The iconography of masculine chefs like Mario Batali and Tom Colicchio has turned a generation of men into foodies. Regional cuisines—no matter how sloppy—have become curiousities for the most sophisticated of palates. For the first of a series of articles, we send the Playboy Gourmand to McClard's in Hot Springs, Arkansas to learn the art of grilling pork ribs. Master these skills in your own backyard and you'll be the most popular man in your state.
Bible-thumpers have long since replaced the goons in this sleepy backwater town, but McClard’s is still in business. It has been called the most authentic restaurant in America. Bill Clinton grew up less than a mile away. “The chopped beef and beans are his favorite,” says Scott McClard, greatgrandson of the founder. “When he was governor he would send men down all the time to pick it up, and when he was president I’d meet him at the airport and deliver enough barbecue to fill Air Force One.” Clinton still stops by when he’s in town, as do other McClard’s fans like Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry (who is so into barbecue he bottles his own sauce).
On an April morning just before six a.m., Scott and his father, Joe McClard, are in the restaurant’s dungeonlike kitchen, tossing hickory logs into the bottom of two fire pits, each the size of a Honda Accord. Hanging on the walls are the tools of the trade: iron meat hooks, a well-worn ax. “We do things pretty archaically down here,” Scott says. “This is exactly how my greatgrandfather Alex did it in 1928.” I have come to master the art of barbecue as only McClard’s can do it. Minutes after sunrise I’m in barbecue boot camp.
We start the fire with the logs, newspaper and matches. I manage to get one of the pits going without setting myself ablaze, though it’s hard to ignore the smell of singed hair on my wrists. We load the pits with 35 pounds of pig legs, 50-pound “gooseneck” beef cuts and 20 racks of pork ribs. The meat goes into the pits without any dry rub, no splatter of sauce, not even a dash of salt. Hickory smoke and history offer up all the flavor that’s needed.
By 6:15 the fire is roaring. Research any barbecue recipe and you’ll learn the “correct” temperature at which to cook under the so-called low-and-slow theory: 225 degrees to 250 degrees. McClard’s pits are clocking in at a blazing 500. My shirt is covered in pig blood, and my arms are ready to give out from the weight of Flintstones-size cuts of beef. At 6:20 the Godfather arrives.
Silver haired and gregarious, J.D. McClard, son of founder Alex McClard, started working for his dad in 1942. “I remember the first time I went to deliver barbecued goat to a gangster’s card game,” he says. “I knocked on the door and heard the shotguns lock. When they opened the door I saw all their girls running around in their panties. They gave me a 50- cent tip.” J.D. retired three years ago, at the age of 82. Quick to ask when the Playmates will be showing up, he takes me outside to show off his new Lincoln with plates reading bar-b-q.
He likes to tell the story of how the restaurant was born. In the 1920s Alex was running a little hotel near the entrance to Hot Springs National Park. One guest couldn’t come up with the 10 bucks to settle his bill. “My daddy wouldn’t let the man off without getting something in return,” he says, “so the guy offered to give him the recipe for the world’s best barbecue sauce and teach him the ropes.” Over the next two weeks the two men built a pit brick by brick while J.D.’s mom tinkered with the sauce recipe. “The man took off and never once got in touch to see what we made of the place,” J.D. says. The sauce recipe is a secret to this day, locked away in a safe-deposit box at a local bank—the McClard clan won’t even reveal which bank it’s in.
“There’s really no other like it, and I’ve tasted them all,” Joe says. “It’s tomato based but with a real fiery kick. I know people who use it in bloody marys.”
Finally the time comes to sit down and eat. The dining room looks like it did when Al Capone ate here: red booths, gumball machines. (While “real” barbecue joints have recently enjoyed a renaissance across the country, most places—with their theme decor—are pale imitations of true originals like Kreuz Market in Texas, Pete Jones’s Skylight Inn in North Carolina and McClard’s.) I dig into a plate of ribs and fries—six pork ribs covered with a pile of hand-cut fries.
“Well,” Scott asks, “what do you think?”
What’s more simple and perfect than meat on a bone cooked over a wood fire and eaten with the utensils found at the end of your arms?
“Put it this way,” I reply. “If I were going to the electric chair, this would be my last meal.”
“We’ve had that before,” he deadpans. “There was a guy who was going to get a lethal injection down at the prison in southern Arkansas. They called and said they were coming to pick up his last meal. He wanted a beef sandwich.”
I arrive the next morning after a sleepless night brought on by the ingestion of chopped beef, pork shoulder and McClard’s famous tamale spread (a freakishly good concoction of two hand-rolled tamales topped with Fritos, beans, chopped beef, sauce, onions and cheddar cheese). It’s 5:30 a.m. and Joe has already been here for three hours, making the 24 gallons of sauce McClard's goes through every day.
“Dude, you gotta hear this,” says Scott, coming out of the kitchen. The last time I saw him it was one a.m. and we had just polished off a case of Budweiser. He informs me that Mike, one of our photographer’s assistants, has just thrown 10 years of vegetarianism out the window. Apparently three days of photographing meat was too much for him. “So I heard you gave in and had a rib,” I later tell Mike. “I had more than one,” he replies. “And? How were they?” “Fucking awesome,” he says.
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Sep 3, 2010
