Ugly Delicious (2018) s01e05 Episode Script
BBQ
1 Holy fuck! That was epic fail.
American barbecue is distinctly American.
I'm really interested in how the rest of the world barbecues.
I see a lot of similarities in all the cultures.
What if I just cooked Korean barbecue like an American barbecue place? Junior, he's always hungry.
The pop and sizzle of the juicy meat seems to say, "Come and get me.
I'm done to a turn.
" Our barbecue is prepared with just the right amount of heat to keep in the natural juices and hold in that wonderful flavor.
Getting hungry? Well, we wouldn't just tell you about Smithfield Barbeque.
Step up and enjoy one at our refreshment stand right now.
so that today, happy folks in every land are enjoying that old Virginia dish.
Yahoo! This is the first step in the disassembly of the pork side.
These are medium-rare.
What if somebody wants theirs well done? We ask them politely, yet firmly, to leave.
When you bite into that luscious Smithfield Barbeque sandwich, you will find out for yourself why Kings I started in fine dining French cuisine, because there was just some mystical quality that drew me in.
You can find the same things in barbecue.
Log by log.
Ten, twelve, fifteen hours sometimes.
I mean, you get that same engagement, because it's about heart that's in the chef that's cooking it.
Cooking with fire, it's about connection to me.
All right, let's eat.
Oh, yeah.
Beef short ribs.
- Ladies first.
- Oh, thank you.
Oh, wow.
I told you last time, you should just open up a restaurant where this is like sushi.
Exactly, right? It could just be one table at a casino like this, where you just deal out slices of beef.
- It's beautiful.
- Taste that.
- That's gold, right there.
- Mmm.
All right, fine.
I'll taste it.
Mmm.
- Awesome.
- There's really nothing quite like this.
I would pay as much money as I pay in the top sushi restaurants to just sit down, have a nice glass of wine or a cold beer, this Like, why does a steak house have to be what it is? A decade ago, you were pushing crazy boundaries.
I mean, I remember one time coming to Daisy May's, and there was a baby goat covered in, like, dried cherries on the table.
I remember cooking that.
Those were amazing meals.
It seems like your barbecue has changed over time.
I think that traditional barbecue is freaking unbelievable, and I don't wanna change that.
But, for me, I don't look at it as barbecue when I'm cooking it.
I really look at it as just live-fire cooking.
Beef and pork with fire create a super flavor.
You tap into something really fundamental, I think, about humans.
What advice do you give to people who are trying to get into barbecue? Just watch the smoke.
I've been working on a barbecue book for, like, a yearish now and done a lot of cooking myself.
When I was writing for the Times, it was during the first blossoming of barbecue in New York City.
So that was when I got to be more critical about it and started writing about it.
And then recently, it's just become what we do during the summer.
Cook food for everybody where I go to spend time on the weekends outside of the city.
If you're from a place that doesn't have a deep barbecue tradition, your entry into what barbecue is is gonna be this kind of carnival barker-style battle between places.
We're at a very American event.
We are in the middle of America doing it.
And, I mean, it's gruesome or it's beautiful.
I guess that depends on your perspective on things.
Hot barbeque today! You got about five different styles of cooking.
And what we try to do here is to mimic those styles of cooking.
Because the guys that are coming here to cook, they're pitmasters.
They have their style down.
Hot barbecue! What is the definition of North Carolina barbecue, at least for you? A lot of times, Carolina style is what I call it.
It's whole hog, vinegar, pepper, and cooked over wood and chopped.
Hopefully, it's some good, happy pigs.
The one thing I love about Carolina barbecue is they put the skins in there with it.
I've thought about doing it, but then I would be getting out of my lane.
I liken it to the cheese in France.
You drive 50 miles, it changes.
Hot barbeque! In Nashville, we cook really low, and we cook for 24 hours.
We don't want the skin to get brittle, because we need that skin to hold all that rendered fat, to protect the shoulder and belly while the hams are dragging.
What kind of barbecue do you cook? I cook West Tennessee-style barbecue, and our specialty is dry ribs.
Hot barbeque! A true dry rib is smoked with nothing on it except for kosher salt.
And then, we have a barbecue seasoning.
It's not heavy in salt or heavy in sugar like a rub would be.
You get the full flavor of the pork, and you get the brightness of all the spices as a salt substitute.
And that's a true dry rib.
Growing up in Texas, the first time I had Carolina style, it was unrecognizable to me as being barbecue.
My expectation being Texas style were like whole cuts of meat, like ribs and brisket.
Growing up in Tennessee, they did not consider beef barbecue.
They'd tell you, "That's not barbecue, that's a steak.
" And, "Go to Texas.
" This is the style that I grew up on, so I'm cooking it.
I know people are gonna be like, "This isn't barbecue.
" But the little kids that are coming, I take 'em in and open the pig cooler, and they're, like, "Wow!" They'll never forget that.
Hopefully, they become lifelong fans of our barbecue.
Barbecue is America's peasant food.
We didn't invent live-fire cooking.
But I think this country is the one that owned it and said, "We're gonna try to make this ours.
" Hot barbeque! Regional styles of barbecue are only, like, 120 years old.
Like, before then, there weren't barbecue restaurants, so there wasn't an individual style.
That's what bothers me.
It became regional because someone decided to take a chance and do something a little bit differently.
- Yeah.
- Right? And I hate when things become an institution.
That's right.
I think it's a fight against homogenization.
Rather than saying, "We're better.
" - I'm trying to think about it that way.
- Mmm-hmm.
I mean, the pitmasters that I've known and talked to, they don't say, "This is better.
" But they do say, "This is mine.
" Would you three consider barbecue like jazz and baseball? Something that's uniquely American? - I'm gonna say yes.
- Or New World.
Then what about Peking duck? How is that not barbecue? I would call it barbecue.
And then Korean barbecue, which is its own form of barbecue, which is not - Exactly.
- American barbecue.
Only Americans say, "That's not barbecue.
" - It's true.
- No one from Beijing is saying "That's not Peking duck.
" - You know what I mean? - It's true.
It's a very American-centric way of looking at the world, and that's a wrong way to do it, actually.
- Hi.
David.
Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- How're you doing? - Hi there.
- Where's, uh - Up there.
- Oh, he's on there? - I'm up there! Oh, my God! - Whoa! Keanu Reeves? - He was here, yeah.
- Psy? - Psy always comes here, when he's here.
Where are you? How come you're not on the wall? Yeah, uh You took me here.
I've been eating at this fucking restaurant since it opened, basically.
They have every fucking Korean on the wall except for me.
When did you guys open up? You weren't here during the LA Riots.
