St. Louis–Style Barbecue: History and Elements

St. Louis–style barbecue (sometimes styled St. Louis-style BBQ) is a barbecue style defined by the regional cooking process of grilling and then saucing the meat, rather than applying a dry rub and wood-smoking the meat for many hours. As a result, the cook time for St. Louis–style barbecue is much faster than other styles.

However, many St. Louis barbecue joints use indirect heat to smoke meat, à la Memphis- or Southern-style barbecue. St. Louis–style barbecue sauce is tomato-based and sweet but slightly thinner and more vinegary than its Kansas City cousin.

The history of St. Louis barbecue is closely tied to the history of Kansas City barbecue since both Missouri cities were regional meatpacking hubs at the turn of the century. Here are some of the highlights of the region’s culinary history:

• The first barbecue restaurant: Barbecue cook Henry Perry opened one of the first barbecue restaurants in the United States in 1908 in Kansas City. He gained a local reputation for slow-cooking meat over hickory and oak wood. He eventually passed the restaurant on to Arthur Bryant, who opened up his own restaurant where he popularized burnt ends.
• The first barbecue sauce: In 1926, St. Louis’s Louis Maull began selling what he purported to be the first barbecue sauce in the country. Maull’s BBQ Sauce is still a regional favorite.
• St. Louis–style BBQ ribs debut: From the 1930s through the 1960s, smaller meatpackers in St. Louis created a new, more rectangular cut for pork spare ribs that included more meat and removed cartilage from the side of the ribs. They called them St. Louis–style ribs.
• The emergence of pork butt: In the 1950s, local St. Louis grocery chain Schnucks started selling pork butt as a less expensive cut of meat. It caught on, becoming a staple of local cuisine.

As with any regional cuisine, the St. Louis–style barbecue scene is full of debates about what is and isn’t authentic barbecue. Here are some commonly accepted staples:

1. 1. Barbecue sauce: Traditional St. Louis barbecue sauce often includes ketchup, brown sugar, and apple cider vinegar alongside salt, pepper, and spices.
2. 2. Brisket and burnt ends: A shared main with Kansas City barbecue, brisket is traditionally slow-smoked until the meat can fall off the bone. Burnt ends are tougher parts of the brisket that chefs re-smoke or braise until soft.
3. 3. Pork ribs: St. Louis ribs are typically spare ribs rather than baby back ribs. The seasoning varies among ribs recipes but often includes onion powder, chili powder, paprika, and cayenne pepper.
4. 4. Pork steak: Pork steaks come from the pork shoulder and typically get seasoned with kosher salt, black pepper, and apple cider vinegar to start. Other additions may include liquid smoke, brown sugar, garlic powder, and ketchup.
5. 5. Rib tips: Rip tips are the meat that remains after a rib gets cut into the St. Louis–style shape. You can grill or slow-smoke them.
6. 6. Snoots: Snoots are pig noses and cheeks, dehydrated or slow-grilled until crispy.
7. 7. White bread: St. Louis barbecue is often served alongside a piece of plain white bread to sop up the barbecue sauce.

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