The Secret History of Making Great Barbecued Ribs

New Orleans style barbecue ribs, recipe below 

With memorial day weekend upon us, it seems only fitting to talk barbecue for the next couple of days. Eugene “Hot Sauce” Williams operated perhaps the best barbecue stands in 1950s Cleveland, Ohio. In 1920, Williams migrated from New Orleans to Chicago and from there to Cleveland. Williams returned to his native New Orleans around 1934, spending days “just drifting” among cooks in the Crescent city accumulating knowledge about how to make great barbecue ribs. He finally came across an older chief that shared his secret ingredient with Williams and his cooking techniques. Williams says that great ribs come from cooking them slowly over the right amount of heat and taking care to thoroughly cook them but not dry them out. Most credited the success of his barbecue stand to the secret way in which he flavored his ribs with “a dry spice powder and taste-tantalizing hot sauce.” Only Williams knew the formula for the powder, which he personally sprinkled on all his precooked meats. I suspect he used a variation on a New Orleans dry rub recipe like the one shown here below.


New Orleans dry rub barbecue recipe


Ingredients
½ cup paprika
½ cup garlic powder
¼ cup onion powder
3 tablespoons black pepper
2 teaspoons white pepper
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
¼ cup dried thyme
1 tablespoon ground rosemary
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons sugar
Put all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix thoroughly.


Method
Before applying dry rub, remove the back thin membrane of the ribs so the spices and smoke can penetrate the meat. Rub in dry mixed spices or dry rub mixture by hand completely covering all sides of ribs patting in. This should be done several hours or even better the night before. Store the ribs in a sealed container keep refrigerated until ready to cook.