No.
The street that this restaurant's on, Vermont It was '92, LA riots, it was Everything was on fire.
In 2003, was there already white people starting to eat this kind of food? There was some shift that happened at some point.
There's Chinese food, and then in the '80s, people started eating sushi, and then there was Japanese food.
But Korean food was still, like, an unknown thing.
What I've always loved about your restaurant is all of your banchan is delicious.
That's what makes Korean barbecue Korean barbecue.
You have to have all this.
Yeah, a lot of variety of banchans.
That's really Korean tradition, you know? Like royal cuisine.
The king used to eat with, like, 12 different kinds of That's what I'm trying to tell him.
This is like royal cuisine.
But we eat this shit every day.
So that's why we're fat now.
That kind of eating you would do, like, once a year on a holiday or something.
Sorry, guys.
Hi, I'm Steve.
Nice to meet you.
What's up? - Are you on the wall? - No, I'm not on the wall.
He's not on the wall, either.
No, it's okay.
I come in here with a hat on every time.
After me, he's the next famous Korean - No, no, no.
- and he's not on the wall.
Do you think this is barbecue, like when Americans think about barbecue? Do you think that this is barbecue? - What Americans think about barbecue? - Yeah.
Yeah No.
But it's coming.
- It's coming.
- Right? In people's brains.
But did you grow up eating this? - Oh, yeah.
- See? Korean barbecue, it's not a surprise to me that it's the most mainstream.
You ask anyone now, they'll know bulgogi and they'll know kalbi.
- Kalbi.
- Yeah.
Right? But when you get to real Korean food? People will never eat that.
But barbecue is the vehicle where everyone's gonna understand Korean food.
Because it's so intense and it's still gaining a following, it won't get American-bastardized as fast.
Right? There won't be a distillation to, like, the easiest version of what it is.
I look at the spread, and this is epic.
I don't have to wait for a server being, like, "Next course.
" This is modern-day eating.
People can customize what they want.
It's interactive.
It didn't resonate with me as someone that was a professional cook, until, like, now.
I wanna open up a Korean restaurant.
- You wanna open a Korean restaurant? - I do, I do.
Cut his legs out right now.
- There's no authenticity.
- I know.
Like I'm a Korean Vanilla Ice? - You are a Korean Vanilla Ice.
- Yeah, I am.
I take Korean self-loathing to another level.
Korean Vanilla Ice, though? Just do the rest of the show in Korean.
Let's hear how good your Korean is.
No.
I'm like a Korean that was adopted by white parents, that has an Asian woman fetish.
Places and locations that are sort of cut off from the world, you can actually create something that's never been done before, because you're not really copying anyone else.
Barbecuing is not just big chunks of meat cooking for hours, tasting a lot like smoke.
It can also be very gentle cooking.
Cooking on fire has become the only way that we really cook, like, big item things, like the bone marrows here.
These are some of the items that we use to flavor.
You have stuff like blackcurrant wood.
Chew on this end.
Yes.
There's so much flavor in this wood.
It actually tastes like blackcurrant leaves.
So when you barbecue with this, this flavor actually sort of enters the meat.
This is the spruce wood.
Take this one.
Mmm! - Can you taste the grapefruit? - Yeah.
It's incredible.
From a Christmas tree, you can have grapefruit flavor.
- Why don't we cook the leaves? - Okay.
And then it's just gonna get this gentle smoke.
Enough so that it cooks and kind of crisps up a little bit.
This is also barbecuing.
You know, having learned over a French oven, making sure your cuisson is perfect on it, is it harder to cook it over open flame? Of course.
We've grown up in this period where the technique and the water baths and everything, and we sort of found our way back into this.
But that level of attention that you need to have when you cook here actually makes for a better result.
Let's taste some.
- Now they're changed completely.
- Yeah.
Ultimately, the cooking happens in your eyes, when you smell, on the tip of your fingers.
That's when real good cooking happens.
When you are able to put all those sensibilities into the moment.
You ever get a customer from Texas? Big old guy with a cowboy hat, and you're telling him, "This is barbecued vegetables.
" We had one who said, "Your portions sure are small here.
" They're gonna be like, "This ain't barbecue.
" How do you say it is? Or does it even matter to you? No, I don't care.
- I don't care, I mean - That is so fucking good.
Barbecue to me just represents cooking something in embers and flaming with smoke.
So, to me, this is as much barbecue, even though it's Brussels sprout in the late winter season, as that big slab of meat that, in Texas, you'd consider to be barbecue.
In fact, I like this better.
People get caught up in pits and people get caught up in fuels.
They really get passionate about it.
I'm passionate about telling people, "Don't tell me how to cook my shit, okay?" It's about It's about what ends up on your plate.
All right.
I think this hog is ready.
We're gonna take it, and I'm gonna let my friend Elliot come up here and show you how the North Carolinians do it.
I'd decided I wanted to open my own restaurant, and barbecue has just always been in my heart.
Being a chef in Asheville, people really care about where their food comes from.
I wanted to do barbecue with pasture-raised hogs.
I'm coming to find out that these hogs are expensive, and so we don't waste anything.
Every part of this animal will get used some way or the other.
We get half our hogs from South Carolina.
Greg Moore, he's raising some really nice pigs out there, and we cut the jowls off.
And we actually just hang those over the pits, and they get, like, a nice natural just smoke in One other thing we do, we cook a lot of stuff underneath the pig.
Our green beans and all kind of things.
And this fat just kind of drips right in the pan, right over it.
But one thing in the barbecue business, people just do not wanna spend money on barbecue.
And for the amount of labor and love and how many people's hands touch it, it should be one of the most expensive things you could buy for food.
- Are you from North Korea? - My dad's from North Korea.
My dad's from North Korea, too.
- That explains everything.
- Right? You're the best-fed North Korean that I've ever seen.
I'm gonna be activated by Kim Jong-Eun soon.
- He's a sleeper - Yeah, a sleeper cell.
Why can't you cook Korean barbecue like American barbecue? Yeah.
I bet it'd be delicious.
Then there's no delineation of one's Korean and one's barbecue-barbecue.
- What do you mean? Like with sauce? - Like in a smoker.
Oh, I see.
'Cause I've been to Korean restaurants where it's actually wood in here.
You know what I mean? So, like, what if our ancestors moved to Texas 200 years ago? Of course they'd use the barbecue methods.
That's true.
That's a natural evolution.
Because it's gonna happen, right? But in the future, things will look different, too.
I mean, the world is so much smaller than it ever was.
You have access to things Like, you opened and unlocked the door for every single person to watch that shit.
