First things first. I have to do this because there are a lot of people out there who call something barbecue when they’re really missing out on the essential element of real barbecue. There are many different definitions and usages for the word “barbecue”. You may disagree with me, but here is the one I use:

bar-be-cue (bär‘bĭ-kyū’) (also spelled "barbeque”, “bar-b-q”, “bbq”, “’cue” or simply “Q”)

n.: Meat cooked in the heat and smoke of a wood or coal fire.
v.: A method of cooking meat over a wood or coal fire.

I see a lot of recipes out there for “barbecue” ribs which call for slathering the ribs with barbecue sauce and then grilling them on a gas grill. Worse, there are so-called “barbecue” recipes which call for boiling the ribs first and then drowning them in sauce while baking them in an oven. I just think these are shortcuts to making tender ribs but cannot compare to the true taste of barbecue that only wood smoke and time can impart.

In order to test this theory, I made plans to cook pork spareribs using these three different methods, to see which one tasted better than the others. With the weather starting to warm up here in San Jose, I pitched our plan for the Ultimate Rib Showdown as a Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 event, and Foodbuzz accepted our submission! We invited FoodGal Carolyn Jung and Michael from Cooking for Engineers, along with their respective spouses, plus some other friends over to our house. Their job was to taste and score the ribs cooked with the different methods. Then we’d tally up the scores and see which one came out on top.

Which rib cooking method is the best? Boiled, grilled or smoked?

Continue reading Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Ultimate Rib Showdown, Part 1 →