Memphis Barbecues Dish Up Rib-Sticking Fare

If you love barbecue, you owe yourself a trip to Memphis to try what some believe is the best barbecue in the country.

Forget what you’ve heard about Texas and Kansas City. Memphians are fanatic when it comes to slow-cooking pork. In their view, there just isn’t any other place for “cue.”

Cotton brokers’ offices still face the river; Beale Street echoes with the blues tradition of W. C. Handy, and it’s hard to walk a block without smelling the aroma of oak and hickory coming from a pit.

“In Memphis, barbecue means pork,” says Becky Landers, an official with Memphis in May, and a founder of the International Barbecue Contest that is part of the annual, monthlong celebration. Teams with names like “Love Me Tenderloin,” and “Super Swine Sizzlers” come from as far away as France, New Zealand and Estonia to compete in shoulder, rib and whole hog divisions.

“The meat has to be cooked very slowly, 10 to 20 hours with a low heat,” says Landers. “And while ribs are popular with visitors, the specialty here is a pork shoulder sandwich. The meat is topped with barbecue sauce and cole slaw served on a hamburger bun. You can order it ‘white,’ and you’ll get the juicy, inside meat; if you say ‘brown,’ you’ll get the crunchy bits from the outside. You can also order it ‘mixed,’ but if you don’t say ‘pulled,’ you’re gonna get chopped meat.”

And, there are ribs. Ask Memphians for their favorite rib joint, and they’ll say, “Wet or Dry?” Both types are pretty much the same underneath, but dry ribs come with the sauce on the side and tend to be less greasy than wet ribs, which come basted in sauce

Chief exponent of the dry style is Charlie Vergos, who operates the hugely successful Rendezvous. Celebrities order ribs air-freighted from the pits here, and everyone, it seems, manages to find the entrance, hidden in a downtown alley.

Walk downstairs, and you’re in an eclectic collection of art that ranges from old signs to army helmets and plastic dolls. Near the entrance are huge pits where each week more than 3 1/2 tons of pork are basted with vinegar and water, then coated with Vergos ‘ secret spice concoction.

Our waiter, Mark Ford, delivered our order in under five minutes. But we never felt rushed, and the welcome was warm and genuine. Our ribs, $8.95, arrived with cole slaw and baked beans. Moist and tender, the ribs smelled of oak smoke, and the thick, powdery crust of spices made them irresistible.

Leonard’s Pit Barbecue, some distance from downtown, is the oldest of all of Memphis’ barbecue restaurants. Opened in 1922, it was Elvis Presley’s favorite hang-out. The King, would hold private all-night parties here after recording sessions. For commoners, Leonard’s closes at 5 p.m.

We opted for pork shoulder sandwiches ($3.75), and an order of the largest onion rings we’ve ever seen. We barely found room for lemon ice-box pie, the traditional dessert to eat with barbecue because the tartness is said to cleanse the palate. Leonard’s ribs are cooked with only a little salt, then coated with a slightly sweet sauce.

Other good barbecue restaurants include the Interstate, owned and run by the Neely family, and John Wills Bar-B-Que Pit, perhaps Memphis’ most upscale rib joint. Wills opened his restaurant after winning the barbecue contest for two years.

While barbecue is Memphis’ passion, the city also has great places to try other Southern specialties. “Southerners love vegetables,” said Christine Arpe Gang, food editor of the Commercial Appeal in Memphis. We were having lunch in The Cupboard, a home-style restaurant in a mini-mall not far from downtown. “The menu in any of our local restaurants will always have lots of vegetables.”

We chose from the day’s selection, which included baked eggplant, fresh turnip greens, buttered squash, okra and tomatoes, spiced beets, and corn. Baked chicken or meat loaf with two vegetables cost $4.75, a plate of four vegetables, just $3.50. We had to try crowder peas, tiny red beans that tasted faintly like fresh peanuts. “The South has a huge variety of peas,” Gang explained, “black-eyed peas, lady peas. They’re really various beans with distinct flavors and textures. What you think of as green peas, we call English peas.”

Each order came with corn bread that was crisp on the outside and moist on the inside. “They get that effect by using hot fat in cast-iron utensils,” Gang told us.

On her recommendation, we tried another of Memphis’ home-style restaurants, the Four Way Grill. For 46 years, owner Irene Cleaves has served classic Southern dishes to such well-known names as Teddy Pendergrass, Redd Foxx, Gladys Knight, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesse Jackson.

Our cab driver brought us to the back door of a small brick building. We waited while he rang the bell, and in a minute, Richard Holcomb, Cleaves’ nephew, greeted us warmly and showed us to a table in the plain dining room. There’s a front room, but visitors usually head for the rear.

At Holcomb’s recommendation, we tried catfish fried in cornmeal batter, spicy hush puppies, fresh turnip greens, baked chicken and black-eyed peas, followed by warm peach cobbler. The food was all cooked to order and excellent. At about $7 per person, this was a real bargain.

Gang also suggested meeting Jose Gutierrez, chef of Chez Philippe in the Peabody Hotel. “He’s doing some of the most exciting cooking in the South,” she said.

Not surprisingly, our first conversation with Gutierrez concerned, not his unique blending of French, Southern and Asian influences, but barbecue. Each year he serves as a judge in the barbecue contest. He studied with French chef Paul Bocuse, but at Chez Philippe, the French influence takes a back seat to Southern cooking.

It takes courage, and creativity, to fill thin slices of turnip with Arkansas caviar and serve it with smoked salmon corn bread. The idea is startling, but the reality is ethereal. Other specialties include pork tournedos with barbecue beurre blanc and grits pudding with peaches and honey sauce. Dinner for two at Chez Philippe will cost about $70.

“There are lots of similarities between Southern cooking and French,” says Gutierrez. “The French Ambassador really enjoyed my chitlins with green peppercorns in a puff-paste bouchee. “ Only in Memphis.

Recommended: (Area code is 901). Chez Philippe, The Peabody, 149 Union Avenue, 529-4188. Cupboard Restaurant, 1495 Union, 276-6577. Four Way Grill, 998 Mississippi Blvd., 775-9384. Interstate Bar-B-Q, 2265 S. 3rd St., 775-2304. John Wills Bar-B-Que, 5101 Sanderlin Drive, 761-5101. Leonard’s Pit Barbecue, 1140 South Bellevue, 767-4339. Rendezvous, 52 S. 2nd St., 523-2746.