You had a bigger impact than we did.
No, I'm talking about food, which is the save-all for - But I actually think - He had sex on TV with a white girl.
It was very positive for Asian-Americans.
- Very positive.
- I agree.
I had heard that on the show Walking Dead, the most popular TV show in America, that a Korean guy was gonna have sex with a white girl.
So I got my whole family together, I got my mom, and we sat in front of the TV, and I was like, "I hope this guy does a good job.
I need to see him fuck with passion and, you know, vigor, and" and he did it.
And he pulled his pants down.
And I was like, "Mom, he's doing a good job, right?" That's a historic moment for Asian men.
It has never been documented.
You were the first.
You're like Rosa Parks.
You're like Jackie Robinson.
You're Rosa Parks with We'll cut it for you.
Don't worry, he's wearing red.
Oh, God.
I'm sorry I brought him.
I really am.
I don't need a knife.
I haven't been to this area in, like, 15 years.
- You've lived in China for a little bit.
- Yeah.
- Have you ever eaten street meat before? - Yeah, I love it.
It's awesome.
Oh, man, this shit is spicy.
So hot.
This is so good.
- What is this? - Sugar.
It's caramel.
Like, we can bring stuff here to get caramelized? Tell me if we find something good, we'll bring it to get caramelized.
Tell him I want the duck face and the claw.
I'm not involved in this fucking monstrosity.
We're back.
Sometimes great ideas come from crazy shit like this.
You got the duck face and the duck claw and the candy and the sexy and the salty and the sweet.
And you mix together Okay.
Now, do one with a normal accent, asshole.
I'm like Dave's side bitch that he's embarrassed of.
Oh, my God.
Here's the thing with Choe.
Any time I'm with him, it's a guarantee I will lose my temper and get upset or be embarrassed.
But I always think of Dave as the guitarist in Spinal Tap, when he's like,"I gotta take it to 11.
" People expect Asians as a whole to be subservient, right? Quiet.
You're talking to the two loudest Asians I know.
I'm louder than you are, which is fucking amazing.
If you're Asian and you're on television, you have to either talk with an accent, know some form of martial arts, or you have to be homosexual.
That's what's accepted.
As Asian-Americans, I think we get a ghetto pass to make fun of all the Asians.
Chinese, Japanese, even the jungle Asians, Vietnamese, all of them.
That's what I think.
That's why you don't have many friends.
I don't know why you're even my friend.
I wonder the same thing.
This is like the Heart of Darkness.
The further we go, more delicious.
Wait, what is this? Donkey? Donkey? - There's donkey in here.
- No, let's go.
- Can you not eat a donkey? - No, I'm not eating a fucking jackass.
Eddie Murphy from Shrek.
I just vomited in my throat.
- You don't wanna try it? - I'm not gonna eat that.
- Why? - It's fucking wrong.
- Okay, fine.
- That's Armageddon food.
When there's nothing left on the planet to eat.
You've had the donkey before? Yeah! I would say it's the best meat in Beijing.
Chinese people say the best food the best meat is dragon, which doesn't exist - Do you know where the dragon meat is? - I'd rather eat dragon Where's the dragon meat? It doesn't exist! So donkey is the best.
Wait, the donkey is the best meat you've ever had? Yeah.
- Let's go eat the donkey.
- So far.
Dude, I'm not eating a donkey! - Let's have one bite.
- No, you can eat it.
I protest.
He said it's the number two meat, after dragon.
I'm sorry I brought him to this country.
I don't wanna make light of something that is culturally significant here.
It's not a joke, but it's also part of Chinese culture, so I don't take it for granted.
I just choose not to eat it.
The world should be blessed to have Dave Choe around.
He's a special person.
Number one meat, donkey.
Number two, dragon.
- What's number three? - The others.
- Everything else? - That depends how you cook it.
You're the worst fucking chef ever.
Thank you.
A lot of people feel the same way.
The meat is super tender and flaky, and the bun is awesome.
It's fried.
Would you eat donkey back in LA? I'll eat donkey dick, the balls, the whole thing.
This is why I don't bring you to nice places, Dave.
Oh, okay.
All right, let's go eat some other shit.
I think Peking duck is one of the great culinary pleasures one could have.
How old is this tradition of Peking duck? They've had roasting ducks in China for about 700 or 800 years.
It's a 30-day-old duck that is fattened up so it's really nice and plump.
These ovens Is the wood designed always to be cooked out front? And how does the heat sort of work out? So, here they're using, um, Chinese date.
Jujube wood.
And he's saying the reason that it's outside the oven like that is so the smoke can come out.
So you've got the heat in the oven, but some of the smoke gets sucked out.
But the wood is imparting some flavor? They don't really want to have a smoked flavor to the duck.
But when they bring the duck out, they're giving it a little dance in front of the smoke.
What is the reason for giving them a "dance"? To get smoky flavor? No.
No, no, no, no.
He keeps saying no.
It's a classic restaurant dish, and it originally was an imperial palace food.
You can't make this at home.
No, you can't make it properly at home.
And it's experiential dining, much like barbecue is, right? And I think it's so important to notice why the bottom is still intact.
- It steams the meat from the inside.
- Yeah.
It's so technique-driven.
It's so precise.
And at the end of the day, it is so celebratory to eat.
It's not tricky.
It's not textural.
It's got universal appeal.
I thought the duck was having sex with my mouth.
Looks tan and all slicked out.
It's very sexual.
Oh, look at that, they're rubbing it down.
That's sexy.
- Little massage.
- Yeah.
Looks like he's rubbing sun-tan oil on a tan butt.
- Hi.
- Hi.
This is the special knife that's only used for Peking duck.
It's so, like, surgical, like Oh, my God.
Very romantic.
The sun setting.
Light's hitting the duck just right.
- This is - Really a work of art.
Yeah.
A trained, um, Peking duck chef can cut the duck into more than 100 pieces.
Firstly, have the skin, dip it in white sugar to taste the original fragrance, without any of the trimmings.
- It's so good.
Fuck it.
- It's so good.
You should really eat this as fast as possible while it's hot.
It's no donkey meat, but it's pretty good.
He ate donkey yesterday.
- See? She loves donkey, dude.
- It's delicious.
You don't know who you're eating with.
You think you know everything.
If you like beef, you'd like donkey meat.
It's really one of the best things in the world to eat.
Have you seen Have you seen those meat trees Those trees of meat Growing towards the sun Leaves of meat are falling Into the meat grass So, you're just waiting for some of this to drop through? Um, yeah, just keepin' it goin'.
