Brooklyn barbecue taking over the world? Kansas City, Memphis, Texas strike back

Vice's food blog, Munchies, discovered very quickly on Sunday how to ignite a barbecue war.

Promoting a story by travel writer Nicholas Gill, Munchies tweeted: "Why is Brooklyn barbecue taking over the world?"

The tweet included a photo of barbecue that looked like it had been plated by a cook who spent 30 years toiling in the sweaty kitchen of a maximum-security prison.

A metal tray covered with brown paper was decorated with two wrinkly buns sans butter, a few token pieces of brisket, two tiny gherkins cozied up in a cardboard boat and a glass of foamy brew.

You could imagine a death-row inmate giving this last meal a side-eye: "Thanks, but no thanks."

Brooklyn barbecue creators use words like modern, urban, non-traditional and stylish to describe their meat.

It's got hipster cred - that rub might have espresso in it.

Barbecue from a borough, Gill writes, is "more stylish, more loose" and it can let you "play around with every recipe rather than following a straight-up traditional recipe" found in Texas or Kansas City.

By Monday morning, that tweet with its accompanying photo had incited more than 9,000 comments, including this very pointed one dripping with mockery from the official Twitter account for the city of Kansas City, Mo.

"Sorry, Brooklyn, but you have a lot to learn about what makes good BBQ," the city tweeted. "Come to Kansas City for the real deal!"

Fans of Kansas City barbecue were collectively peeved and took some nasty shots, eloquently summed up in this diss from Mr. @McStewpants: "Might as well just microwave some hot dogs."

Texas was equally fired up.

Memphis was, too, where the mayor had just three words on the subject and the Memphis Grizzlies prevailed upon local constables to investigate this crime against barbecue, if not humanity itself.

And the grilling went on and on and on ...

"In one fell swoop, this tweet has accomplished the seemingly impossible. ... brought all 4 of the big BBQ families (KC, Memphis, The Carolinas and Texas) together in a unified assault against Brooklyn," tweeted Josh Beard, editor in chief of the sports website, watchfantom.com.

But here's the rub.

Did anyone read the story?

Anyone who did would know that Gill seemed as perplexed as everyone else about why Brooklyn-style barbecue has become such a hit around the world.

"Brooklyn BBQ is spreading to every corner of the world — Colombia, Spain, Panama, Sweden, England, and Japan — looking like it came straight out of Williamsburg. But why aren't these countries taking cues from Texas or Kansas City?" he writes.

"Barbecue's Southern roots and finest pitmasters are a long way from New York, even though the city has grown by leaps and bounds in terms of its barbecue pedigree in recent years," he notes. "Especially in Brooklyn. It's almost impossible to walk between Bedford Avenue and the East River without sniffing mesquite smoke."

In fact, he notes, some of the joints have hired people who know traditional barbecue.

"Since Fette Sau opened in 2007, nearly a dozen others have followed, several with pitmasters recruited from Central Texas or Kansas City," he writes.

"Brooklyn pitmasters tend to be less traditional than their counterparts in the South. They don't really follow any single barbecue philosophy and aren't so focused on beef brisket, like most of Texas tends to be. They may include items like house-cured pastrami or pork ribs or burnt ends. Most use heritage animals — free-range and hormone free — from small family farms within the region."

But now it's spreading, Gill writes, "very quickly and without warning, to every ... corner of the world."

This story was originally published March 5, 2018 at 10:54 AM with the headline "Brooklyn barbecue taking over the world? Kansas City, Memphis, Texas strike back."