IT AIN'T NO GOOD IF IT AIN'T GOT THAT WOOD
"If it's not cooked with wood, it's not barbecue." (Pete Jones)
“When I see the future of barbecue I see pits, I see fire, I see wood-burning, I see my style of barbecue.” (Rodney Scott)
“Our method of cooking whole hogs over hardwood coals overnight is not easy or cheap, but it is the right way, and something we as a community take a lot of pride in.” (Wilber Shirley)
“If you get into the spot and you don’t smell or see wood, just get out of there. It’s not worth it.” (Billy Durney)
“There is only one way to cook barbecue and that is the way I am doing it, over a wood fire, with properly constructed oven and pit.” (Henry Perry)
“’Barbecue’ was just one thing: flesh slow-cooked over hardwood coals until it was dense, fragrant, savory – something that would collapse into a tangle of moist shreds when tugged at with a fork.” (John Thorne)
“Where there’s no smoke, there’s not real ribs.” (James Lemons)
“Wood is harder to cook with, because it flames and you have to watch and control the fire at all time. For me, it's better, more tender, and you get a good smoke ring from wood. Gas is just like if your mother is cooking it — she just goes in there, turns the dial up, sets it and walks away — you can't do that here.” (Robert Adams, Sr.)
“If you don’t smell smoke, the BBQ’s a joke.” (Moose’s Famous BBQ)
“The nice thing about cooking barbecue with gas is that you can control the heat. But you’re going to go to hell.” (Alton Brown)
“To anyone deeply into barbecue, the idea of cooking it any way other than over live coals is as repugnant as, say, artificial potato chips or ‘whipped cream’ that never saw the inside of a cow.” (Tom Wicker)
“Gas smokers produce a harsher smoke flavor that will have you burping up smoke all day. . . . If there isn’t smoke, they aren't cooking barbecue.” (Elliott Moss)
“Gas-cooked BBQ may be good, but it will never be exceptional. [Wood smoke] adds a flavor, an essence that the convenience of gas simply cannot provide.” (Jim Roller)
"Any sumbitch with a timer can cook a pig with gas." (Smokey Colwell)
“What makes Central Texas barbecue is post oak—that’s our regional white oak. Barbecue’s just kind of gotten homogenized in a lot of ways, so I encourage people for whatever region you live in, use the local wood, if it’s hickory or it’s mesquite or it’s pecan or if you have red oak or almond. But that’s kind of what makes a regional specialty. That’s what barbecue used to be—you had different animals and different woods and that’s what made that style. You don’t have to get post oak from Texas, just use what you have.” (Aaron Franklin")
“With wood, sometimes you get an inferior plate. But then (and more often) you also get that unbelievable plate of meat so rich, so succulent, so deeply flavorful with whatever magic the pitman could command that you were connected with the ancient longings of the species itself.” (Jim Shahin)
“Barbecue without wood is like French food without butter, inappropriate and insulting.” (Alan Richman)
"Not having [barbecue] cooked slowly over a wood fire by a sullen man with a squint is like saying that a symphony orchestra would be cheaper without the violins." (Calvin Trillin)
“Any ‘barbecue’ that can be improved by the addition of Liquid Smoke is hard to take seriously.” (John Shelton Reed)
"Wood smoke has been called the umami of barbecue. It is certainly barbecue’s soul." (Steven Raichlen)
"I believe there is no substitute for making your own coals and smoking meat in a masonry pit." (Myron Mixon)
“I believe that when you combine wood, smoke, meat, salt, and fire, you are appealing to an appetite so deeply rooted in the human genome that it is instinctual.” (Peter Kaminsky)
"If you can't see or smell a smoker, there's a chance you're being taken for a fool." (Michael Bartiromo)
"You can't beat the old way of cooking. . . . But putting it in a gas cooker? That's like putting barbecue in the stove in your house.” (Mark Johnson)
“If you walk into a place that cooks over gas or on a rotisserie and it has the name barbecue on the front and you've never had it any other way, then it’s pretty good, I guess. But how do you really know what's good if you've never had it cooked the right way?" (Ed Mitchell)
“I keep cooking with wood because I'm chasing that flavor. I want it to be really good.” (Keith Allen)
“People say it’s impossible to smoke the real way in the city. It’s not impossible. There are a lot of regulations, but you can do it.” (Daniel Delaney)
“If you cook your meat with electricity or gas, you do not have barbecue; you have roast pork. And you can do that with an oven in your kitchen.” (Jim Early)
“When you cut through the haze, ultimately, it is smoke that differentiates barbecue from other types of cooking. The fact is that there are many forms of barbecue around the world and it is the presence of smoke that unifies them all.” (Meathead Goldwyn)
“Smokin’ in the boys room.” (Motley Crue, possibly advocating on behalf of the Campaign for Real Barbecue)
“Barbecued meats, such as product labeled ‘Beef Barbecue’ or ‘Barbecued Pork,’ shall be cooked by the direct action of dry heat resulting from the burning of hard wood or the hot coals therefrom for a sufficient period to assume the usual characteristics of a barbecued article, which include the formation of a brown crust on the surface and the rendering of surface fat.” (Code of Federal Regulations -- Title 9: 319.80)
“You can’t reach the highest pinnacle of true barbecue without hardwood smoke, a slow fire, and time, precious time.” (John Egerton)
“The difference between good barbecue and great barbecue rests with a pitmaster’s understanding of smoke.” (Anthony Bourdain)
“Barbecue without smoke is like the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger.“ (Dan Levine)
"Wanna know how good a barbecue restaurant is? Take a look at the size of their woodpile." (Big Bob Gibson)
"Look, it's easier and cheaper to make the meat in an oven, cover it with sauce and call it barbecue, but if there is no wood and no smoke, then it's not barbecue." (Bob Kantor)
"It's a fact that with gas, you're just not going to get the same flavor." (Chris Lilly)