You know, working with fire is Maybe it's the pyromaniac in me, I don't know, but there's a lot of people that cook barbecue, and it's the fire, I think, that draws them to it.
I hardly get much alone time, and when I do, I love it being at night.
I feel like cooking pigs is It's almost like a psychedelic adventure or journey.
Sweating, being hot.
The way your mind works after being awake for 20 hours.
You know, like, "Whoa, man, I'm starting to feel crazy.
" Just being so exhausted, but also so physically stimulated that sometimes I can't tell if I'm awake or if I'm dreaming.
It's fascinating at night, alone.
Just you and the pig, but that pig's not talking to you.
Just the fire.
And then the sun comes up, and it's almost like a recharge, you know? It's like, "Okay, sun's up now.
You can get some coffee.
I got this.
We made it through the night.
" It's a journey, you know? A little bit lower.
- It's gonna be a little bit.
- A little bit? This is all just its own natural juices.
There's no other thing in this injection.
There's nothing but fat from the hog.
ÃÂ la naturel.
Pretty much, I think y'all can agree this is the best-looking hog out here.
Yeah, keep going.
That's a piece of bacon.
I wish the whole hog was bacon, but it's not.
Everybody at the restaurant asks why we don't have ribs.
You build a barbecue.
Remember that.
You build the flavors as you go.
So you can take it any way that you want it to go with either a dry rib and/or a liquid.
Some bacon.
Help yourselves, and I was hoping to feed the farmer first, uh, since this is his pig.
- Can't thank you enough.
- Yes, sir.
I'll try some of that.
Thank you.
Wow.
Why does that taste so good? Unless you invented fire, you didn't invent barbecue and you don't own it.
I don't have the right to define what barbecue is.
You know, real barbecue is whatever you make it.
Belly.
People need to have an open mind.
If you wanna be one of the best, then you need to be evolving and understand that you don't know everything.
Barbecue has become this thing that the further I waded into the swamp, the further I wanna go, because I think there's that much more to know.
And that's been a really fascinating, fun part.
The more people I talk to, the more there is to learn and then take back home and try to put into practice and see what I can make sense out of.
I was born here in Lexington and raised in Lexington, and as a little girl, barbecue was always a Saturday treat.
So, actually, we're carrying on the Texas tradition.
Saturday only from 60, 70, 80 years ago.
I work for the Giddings Public School with maintenance and groundskeeping.
So is this fun after a long week of work? I mean I wouldn't have done it for 50 years if I didn't enjoy it.
I stay busy.
Getting here at 2:00, getting the meat on, firing up.
So, between 3:00 and 4:00 is about my slackish time.
That's when you're slacking? Between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning? In the morning.
Mmm-hmm.
How often were women running the pit? Was that a commonplace thing? Oh, no.
I know of very few ladies that are pitmasters.
Growing up, it was just the men back there at the pit.
What is the history of having this food ready at eight o'clock in the morning? Is it from people coming off of night shifts or It wasn't eight o'clock until the recognition.
Texas Monthly and The New Yorker came out with great articles.
And then it just snowballs from there.
Now it's normally 40-something people at eight o'clock.
The owner of Texas Monthly came and told us that we were number one in Texas.
And all Kerry and I could do was hold each other and cry.
We never expected anything like that to happen from old country girl's cooking.
These are local places where everyday people come and eat lunch and dinner and feed their families.
And that is the core of what barbecue is.
It's not even a regional business.
It's a local business.
I know in North Carolina or up in the eastern states, they have the pulled pork.
For me, here in Lee County in Texas, I want a nice pretty steak.
I don't want it pulled all apart.
But that's just my personal feeling.
- Thank you.
Enjoyed it.
- Thank you.
- Everything was lovely.
I'll be back.
- Okay.
Thank you.
It's quite an honor.
Uh, I appreciate it.
Uh A lot of people out there love me, and I love them.
Barbecue especially is bringing people together around the table to eat, and that's where the whole idea of regionalism goes out, because there's a generosity in the fact that you got up at four o'clock this morning and drove down here and started a fire and made us ribs - and cooked them in your way and slept.
- I slept here.
I would sleep here, too.
But going through all of that and bringing this and serving us and that experience is the joy of food.
And I think that's where all of the partisan bickering falls apart.
I agree with that.
When I was studying religion in college, studying a certain kind of Buddhism, and, uh, the Dalai Lama basically said, like, "Hey, if, uh, if science proves without a shadow of a doubt that reincarnation isn't possible, then we would adopt that.
" And I was like, "That's fucking crazy.
" It's a whole tenet of for the most part, of Buddhism.
And he's like, "Hey, we'll move on.
We'll accept that.
" I think you just have to be open to things, because you never know who's carrying the keys to your castle.
That, to me, is the fucking most exciting thing, is when you have this revelation, and you're like, "Oh, I'm a fucking idiot.
" Right? I think you gotta be open to that.
Hi.
- Konnichiwa.
- Hi.
Konnichiwa.
Can I Hi.
Really, this is barbecue in a way that I think most people outside of Japan don't know.
Can you tell me what's so special about this charcoal? This is Japanese binchoutan charcoal.
It's really, really hard.
Dealing with this is like dealing with a living thing.
The fragrance envelops the yakitori like this.
Completely different from regular charcoal.
That's the very life of the fragrance of the binchoutan charcoal.
I don't think people understand that this is not just your normal charcoal that you use in your backyard in a grill.
This is extraordinarily expensive, extraordinarily difficult to make and really hard to buy.
It's only because of this binchoutan charcoal and the ash that I'm able to cook this yakitori.
Can you tell me about the chicken and the produce that you use? The bird that I use is from where I was born, Niigata.
I use Niigata bird.
So I use bird from Niigata and Niigata salt from the sea.
The flame goes down bit by bit, then the oil from the yakitori falls as it's been cooked.
The oil from the bird falls down, and it's the smoke that comes up and envelops it, cooking it that way.
So, basically the fat, when it hits the charcoal, when it smokes and flares up, that's what gives the tori the flavor.
I hate TV shows that say, "Oh, I wish there was Smell-O-Vision in here.
" But it's one of those moments where the chicken fat in combination with the charcoal, it smells like barbecue.
Chicken tail.
Holy shit.
It's so good.
You know it's delicious.
This is not just a normal chicken wing.
It's boned out.
It takes a lot of time.
It's not just blindly frying it.
They do the work for you, so you can just take a lollipop bite of this.
And I'd say, for myself, this is one of my favorite things in the world to eat.
And this is the liver that's been dipped in tare? I think this is probably the most delicious.
Eight chickens to make one skewer.
