Get Your Grill On

This year alone, a million different arguments will break out over the question, “what is BBQ all about?” Some may say the sauce, some may say the meat, and the smokeys out there will cough and hack and tell you of the wonders of pecan. All that may be true, but I say the really point of BBQ is about the great transfiguration.

OK, now that the laughter has died down, lend me your ears.

Webster’s defines transfiguration as a complete change of form or appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state.

I’d say that sums up BBQ in a nutshell. I can name a few times that a slice of smoked brisket has put me into a more enlightened frame of mind. But what I’m really talking about is the ultimate struggle over the pits: the conversion of collagen into gelatin.

If you think about the history of barbeque as we know it, the idea is to take inferior cuts of meat and turn them into delicious wonders. A brisket, raw and by itself is not much to look at, nor is it the best cut of meat. It’s shaped funny, has two very different sections and a giant rib of fat running right through it. It’s tough; it’s fibrous; and god forbid you even attempt to eat the deckel.

But when a brisket is cooked slow over low heat and a with a generous amount of smoke, this ugly bastard of a cut transfigures into the stuff of legend and countless arguments.

The transfiguration we are talking about in Barbeque is the conversion of collagen into gelatin. Collagen is the protein that makes up connective tissues such as tendons and ligaments. It is incredibly tough, and too much of it can render that cut of meat unfavorable. However, if you heat collagen at low temperature for a long period of time, it will convert into the soft, gooey, pliable substance we know and love as gelatin. It is this conversion that makes great barbeque.

I’ll bet you thought collagen was just that stuff that they inject into Pam Anderson’s lips twice a month. The conversion of collagen into gelatin is what makes pulled pork possible. It’s what turns a stuff chunk of meat into a mouth-watering slice of brisket. It’s what makes the meat gently pull away from the baby back ribs.

The best way to achieve the great transfiguration in barbeque is through braising. Again, I’ll let the laughter die down. I’m sure the miraculous act of barbeque has never before been spoken of in such culinary terms.

Braising is the act of cooking at a low temperature for a long period of time, usually accompanied by a small amount of liquid. Think about how many of us cook baby back ribs using the 3-2-1 method. That time spent wrapped up in aluminum foil is technically braising. Wrapping up any meat in foil and letting it cook is braising, even if you don’t add any liquid to the foil pack. The natural juices from the meat render out into the foil which are then reabsorbed, thus braising the meat.

Or consider why a pork butt gets injected with juice and various other liquids. The pork butt is such a large piece of meat, it needs liquid on the inside to help the transfiguration. It gets braised from the inside.

Sauce, ribs, smoke, rubs … we could argue for years about what BBQ is about. I will say that all of the above are what help plain cuts of meat transfigure into those delicious beauties that we call BBQ. But for my money, none of it would happen if it weren’t that great transformation of collagen into gelatin.