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By Root 861 0

the pounds of barbecue carried aboard strategic flights. Even if it weren’t at the end of the runway, Wilber’s reputation for serving first-class Lexington-style North Carolina barbecue could never have remained merely local. This place is world class! Since 1962, when Wilber Shirley stoked the oak and hickory coals in old-fashioned pits, he has been known for whole-hog barbecue, chopped and judiciously seasoned with a peppery vinegar sauce. After eight hours over coals, the meat is soft as a sigh, its natural sweetness haloed by the indescribably appetizing tang of hardwood smoke. It is served with potato salad, coleslaw, Brunswick stew (a pork hash with Veg-All type vegetables) and squiggle-shaped, crunch-crusted hush puppies.

Beyond terrific barbecue, the original Wilber’s has the added attraction of serving breakfast, in the form of a buffet with smoky sausages, thick-cut bacon, chewy cracklin’s, biscuits and gravy, grits, and sweet muffins. By late morning, chopped barbecue reigns, and it is served until about nine at night…or until the day’s supply runs out. When that happens, the management locks the door and hangs up a sign that advises, “Out of Barbecue!”

Tennessee

A&R Bar-B-Que

1802 Elvis Presley Blvd.

901–774–7444

Memphis, TN

LD | $

E-mail correspondent sdakin tipped us off to A&R and its pulled pork sandwich, which he declared to be “simply the best in the USA.” As we drove up to the ramshackle smokehouse a few blocks north of Graceland, we had very good vibes. All the signals were right: the parking area outside smelled of smoking pork; a big, happy pig was painted on the exterior wall; and customers were walking out the front door with arms full of to-go containers.

At the counter where you stand and place your order you can hear the blissful smokehouse lullaby coming from the kitchen: chop-chop-chop on the cutting board as hickory-cooked pork gets hacked into mottled shreds and pieces for plates and sandwiches. The sandwich is the classic Memphis configuration: pork mixed with tangy red sauce piled in a bun and crowned with a spill of coleslaw. It occurred to us as we plowed through a jumbo that the slaw in a Memphis barbecue sandwich is as important for its texture as for its pickly sweet taste. The cabbage provides such nice little bits of crunch among the velvety heap of pork.

Beyond pig sandwiches, the A&R menu is full. You can have ribs (wet or dry), catfish dinner, hot tamales, meatballs on a stick(!), and that only-in-Memphis treat, barbecue spaghetti. That’s a mound of soft noodles dressed not with ordinary tomato sauce, but with—of course—barbecue sauce, laced with shreds of pork. It’s weird, but in this city, where restaurants also offer barbecue pizza and barbecue salad, it makes sense.

The ambience of A&R is unadulterated barbecue parlor: quiet enough so you can hear the chopping in the kitchen while you concentrate on enjoying the meal. It is a big place with a lot of elbow room. Raw brick walls and fluorescent lights set a no-nonsense mood, and however hot it is outside, you can count on the air conditioning system to be running so high that it’s practically like going into hibernation. Or is the trance we experienced a result of hypnotically good food?

Alcenia’s

317 N. Main St.

901–523–0200

Memphis, TN

L | $

Everyone who eats at Alcenia’s gets a hug from proprietor B. J. Lester-Tamayo, either on the way in or out, or both. “I feel so guilty if I haven’t hugged you, I’ll chase you down the street when you leave,” she laughs. Her restaurant, named for her mother and granddaughter, is a modest lunchroom decorated in a style that is an intriguing mix of 1960s psychedelic beaded curtains, primitive folk art, odes to African-American culture, and white wedding-veil lace strung up across the ceiling over the large table.

B.J. learned to cook from her mother, who lives in Meridian, Mississippi, but comes to visit and makes tea cakes and egg custard pie and coaches B.J. on the phone when she is making chowchow or pear preserves. B.J.’s turnip greens are extraordinary,