St. Louis-style barbecue - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

St. Louis-style barbecue refers to various pork

Pork

Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....

dishes prepared in and around the city of St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

. Although St. Louis is typically not included on the list of major styles of barbecue

Barbecue

Barbecue or barbeque , used chiefly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia is a method and apparatus for cooking meat, poultry and occasionally fish with the heat and hot smoke of a fire, smoking wood, or hot coals of...

in the United States, the city was recognized by Kingsford

Kingsford (charcoal)

Kingsford is a brand of charcoal used for grilling, along with related products. The brand is owned by The Clorox Company.The Kingsford Company was formed by Henry Ford and E.G. Kingsford during the early 1920s. Charcoal was developed from Ford Motor Company's factory waste wood scrap. The...

as "America’s Top Grilling City" in its second annual list of Top 10 Grilling Cities. In fact, many of the foods characteristic of this style are grilled

Grilling

Grilling is a form of cooking that involves dry heat applied to the surface of food, commonly from above or below.Grilling usually involves a significant amount of direct, radiant heat, and tends to be used for cooking meat quickly and meat that has already been cut into slices...

rather than cooked over the indirect heat and smoke that is typically associated with the term "barbecue" in the United States.

These foods are often heavily sauced

Barbecue sauce

Barbecue sauce is a flavoring sauce or condiment ranging from watery to very thick consistency. As the name implies, it was created as an accompaniment to barbecued foods. While it can be applied to any food, it usually tops meat after cooking or during barbecuing, grilling, or baking...

; St. Louis is said to consume more barbecue sauce per capita than any other city in the nation. St. Louis-style barbecue sauce is described by author Steven Raichlen

Steven Raichlen

Steven Raichlen is an American chef, writer, author, and TV host.-Early life:Born March 11 in Japan and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Raichlen graduated in 1975 from Reed College with a Bachelor of Arts in French literature. He received a Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellowship to study medieval...

as a "very sweet, slightly acidic, sticky, tomato-based barbecue sauce (usually made without liquid smoke)". The Louis Maull Company, which is based in St. Louis, manufactures several types of barbecue sauce under the Maull's

Maull's barbecue sauce

Maull's barbecue sauce is a popular barbecue sauce in St. Louis, Missouri and is a common ingredient in preparing St. Louis-style barbecue. It is a rich and pungent, spicy semi-sweet, tomato based sauce, somewhat unusual for containing anchovies and pepper pulp...

brand; the manufacturer describes the sauce as having a "distinctive tangy flavor."

A staple of grilling in St. Louis is the pork steak

Pork steak

Pork steaks are cut from the shoulder of the pig. This is the same cut of meat most commonly used for pulled pork, and can be quite tough without long cooking times due to the high amount of collagen in the meat...

, which is sliced from the shoulder

Boston butt

Boston butt is a cut of pork that comes from the upper part of the shoulder from the front leg and may contain the blade bone. In the US, smoked or barbecued Boston butt is a southern tradition...

of the pig. Pork steaks are typically started and/or finished on the direct heat of a grill, and simmered in or basted with barbecue sauce that is often mixed with beer

Beer

Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

. The process of cooking pork steaks in barbecue sauce helps tenderize the meat, which can otherwise be quite tough due to the high amount of collagen

Collagen

Collagen is a group of naturally occurring proteins found in animals, especially in the flesh and connective tissues of mammals. It is the main component of connective tissue, and is the most abundant protein in mammals, making up about 25% to 35% of the whole-body protein content...

in the shoulder muscle.
Another item unique to the St. Louis area is crispy snoots, which are cut from the nose and cheek area of the pig. This cut is prepared by removing the pig's nostrils and cooking the remaining meat until crispy. Snoots, which have a flavor similar to pork rinds, can be served in several ways, including slathered with barbecue sauce and placed on a sandwich

Sandwich

A sandwich is a food item, typically consisting of two or more slices of :bread with one or more fillings between them, or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich. Sandwiches are a widely popular type of lunch food, typically taken to work or school, or...

or broken into pieces and dipped in sauce. They are considered to be soul food

Soul food

Soul food cuisine consists of a selection of foods traditional in the cuisine of African Americans. It is closely related to the cuisine of the Southern United States...

.

As with much of the Midwest

Midwestern United States

The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....

