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the theory of low, slow, and long,” Mills explained. For the first couple of hours, the temperature in the cooker is kept down near 100 degrees so that the pores of the meat open up and take in the smoke and spices “like Mother Nature would take in a seed in the springtime.” Then fuel is added and the heat rises to 180 or 200 degrees, where it is maintained until the last hour and then boosted again, this time to 250 degrees, hot enough to form a crispy bark on the outside of the slab and render out that last bit of fat. A rib will go through at least two sweats, as the surface opens up and the natural juices break through, and that’s when the Apple City team sprinkles on its spices. After two or three hours have passed, the ribs are basted with freshly pressed apple juice whenever they look dry, usually about every half hour. And in the final thirty minutes, Mills and his teammates apply two light coats of finishing sauce, which they dry up with more of the spice rub and a little salt. The result is known as a wet dry rib.

Apple City won first prize in Ribs and the overall grand championship in both 1990 and 1992. “Nineteen ninety-one just wasn’t our day,” Mills says. Last year Apple City won thirteen of the seventeen contests it entered.

Early the next morning, before I had dressed, a crisply uniformed man from Federal Express arrived with a cardboard box enclosing a Styrofoam cooler in which lay three slabs of Apple City world championship ribs. Mills’s instructions were to microwave each slab on low, just until the ribs were hot, but not to cook them further. This went without incident. Then, still in my bathrobe, I sat down at the kitchen table, a roll of paper towels on the left and a tall glass of water on the right. In front of me sat the highest expression of America’s proudest vernacular cooking tradition. I recalled the late Jane Grigson’s claim that all of civilization was founded on the pig. Giving muted thanks to the entire species, I took a bite.

Apple City’s were unlike anything I have ever tasted. I grasped two bones and pulled them apart. The firm flesh instantly separated, sending up a puff of steam with the aroma of a clean-burning wood fire and the ineffable, God-given sweetness of pork. The meat was nearly red throughout, moist and entirely free of fat, and deeply flavored with spices and smoke. (Its color and texture resembled pastrami or long-smoked fish as much as it did pork.) And it was profoundly delicious, satisfying every need that the human body and soul have for food, unless you consider cold and slimy greens to be food.

In the blink of an eye, a completely bare bone lay on my plate, then three completely bare bones, and soon a dozen. I considered microwaving another slab or maybe both, but then remembered my wife, who had already left for work. For a girl, she has a remarkably healthy appetite for real pork barbecue, fixed according to Memphis rules.

September 1993

Ingredients in Search of a Cuisine

The pilot guided our little seaplane slowly across Lake Union in Seattle, aimed us at Vancouver Island eighty miles away, revved the engines, and off we went. Soon we were floating over the city and Puget Sound beyond. It was that rare event in the Pacific Northwest—a brilliantly sunny day. The pilot handed me a pair of bright green earplugs to block the roar of the engines as I tried to figure out why the heater was melting my sneakers.

I peered down at the rocky coastal beaches and at the islands dotting the Sound. A friend back in New York once told me that the most wonderful oysters he had ever tasted were gathered at low tide on one of these beaches. His guide foraged for wild onions in the nearby forest, built a driftwood fire, roasted the oysters, and, when their shells opened, tossed in the onions.

This is why I had traveled to Seattle. All the way from New York I could taste the chubby oysters poached in their own sea-salt liquor, rich with woody smoke and the grassy sweetness of wild onions.

I searched the islands below for any trace of a roasting oyster, but there was