This is the best yakitori I've ever had.
I don't give a shit there's a camera crew right now.
I feel very lucky.
That's right.
The aroma's really there.
Infusing that aroma is my job.
Hold on.
Chef, I have to give you a hug.
It's it's unbelievably good.
Thank you.
You guys know it.
This is not normal yakitori.
This is unbelievable.
He's a master.
Master.
Thank you.
That's the I mean, without being totally cliché and redundant, that's as good as it gets.
And I have a hard time understanding that he's not, like In my mind, it's, like, world-class meal.
It really is.
Yes, he's very famous, but it's like There should be a fuckin' 300-person queue out here right now.
The fact is this.
You guys are out here.
I'm gonna go back inside.
This is the best fucking, uh The best compliment I can give is, while eating it, I'm thinking, "When can I schedule to eat here again this week?" Everything you do when you take from other cultures or other ideas, you have to internalize it and you have to almost rationalize that, "This is how I would have done it.
" Or, "If this was my idea, this is what I would've done.
" And it's using that as a platform to do something better.
Sometimes, that "better" will make it worse.
Right? I'm prone to do that all the time.
Playing with fire is fun.
That's essentially all barbecue is to me.
It's fucking grown men playing with fire.
- Should I not open this? - Yeah, go ahead.
Oh, my God, dude.
- It tastes like kalbi, though, right? - Yeah.
But that's not ready right now? - Almost.
Almost.
- Yeah.
I don't ask you when your fuckin' paintings are ready.
- Yeah, you do.
- I do, though.
- You ask me all the time.
- You're right.
Choe, why are you wearing that? I got paint all over my suit.
So I have a jumpsuit with my suit on it.
I mean, this end is looking nice, but this is where you slice from, and it's not ready.
This little trick is wrap it in plastic individually and then put it in the towel.
All right, so let's do that now.
- I'll get the platter, anyway.
- Okay.
Yeah.
'Cause it'll hold it in.
"Make it fucking happen.
" That's the name of the game.
You wanna help us pack this meat? What's going on here? Um, it smells like lighter fluid.
The whole, uh, place is gonna go up like a powder keg.
Making kalbi.
It's basically a soy, pear-marinated short rib that people eat in Korean barbecue all the time.
But I've never seen it cooked this way.
People don't wanna mess with Korean food, and people don't wanna mess with American barbecue.
- Until today.
- Until today.
So this is the new style.
And, what, my mom's gonna do the traditional? Yeah, your mom's gonna do traditional Korean barbecue.
- Ooh.
- Smells delicious.
Very well.
Finally here.
Oh, is this a taste-test comparison? I didn't know we were in a meat-off.
- Is it the same marinades, or are you - Yeah.
That's basically Mama Chang's marinade.
Just different style.
Dude, you gotta touch it.
It's like meat Jell-O.
- Yo, that looks bonkers.
- I'll let the master do it.
Mom, you can have the first taste.
- Whoa.
Word.
- You should eat this.
- I love it.
Mmm.
- Do you like it? And that's ssamjang.
That's with chickpea instead of your traditional miso.
I feel like now it's healthy.
Now that it's been wrapped in leather.
Do you think it tastes Korean, though? How is it not Korean? It's my mom's recipe.
It's a kalbi marinade.
- I soaked it in for 48 hours.
- Yeah.
- And I cooked it over charcoal.
- Right.
How is that not Korean barbecue? Oh.
There's so many things on the table, it's hard to keep track of.
Man, we're gonna eat till we're so unhappy.
Wow.
- Wow.
I like that.
That's great.
- Yes.
Koreans must spend a lot of time washing dishes.
I have a dishwasher.
- Cheers, guys.
- Cheers.
- Thank you so much.
- To barbecue of new and old.
Thank God for everything.
To the white guys.
Thank you.
Oh, yeah, Mom, you'd be proud.
Dave, he has a Korean wife.
Steve's got a Korean wife, too.
- Yeah! - Him, too.
To your Korean wives.
- Yes, yes.
- Thank you.
- To our wives.
- To our wives.
Cheers.
- How about your wife? - She's Korean.
I just want to fit in.
Let's have a barbeque party It's a sunny day Let's have a barbeque party Under cherry trees Cow's stomach and sausages Shrimp, squid, marshmallows Potatoes, eggplants And, of course, juicy meat Pig out, pig out, pig out! Pig out, pig out, pig out! Pig out, pig out, pig out! At the barbeque party Pig out, pig out, pig out! Don't worry about your diet Pig out! Pig out! Pig out! Pig out!
American barbecue is distinctly American.
I'm really interested in how the rest of the world barbecues.
I see a lot of similarities in all the cultures.
What if I just cooked Korean barbecue like an American barbecue place? Junior, he's always hungry.
The pop and sizzle of the juicy meat seems to say, "Come and get me.
I'm done to a turn.
" Our barbecue is prepared with just the right amount of heat to keep in the natural juices and hold in that wonderful flavor.
Getting hungry? Well, we wouldn't just tell you about Smithfield Barbeque.
Step up and enjoy one at our refreshment stand right now.
so that today, happy folks in every land are enjoying that old Virginia dish.
Yahoo! This is the first step in the disassembly of the pork side.
These are medium-rare.
What if somebody wants theirs well done? We ask them politely, yet firmly, to leave.
When you bite into that luscious Smithfield Barbeque sandwich, you will find out for yourself why Kings I started in fine dining French cuisine, because there was just some mystical quality that drew me in.
You can find the same things in barbecue.
Log by log.
Ten, twelve, fifteen hours sometimes.
I mean, you get that same engagement, because it's about heart that's in the chef that's cooking it.
Cooking with fire, it's about connection to me.
All right, let's eat.
Oh, yeah.
Beef short ribs.
- Ladies first.
- Oh, thank you.
Oh, wow.
I told you last time, you should just open up a restaurant where this is like sushi.
Exactly, right? It could just be one table at a casino like this, where you just deal out slices of beef.
- It's beautiful.
- Taste that.
- That's gold, right there.
- Mmm.
All right, fine.
I'll taste it.
Mmm.
- Awesome.
- There's really nothing quite like this.
I would pay as much money as I pay in the top sushi restaurants to just sit down, have a nice glass of wine or a cold beer, this Like, why does a steak house have to be what it is? A decade ago, you were pushing crazy boundaries.
I mean, I remember one time coming to Daisy May's, and there was a baby goat covered in, like, dried cherries on the table.
I remember cooking that.
Those were amazing meals.
It seems like your barbecue has changed over time.
I think that traditional barbecue is freaking unbelievable, and I don't wanna change that.
