Three or Four Things on July 4

I’ve been reading the internet and the consensus is clear: the best thing about America is bacon. Everybody knows how to cook bacon. Throw it in a skillet and cook it topside on the stove until it shrivels to a third its original size. Arrange it on a sheet pan and throw it in the oven at whatever degrees you can fat-finger into the Apollo Control Panel. It’s done when the smoke detector alarms the dogs and sends their poor little heads under the seat cushions. Even the attic smells like bacon if you did it right. You can’t overdo it either: it built for American Excess. You can cook bacon until it is completely devoid of H2O and disintegrates into black powder when you touch it. People will still eat it. Even the French will eat it if they think nobody’s looking. It is the only meat that can’t be judged when it is grossly overcooked. There’s something truly American about a carbon footprint that’s longer than it is wide. And on July 4, bacon is but the breakfast-y lead-in to Independence Day BBQ.

BBQ is the closest we Americans get to haute cuisine. We can’t poach fish. In fact, we don’t even know what that means. The French tried to teach us when they came over during the Revolutionary War to help us whoop the British, but it didn’t take. In America, we have plenty of fish, and plenty of poachers, but no poached fish. But BBQ snobs we are. It’s very egalitarian. You can make three dollars a day selling people rancid vegetable oil for brake fluid and still be a BBQ snob.

Pork shoulder is the stuff of fist fights. Don’t believe me? Just eavesdrop on the Lone Star BBQ Society. Want to know the real reason for concealed carry and semi-automatic weapons with large magazines? Brisket. A tough brisket is a hangin’ offense in Texas, and who has time for a trial? Or tying a knot in a rope.

You put your brisket in the smoker at 200-plus “Fahrenheit,” which is German for “degrees.” The question of that “plus” leads to at least six annual gun fatalities in Texas, not mention innumerable Facebook trolls. My plus is 12 degrees. In any case, after about two and a half hours, the imperative question is whether it is time to pull the meat off. Now yesterday, I was on my lonesome on my suburban deck and had no one to argue with. The meat thermometer was reading on the high side of 140 and climbing to 150. It was a crisis. Since I was on my own I did the only thing I could do. I stuffed a cherry bomb in my mouth and threatened to blow my teeth out unless I pulled the brisket off the heat.

Stubbornly, I let it smoke for another 20 minutes and then finally took the brisket off. It wasn’t perfect. It ruined my day and that of 300 million of my fellow Americans, even if they don’t know it yet (but they will if you share people!) It’s embarrassing, but I own it.

Well, today I’m smokin’ the spare ribs, which have been swimming overnight in my secret marinade. Ribs aren’t as sensitive to cooking time. Five or six hours low and slow will be perfect.  In the mid-Atlantic, we’re on the docket for heavy rain come the Fourth, but fortunately BBQ leftovers don’t count as “leftovers.” BBQ is as good as the real deal the next day around, which is not true of poached fish.

Statistically, the only thing more dangerous than BBQ on Independence Day is firecrackers, so be careful out there. Remember, to shut down a bad guy with a bottle rocket you need a good guy with a bottle rocket. Make sure you have plenty of ‘em. Just bear in mind that everything in your arsenal was made in China.

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