There are several systems of judging competitive barbecue (1) - but all agree that good meat can be judged on some combination of three key points: Appearance, Taste and Tenderness.
Appearance: There's just not much meat that looks meatier than ribs. A rib is a piece of bone with flesh on it - like a child's drawing of meat - or the what the societal subconscious has agreed upon as the Platonic ideal (2). A thick layer of sauce only adds to the mystique - tantalizing in its own right, but ultimately just scanty concealment for the delights underneath. Barbecue sauce is lingerie for the palate.
Taste: For such an unpretentious dish, ribs offer an infinity taste possibility. From the simple formula of meat + sauce + spice, we get a vast calculus of flavor. Ribs are traditionally limited to pork only to preserve our fragile minds from the ecstasy of flavor - beef ribs are equally common, with lamb and bison making inroads at a barbecue shack near you.
The sauce, as referenced above, adds more complexity - sweet, spicy, sticky, smoky - there's shocking depth in the letter 'S' alone. In the modern alchemical tradition, hidden masters spend years over a bubbling cauldron, fusing these discrete and wonderful flavors into a single magical, flavorful salve. (Most of which, invariably, winds up on your shirt)
Tenderness: There is an emotional connection with ribs that's impossible to achieve with other foods. A steak is a wonderful piece of cow-flesh, but then you spoil the effect as soon as you pick up a fork. You use your hands for a burger, but only after shielding them with bread. More esoteric meats - lobster, for example - involve a combination of utensils so arcane that one has to train in France (3). In Marxist terms, this is alienation - the painful separation of the diner from the core essence of his meal - that is, the meaty mouthful of slow-roasted pork. Forks are for salads. Fingers are for meat.
Rib-eating is undeniably messy, but this only enhances the experience. It is a wonderful escape from the suffocating constraints of well-mannered self-awareness. As Robert Howard once said, "Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must ultimately triumph" (4). Being covered in sauce is the great equalizer - a return to the state of (sloppy) nature.
Footnotes:
(1): For newcomers to this website, 'barbecue' is defined as the preparation of properly-spiced, slow-cooked, lovingly-grilled meat. None of that 'neck a Fosters and dig a hole in the sand' crap.
(2): A sketch of Plato's cave looks surprisingly similar to a proper barbecue setup - including something that looks suspiciously like a quality smoker.
(3): Sure they make good cheese, but would you ever call France 'meaty'?
(4): Quote from Beyond the Black River - widely regarded as the best of the Conan novels. Conan. Now that's meaty.
Ref: Would you ever call France meaty.
Jared. God bless you, you big chump. France is more meaty than anywhere in the United States (with the possible exception of Louisiana which is basically French anyway). The first time I went to France I went to the birthday party of an eighty year old man where they spit roasted an ox. A whole ox! It fed about 500 people and took three days to cook, and the eighty year old birthday boy ate it along with the rest of them. France, like Italy, is a nation where food is THE most important thing (well perhaps the other thing...No Food), unlike your culinary suspicious homeland. Any nation that eats pigs intestines with the shit still inside them (it brings out the flavour of the wine apparently) is pretty much unbeatable when it comes to 'meaty' credentials.
Posted by: Ed Warren | January 16, 2007 at 05:15 PM
Why is nobody representing 'Intestines With The Shit Still Inside Them' in the Meat Bracket?
Posted by: Dan | January 16, 2007 at 05:29 PM
Just because they spit-roast an ox (your phrase) doesn't make them 'meaty'. 'Meaty' is a complex sociological term that takes into account a lot of intricate variables.
For example, the Zidane head-butt actually raised their GMI (Gross Meatiness Index) by 7.3% percent.
Posted by: Jared | January 16, 2007 at 05:34 PM
Jared, you stole my format (despite not having seen it yet). But you missed health. Although added a brilliant one - the messiness, the fabulous messy experience of ribs, love it.
Posted by: Angus Whines | January 17, 2007 at 12:18 AM
Thanks! I'm actually not sure there is a health case for ribs, try as I might.
Posted by: Jared | January 17, 2007 at 01:08 PM
Aren't ribs slightly less fatty than other parts of the cow? Or am I deluding myself?
Posted by: Anne | January 17, 2007 at 07:28 PM
I'm firmly in the sauced rib camp. Some purists go solely for the rubbed ribs, and eschew the sauce.
"Wet" is where it's at.
Posted by: The Guilty Carnivore | January 20, 2007 at 12:18 AM