But, for me, I don't look at it as barbecue when I'm cooking it.
I really look at it as just live-fire cooking.
Beef and pork with fire create a super flavor.
You tap into something really fundamental, I think, about humans.
What advice do you give to people who are trying to get into barbecue? Just watch the smoke.
I've been working on a barbecue book for, like, a yearish now and done a lot of cooking myself.
When I was writing for the Times, it was during the first blossoming of barbecue in New York City.
So that was when I got to be more critical about it and started writing about it.
And then recently, it's just become what we do during the summer.
Cook food for everybody where I go to spend time on the weekends outside of the city.
If you're from a place that doesn't have a deep barbecue tradition, your entry into what barbecue is is gonna be this kind of carnival barker-style battle between places.
We're at a very American event.
We are in the middle of America doing it.
And, I mean, it's gruesome or it's beautiful.
I guess that depends on your perspective on things.
Hot barbeque today! You got about five different styles of cooking.
And what we try to do here is to mimic those styles of cooking.
Because the guys that are coming here to cook, they're pitmasters.
They have their style down.
Hot barbecue! What is the definition of North Carolina barbecue, at least for you? A lot of times, Carolina style is what I call it.
It's whole hog, vinegar, pepper, and cooked over wood and chopped.
Hopefully, it's some good, happy pigs.
The one thing I love about Carolina barbecue is they put the skins in there with it.
I've thought about doing it, but then I would be getting out of my lane.
I liken it to the cheese in France.
You drive 50 miles, it changes.
Hot barbeque! In Nashville, we cook really low, and we cook for 24 hours.
We don't want the skin to get brittle, because we need that skin to hold all that rendered fat, to protect the shoulder and belly while the hams are dragging.
What kind of barbecue do you cook? I cook West Tennessee-style barbecue, and our specialty is dry ribs.
Hot barbeque! A true dry rib is smoked with nothing on it except for kosher salt.
And then, we have a barbecue seasoning.
It's not heavy in salt or heavy in sugar like a rub would be.
You get the full flavor of the pork, and you get the brightness of all the spices as a salt substitute.
And that's a true dry rib.
Growing up in Texas, the first time I had Carolina style, it was unrecognizable to me as being barbecue.
My expectation being Texas style were like whole cuts of meat, like ribs and brisket.
Growing up in Tennessee, they did not consider beef barbecue.
They'd tell you, "That's not barbecue, that's a steak.
" And, "Go to Texas.
" This is the style that I grew up on, so I'm cooking it.
I know people are gonna be like, "This isn't barbecue.
" But the little kids that are coming, I take 'em in and open the pig cooler, and they're, like, "Wow!" They'll never forget that.
Hopefully, they become lifelong fans of our barbecue.
Barbecue is America's peasant food.
We didn't invent live-fire cooking.
But I think this country is the one that owned it and said, "We're gonna try to make this ours.
" Hot barbeque! Regional styles of barbecue are only, like, 120 years old.
Like, before then, there weren't barbecue restaurants, so there wasn't an individual style.
That's what bothers me.
It became regional because someone decided to take a chance and do something a little bit differently.
- Yeah.
- Right? And I hate when things become an institution.
That's right.
I think it's a fight against homogenization.
Rather than saying, "We're better.
" - I'm trying to think about it that way.
- Mmm-hmm.
I mean, the pitmasters that I've known and talked to, they don't say, "This is better.
" But they do say, "This is mine.
" Would you three consider barbecue like jazz and baseball? Something that's uniquely American? - I'm gonna say yes.
- Or New World.
Then what about Peking duck? How is that not barbecue? I would call it barbecue.
And then Korean barbecue, which is its own form of barbecue, which is not - Exactly.
- American barbecue.
Only Americans say, "That's not barbecue.
" - It's true.
- No one from Beijing is saying "That's not Peking duck.
" - You know what I mean? - It's true.
It's a very American-centric way of looking at the world, and that's a wrong way to do it, actually.
- Hi.
David.
Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- How're you doing? - Hi there.
- Where's, uh - Up there.
- Oh, he's on there? - I'm up there! Oh, my God! - Whoa! Keanu Reeves? - He was here, yeah.
- Psy? - Psy always comes here, when he's here.
Where are you? How come you're not on the wall? Yeah, uh You took me here.
I've been eating at this fucking restaurant since it opened, basically.
They have every fucking Korean on the wall except for me.
When did you guys open up? You weren't here during the LA Riots.
No.
The street that this restaurant's on, Vermont It was '92, LA riots, it was Everything was on fire.
In 2003, was there already white people starting to eat this kind of food? There was some shift that happened at some point.
There's Chinese food, and then in the '80s, people started eating sushi, and then there was Japanese food.
But Korean food was still, like, an unknown thing.
What I've always loved about your restaurant is all of your banchan is delicious.
That's what makes Korean barbecue Korean barbecue.
You have to have all this.
Yeah, a lot of variety of banchans.
That's really Korean tradition, you know? Like royal cuisine.
The king used to eat with, like, 12 different kinds of That's what I'm trying to tell him.
This is like royal cuisine.
But we eat this shit every day.
So that's why we're fat now.
That kind of eating you would do, like, once a year on a holiday or something.
Sorry, guys.
Hi, I'm Steve.
Nice to meet you.
What's up? - Are you on the wall? - No, I'm not on the wall.
He's not on the wall, either.
No, it's okay.
I come in here with a hat on every time.
After me, he's the next famous Korean - No, no, no.
- and he's not on the wall.
Do you think this is barbecue, like when Americans think about barbecue? Do you think that this is barbecue? - What Americans think about barbecue? - Yeah.
Yeah No.
But it's coming.
- It's coming.
- Right? In people's brains.
But did you grow up eating this? - Oh, yeah.
- See? Korean barbecue, it's not a surprise to me that it's the most mainstream.
You ask anyone now, they'll know bulgogi and they'll know kalbi.
- Kalbi.
- Yeah.
Right? But when you get to real Korean food? People will never eat that.
But barbecue is the vehicle where everyone's gonna understand Korean food.
Because it's so intense and it's still gaining a following, it won't get American-bastardized as fast.
Right? There won't be a distillation to, like, the easiest version of what it is.
I look at the spread, and this is epic.
I don't have to wait for a server being, like, "Next course.
" This is modern-day eating.
People can customize what they want.
It's interactive.
It didn't resonate with me as someone that was a professional cook, until, like, now.
I wanna open up a Korean restaurant.
- You wanna open a Korean restaurant? - I do, I do.
Cut his legs out right now.
- There's no authenticity.
- I know.
