The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook

Aliske Webb

Adam’s Search for the Ultimate Rib

We have traveled all across North America, searching for the ultimate rib.

Surprisingly, there are many others who have also embarked on this culinary quest. In

fact, if you mention to someone that you are a “rib freak”, they are just as likely to tell

you about their favorite restaurant, recipe, or sauce. We even have a friend, Gerry, who

collects jars of sauces. Some people have wine cellars, but there’s our Ger, down in

his basement late at night, applying a quarter turn to each dusty bottle, to keep the lid

wet, naturally.

Ribs differ wherever you go. Some people prefer pork ribs, the side variety for

thinness, baby backs for meaty, sweet flavor, country style for thick pleasure, or sweet

and sour cuts. Others swear by beef ribs, from the full bone of the standing rib roast to

the short rib type.

And then there’s the sauce. Ah, sauce! Ketchup-based, mustard-enhanced,

garlicked, honeyed, hickory-smoked, hot, medium, sweet, or even no sauce at all. The

varieties are as endless as the rib aficionados who swear by them.

Many of the commercially prepared sauces rely on an ingredient called “liquid

smoke” to give a hickory flavor to the sauce. Liquid smoke was first commercially

prepared in Nebraska in 1895, originally from the tar of burned wood that was

dissolved in water (boy, does that ever sound good!). Nowadays, it is synthetically

produced and the unhealthy tars and resins have been removed. Because it is

concentrated, a very small amount of this ingredient goes a long, long way and can

easily overpower more subtle flavors. For some, hickory smoke is an acquired taste

and should never stand in the way of enjoying ribs, your way.

And so once committed to the rib quest, one needs to search out, in every

eating establishment, the “rib dinners” on the menu. However, for the true and

venturesome, connoisseur, it’s simply a matter of saying, “I’ll have the ribs, please.”

We have eaten ribs in franchise-type restaurants, in smoky beer joints, in

specialty places where the ribs are smoked in a pit, or baked in a brick oven for up to

24 hours. Naturally we think those at the Quilt Inn are the best. But the joy of the quest

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Country Cooking