Barbecue: 24 Regional Side Dishes: The Origins, Essays and The Hall of Fame

Two-time James Beard Award winner Francine Maroukian ("Best Food Writing with Recipes" and "Best Food, Culture, and Travel") takes a personal look at Barbecue, America's iconic regional food, using immigration to explain why we eat, what we eat, and where we eat it. Leaving the meat to the pit masters, the graphic recipe/story collection includes twenty-four regionally inspired side dish recipes, including "prickle pot" and "sugar", that represent the six major styles of American barbecue: Eastern and Western North Carolina, South Carolina, Memphis, Central Texas and Kansas City.

This 84 page edible history lesson was not produced through conventional publishing. It is a studio book, totally created by three people working from their own ideas, style, and point-of-view.

Despite all the televised food feuds about which technique is tops, barbecue really isn't about "the best." At its heart, barbecue is much bigger than that. It's about community heritage and regional allegiance: Barbecue is about geography.

Find out how barbecue got from Memphis to Kansas City and why the Austrian Empire figures into Central Texas style. Learn how to fit in with the few simple rules of behavior we call "Barbeculture." Tour the annotated side dish "Hall of Fame," and study the "Law of the Slaw," a chart matching slaw to meat style. Flip through color-saturated graphic design and a hyper-real photography style that creates a timeless look, like vintage destination placemats and travel postcards. Give the perfect under-20 dollar gift that combines kitchen know-how with the history of America's most iconic regional food.

Stories and Research by Francine Maroukian

Recipes developed by Tony Aiazzi and The Workshop Kitchen

Designed by Natasha Hulme