Like I'm a Korean Vanilla Ice? - You are a Korean Vanilla Ice.
- Yeah, I am.
I take Korean self-loathing to another level.
Korean Vanilla Ice, though? Just do the rest of the show in Korean.
Let's hear how good your Korean is.
No.
I'm like a Korean that was adopted by white parents, that has an Asian woman fetish.
Places and locations that are sort of cut off from the world, you can actually create something that's never been done before, because you're not really copying anyone else.
Barbecuing is not just big chunks of meat cooking for hours, tasting a lot like smoke.
It can also be very gentle cooking.
Cooking on fire has become the only way that we really cook, like, big item things, like the bone marrows here.
These are some of the items that we use to flavor.
You have stuff like blackcurrant wood.
Chew on this end.
Yes.
There's so much flavor in this wood.
It actually tastes like blackcurrant leaves.
So when you barbecue with this, this flavor actually sort of enters the meat.
This is the spruce wood.
Take this one.
Mmm! - Can you taste the grapefruit? - Yeah.
It's incredible.
From a Christmas tree, you can have grapefruit flavor.
- Why don't we cook the leaves? - Okay.
And then it's just gonna get this gentle smoke.
Enough so that it cooks and kind of crisps up a little bit.
This is also barbecuing.
You know, having learned over a French oven, making sure your cuisson is perfect on it, is it harder to cook it over open flame? Of course.
We've grown up in this period where the technique and the water baths and everything, and we sort of found our way back into this.
But that level of attention that you need to have when you cook here actually makes for a better result.
Let's taste some.
- Now they're changed completely.
- Yeah.
Ultimately, the cooking happens in your eyes, when you smell, on the tip of your fingers.
That's when real good cooking happens.
When you are able to put all those sensibilities into the moment.
You ever get a customer from Texas? Big old guy with a cowboy hat, and you're telling him, "This is barbecued vegetables.
" We had one who said, "Your portions sure are small here.
" They're gonna be like, "This ain't barbecue.
" How do you say it is? Or does it even matter to you? No, I don't care.
- I don't care, I mean - That is so fucking good.
Barbecue to me just represents cooking something in embers and flaming with smoke.
So, to me, this is as much barbecue, even though it's Brussels sprout in the late winter season, as that big slab of meat that, in Texas, you'd consider to be barbecue.
In fact, I like this better.
People get caught up in pits and people get caught up in fuels.
They really get passionate about it.
I'm passionate about telling people, "Don't tell me how to cook my shit, okay?" It's about It's about what ends up on your plate.
All right.
I think this hog is ready.
We're gonna take it, and I'm gonna let my friend Elliot come up here and show you how the North Carolinians do it.
I'd decided I wanted to open my own restaurant, and barbecue has just always been in my heart.
Being a chef in Asheville, people really care about where their food comes from.
I wanted to do barbecue with pasture-raised hogs.
I'm coming to find out that these hogs are expensive, and so we don't waste anything.
Every part of this animal will get used some way or the other.
We get half our hogs from South Carolina.
Greg Moore, he's raising some really nice pigs out there, and we cut the jowls off.
And we actually just hang those over the pits, and they get, like, a nice natural just smoke in One other thing we do, we cook a lot of stuff underneath the pig.
Our green beans and all kind of things.
And this fat just kind of drips right in the pan, right over it.
But one thing in the barbecue business, people just do not wanna spend money on barbecue.
And for the amount of labor and love and how many people's hands touch it, it should be one of the most expensive things you could buy for food.
- Are you from North Korea? - My dad's from North Korea.
My dad's from North Korea, too.
- That explains everything.
- Right? You're the best-fed North Korean that I've ever seen.
I'm gonna be activated by Kim Jong-Eun soon.
- He's a sleeper - Yeah, a sleeper cell.
Why can't you cook Korean barbecue like American barbecue? Yeah.
I bet it'd be delicious.
Then there's no delineation of one's Korean and one's barbecue-barbecue.
- What do you mean? Like with sauce? - Like in a smoker.
Oh, I see.
'Cause I've been to Korean restaurants where it's actually wood in here.
You know what I mean? So, like, what if our ancestors moved to Texas 200 years ago? Of course they'd use the barbecue methods.
That's true.
That's a natural evolution.
Because it's gonna happen, right? But in the future, things will look different, too.
I mean, the world is so much smaller than it ever was.
You have access to things Like, you opened and unlocked the door for every single person to watch that shit.
You had a bigger impact than we did.
No, I'm talking about food, which is the save-all for - But I actually think - He had sex on TV with a white girl.
It was very positive for Asian-Americans.
- Very positive.
- I agree.
I had heard that on the show Walking Dead, the most popular TV show in America, that a Korean guy was gonna have sex with a white girl.
So I got my whole family together, I got my mom, and we sat in front of the TV, and I was like, "I hope this guy does a good job.
I need to see him fuck with passion and, you know, vigor, and" and he did it.
And he pulled his pants down.
And I was like, "Mom, he's doing a good job, right?" That's a historic moment for Asian men.
It has never been documented.
You were the first.
You're like Rosa Parks.
You're like Jackie Robinson.
You're Rosa Parks with We'll cut it for you.
Don't worry, he's wearing red.
Oh, God.
I'm sorry I brought him.
I really am.
I don't need a knife.
I haven't been to this area in, like, 15 years.
- You've lived in China for a little bit.
- Yeah.
- Have you ever eaten street meat before? - Yeah, I love it.
It's awesome.
Oh, man, this shit is spicy.
So hot.
This is so good.
- What is this? - Sugar.
It's caramel.
Like, we can bring stuff here to get caramelized? Tell me if we find something good, we'll bring it to get caramelized.
Tell him I want the duck face and the claw.
I'm not involved in this fucking monstrosity.
We're back.
Sometimes great ideas come from crazy shit like this.
You got the duck face and the duck claw and the candy and the sexy and the salty and the sweet.
And you mix together Okay.
Now, do one with a normal accent, asshole.
I'm like Dave's side bitch that he's embarrassed of.
Oh, my God.
Here's the thing with Choe.
Any time I'm with him, it's a guarantee I will lose my temper and get upset or be embarrassed.
But I always think of Dave as the guitarist in Spinal Tap, when he's like,"I gotta take it to 11.
" People expect Asians as a whole to be subservient, right? Quiet.
You're talking to the two loudest Asians I know.
I'm louder than you are, which is fucking amazing.
If you're Asian and you're on television, you have to either talk with an accent, know some form of martial arts, or you have to be homosexual.
That's what's accepted.
As Asian-Americans, I think we get a ghetto pass to make fun of all the Asians.