, bratwurst

Bratwurst

A bratwurst is a sausage usually composed of veal, pork or beef. The plural in German is Bratwürste....

, the German style sausage -- often simmered in beer before being placed on the grill -- is another popular choice for grilling in the region, as St. Louis has had large German-American populations

Dutchtown, St. Louis

Dutchtown is a neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. It is called "Dutch" from Deutsch, i.e., "German", as it was the southern center of German-American settlement in St. Louis in the early 19th century...

over the years. Italian sausage

Italian sausage

In the United States, Italian sausage most often refers to a style of pork sausage noted for being seasoned with fennel and/or anise as the primary seasoning...

, often referred to by its Italian name salsiccia, is another commonly grilled item possibly owing to the influence of St. Louis's Italian population

The Hill, St. Louis

The Hill is a mostly Italian-American neighborhood within St. Louis, Missouri, located on high ground south of Forest Park. The official boundaries of the area are Manchester Avenue on the north, Columbia and Southwest Avenues on the south, South Kingshighway Boulevard on the east, and Hampton...

.

Pork ribs

Pork ribs

Pork ribs are a cut of pork popular in North American and Asian cuisines. The ribcage of a domestic pig, meat and bones together, is cut into usable pieces, prepared by smoking, grilling, or baking – usually with a sauce, often barbecue – and then served....

, particularly spare ribs

Spare ribs

Spare ribs are a variety of pork ribs and beef ribs, cooked and eaten in various cuisines around the world. They are the most inexpensive cut of pork and beef ribs. They are a long cut from the lower portion of the pig or cattle, specifically the belly and breastbone, behind the shoulder, and...

, are frequently cooked in the area. The city provides the name of St. Louis-style ribs, which are spare ribs with the sternum bone, cartilage and rib tips removed to create a rectangular-shaped rack. This cut of ribs, formalized by the USDA as "Pork Ribs, St. Louis Style", allegedly originated with numerous meat-packing plants located in the region in the mid 20th century.

Various restaurants in the metropolitan area describe their barbecue as St. Louis-style or offer St. Louis staples such as pork steaks and crispy snoots, including Big Mama's BBQ in Belleville, Illinois

Belleville, Illinois

Belleville is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city has a population of 44,478. It is the eighth-most populated city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area and the most populated city south of Springfield in the state of Illinois. It is the county...

; Charlotte's Rib, named for a local
TV personality, in Ballwin, Missouri

Ballwin, Missouri

Ballwin is a second-ring western suburb of St. Louis, located in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The population was to be 30,404 as of the 2010 census. It was named by Money Magazine in 2005 as 64th on the list of the 100 best cities in America. It is the only city in America named...

; C&K Barbecue; Ms. Piggies' Smokehouse in Maryland Heights, Missouri

Maryland Heights, Missouri

Maryland Heights is a second-ring west-central suburb of St. Louis, located in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The population was 27,472 at the 2010 census. The city was incorporated in 1985. Edwin L. Dirck was elected the city's first mayor. Mark M. Levin has been City Administrator...

; Phil's BBQ in Affton, Missouri

Affton, Missouri

Affton is an unincorporated inner-ring suburb of St. Louis, located in St. Louis County, Missouri, USA. As of the 2010 census, the community had a total population of 20,307.-Geography:...

; Richard's Ribs in Kirkwood, Missouri

Kirkwood, Missouri

Kirkwood is an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis, located in St. Louis County, Missouri. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,540. Founded in 1853, the city is named for James Pugh Kirkwood, builder of the Pacific Railroad through that town. It was the first planned suburb located west...

; Roper's Ribs in Jennings, Missouri

Jennings, Missouri

Jennings is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The population was 14,712 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Jennings is located at ....

; Smoki O's; Super Smokers in Eureka, Missouri

Eureka, Missouri

Eureka is a city located in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States, between St. Louis and Pacific, Missouri, along Interstate 44. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 10,189. The city is west of the former site of Times Beach, the site of dioxin contamination discovered in...

; and Uncle Huffy's Barbecue in Lebanon, Illinois

Lebanon, Illinois

Lebanon is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. The population was 3,523 at the 2000 census. Like many other places in "Little Egypt" or Southern Illinois, Lebanon was named after the Middle Eastern country of the same name. It is a part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St...

See also