tion, BBQ landed in Kansas City ear­lier than in Chicago, brought from Mem­phis by Henry Perry who sold hick­ory smoked meat wrapped in news­pa­per from a stand in an alley in the gar­ment dis­trict. We can trace cer­tain influ­ences in KC style BBQ back to Mem­phis, most promi­nently the use of tomato based, tangy s auce and to a lesser extent the use of pork spare ribs over other parts of the pig. Kansas City, hav­ing a major meat­pack­ing indus­try, offered a wide vari­ety of dif­fer­ent meats and cuts. Unlike other styles of regional BBQ, there is not one par­tic­u­lar meat favored in KC, though ribs (both pork and beef), beef brisket, and the well-done and charred “burnt ends” of the point end of the brisket are most attrib­uted to the style. Sausages, pork shoul­der, mut­ton and poul­try also have their place in the Kansas City canon. A fel­low named Char­lie Bryant worked for Perry and took over his busi­ness in 1940, which was then passed along to Charlie’s brother, Arthur who renamed the shop after him­self. Arthur Bryant’s is still in busi­ness and con­sid­ered some of the best BBQ in Kansas City. Another famed BBQ joint was opened by another for­mer Perry employee, Arthur Pinkard who with his busi­ness part­ner, George Gates opened Gates and Sons in 1946. Need­less to say, this once– South­ern, African Amer­i­can style of slow smok­ing eco­nom­i­cal cuts of meat found mass appeal in Kansas City and the Mid­west in gen­eral. A notable early white– owned BBQ joint was opened by Russ Fiorella in 1957, called The Smoke­stack. The orig­i­nal shop relo­cated south to Mar­tin City and then spun off as a chain of restau­rants. Now only one Smoke­stack loca­tion, in the Waldo neigh­bor­hood, still pro­duces their top tier ‘Q. Russ’ son Jack went on to start a well known mini– BBQ empire, Fiorella’s Jack Stack.

Like Kansas City style BBQ, Chicago style has roots in the south, though less easy to trace. There is no one fig­ure accred­ited to bring­ing BBQ to Chicago. There is scant his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ence to street ven­dors and pri­vate BBQ pits as early as the 1920’s, which aligns with the Great Migra­tion from the south to Chicago of South­ern Blacks dur­ing the first decades of the 20th cen­tury. In par­tic­u­lar, a strong migra­tion of folks from the Mis­sis­sippi delta dur­ing the sec­ond Great Migra­tion in the 40’s and 50’s brought to Chicago great south­ern cul­tural tra­di­tions both in terms of food and music– BBQ and the blues. Early BBQ joints opened up on Chicago’s south side in the 1940’s, such as Leon’s and Lem’s, both of which still oper­ate today under orig­i­nal own­er­ship. Chicago style BBQ has sev­eral dis­tin­guish­ing hall­marks. It is always smoked over hard wood, typ­i­cally in a glass pit, known affec­tion­ately as the “aquar­ium” smoker. Though occa­sion­ally you may find smoked poul­try, Chicago style ‘Q is exclu­sively pork based. Spare ribs are com­mon, cut St. Louis style, with the tips cut off to form a rec­tan­gu­lar rack. Thrifty Chicago pit­mas­ters would not just dis­card the tips though, they offered an eco­nomic cut laden with extra fat and juicy meat. The tips are smoked sep­a­rately and are a foun­da­tional ele­ment of the Chicago style. Another unique char­ac­ter to the style is the hot link, a highly spiced, coarse ground sausage, which may have been intro­duced or influ­enced by cen­tral Euro­pean butch­ers who immi­grated to Chicago with their own tra­di­tions of smok­ing encased meats.

Kansas City and Chicago, along with St. Louis share in a great Mid­west­ern BBQ tra­di­tion. Despite regional dif­fer­ences, there is much more in com­mon amongst the styles. BBQ is orig­i­nally a south­ern black tra­di­tion and arrived in the Mid­west dur­ing the Great Migra­tions. Like south­ern BBQ, the meat is always smoked over hard­wood. Sauce is applied after smok­ing or served on the side and has a com­mon ances­tor in the Mem­phis style.- thick tomato based, sweet, tangy, and often spicy. Mid­west BBQ is most often served spar­tanly on a bed of fries with a slice or two of white bread. These Mid­west­ern cities are hubs of com­merce and trans­porta­tion and have estab­lished meat­pack­ing indus­tries, which made them per­fect places for the devel­op­ment of BBQ cul­ture. These tra­di­tions are vital to the food­ways of the Mid­west and were devel­oped side by side in America’s heartland.

Mid­west­ern BBQ Migration

April 6th, 6–9 PM

La Esquina 1000 W. 25th St. KC-MO (a Char­lotte Street Foun­da­tion Urban Cul­ture Project venue)

http://thespeak-easy.org/