Chinese, Japanese, even the jungle Asians, Vietnamese, all of them.
That's what I think.
That's why you don't have many friends.
I don't know why you're even my friend.
I wonder the same thing.
This is like the Heart of Darkness.
The further we go, more delicious.
Wait, what is this? Donkey? Donkey? - There's donkey in here.
- No, let's go.
- Can you not eat a donkey? - No, I'm not eating a fucking jackass.
Eddie Murphy from Shrek.
I just vomited in my throat.
- You don't wanna try it? - I'm not gonna eat that.
- Why? - It's fucking wrong.
- Okay, fine.
- That's Armageddon food.
When there's nothing left on the planet to eat.
You've had the donkey before? Yeah! I would say it's the best meat in Beijing.
Chinese people say the best food the best meat is dragon, which doesn't exist - Do you know where the dragon meat is? - I'd rather eat dragon Where's the dragon meat? It doesn't exist! So donkey is the best.
Wait, the donkey is the best meat you've ever had? Yeah.
- Let's go eat the donkey.
- So far.
Dude, I'm not eating a donkey! - Let's have one bite.
- No, you can eat it.
I protest.
He said it's the number two meat, after dragon.
I'm sorry I brought him to this country.
I don't wanna make light of something that is culturally significant here.
It's not a joke, but it's also part of Chinese culture, so I don't take it for granted.
I just choose not to eat it.
The world should be blessed to have Dave Choe around.
He's a special person.
Number one meat, donkey.
Number two, dragon.
- What's number three? - The others.
- Everything else? - That depends how you cook it.
You're the worst fucking chef ever.
Thank you.
A lot of people feel the same way.
The meat is super tender and flaky, and the bun is awesome.
It's fried.
Would you eat donkey back in LA? I'll eat donkey dick, the balls, the whole thing.
This is why I don't bring you to nice places, Dave.
Oh, okay.
All right, let's go eat some other shit.
I think Peking duck is one of the great culinary pleasures one could have.
How old is this tradition of Peking duck? They've had roasting ducks in China for about 700 or 800 years.
It's a 30-day-old duck that is fattened up so it's really nice and plump.
These ovens Is the wood designed always to be cooked out front? And how does the heat sort of work out? So, here they're using, um, Chinese date.
Jujube wood.
And he's saying the reason that it's outside the oven like that is so the smoke can come out.
So you've got the heat in the oven, but some of the smoke gets sucked out.
But the wood is imparting some flavor? They don't really want to have a smoked flavor to the duck.
But when they bring the duck out, they're giving it a little dance in front of the smoke.
What is the reason for giving them a "dance"? To get smoky flavor? No.
No, no, no, no.
He keeps saying no.
It's a classic restaurant dish, and it originally was an imperial palace food.
You can't make this at home.
No, you can't make it properly at home.
And it's experiential dining, much like barbecue is, right? And I think it's so important to notice why the bottom is still intact.
- It steams the meat from the inside.
- Yeah.
It's so technique-driven.
It's so precise.
And at the end of the day, it is so celebratory to eat.
It's not tricky.
It's not textural.
It's got universal appeal.
I thought the duck was having sex with my mouth.
Looks tan and all slicked out.
It's very sexual.
Oh, look at that, they're rubbing it down.
That's sexy.
- Little massage.
- Yeah.
Looks like he's rubbing sun-tan oil on a tan butt.
- Hi.
- Hi.
This is the special knife that's only used for Peking duck.
It's so, like, surgical, like Oh, my God.
Very romantic.
The sun setting.
Light's hitting the duck just right.
- This is - Really a work of art.
Yeah.
A trained, um, Peking duck chef can cut the duck into more than 100 pieces.
Firstly, have the skin, dip it in white sugar to taste the original fragrance, without any of the trimmings.
- It's so good.
Fuck it.
- It's so good.
You should really eat this as fast as possible while it's hot.
It's no donkey meat, but it's pretty good.
He ate donkey yesterday.
- See? She loves donkey, dude.
- It's delicious.
You don't know who you're eating with.
You think you know everything.
If you like beef, you'd like donkey meat.
It's really one of the best things in the world to eat.
Have you seen Have you seen those meat trees Those trees of meat Growing towards the sun Leaves of meat are falling Into the meat grass So, you're just waiting for some of this to drop through? Um, yeah, just keepin' it goin'.
You know, working with fire is Maybe it's the pyromaniac in me, I don't know, but there's a lot of people that cook barbecue, and it's the fire, I think, that draws them to it.
I hardly get much alone time, and when I do, I love it being at night.
I feel like cooking pigs is It's almost like a psychedelic adventure or journey.
Sweating, being hot.
The way your mind works after being awake for 20 hours.
You know, like, "Whoa, man, I'm starting to feel crazy.
" Just being so exhausted, but also so physically stimulated that sometimes I can't tell if I'm awake or if I'm dreaming.
It's fascinating at night, alone.
Just you and the pig, but that pig's not talking to you.
Just the fire.
And then the sun comes up, and it's almost like a recharge, you know? It's like, "Okay, sun's up now.
You can get some coffee.
I got this.
We made it through the night.
" It's a journey, you know? A little bit lower.
- It's gonna be a little bit.
- A little bit? This is all just its own natural juices.
There's no other thing in this injection.
There's nothing but fat from the hog.
ÃÂ la naturel.
Pretty much, I think y'all can agree this is the best-looking hog out here.
Yeah, keep going.
That's a piece of bacon.
I wish the whole hog was bacon, but it's not.
Everybody at the restaurant asks why we don't have ribs.
You build a barbecue.
Remember that.
You build the flavors as you go.
So you can take it any way that you want it to go with either a dry rib and/or a liquid.
Some bacon.
Help yourselves, and I was hoping to feed the farmer first, uh, since this is his pig.
- Can't thank you enough.
- Yes, sir.
I'll try some of that.
Thank you.
Wow.
Why does that taste so good? Unless you invented fire, you didn't invent barbecue and you don't own it.
I don't have the right to define what barbecue is.
You know, real barbecue is whatever you make it.
Belly.
People need to have an open mind.
If you wanna be one of the best, then you need to be evolving and understand that you don't know everything.
Barbecue has become this thing that the further I waded into the swamp, the further I wanna go, because I think there's that much more to know.
And that's been a really fascinating, fun part.
The more people I talk to, the more there is to learn and then take back home and try to put into practice and see what I can make sense out of.
I was born here in Lexington and raised in Lexington, and as a little girl, barbecue was always a Saturday treat.
So, actually, we're carrying on the Texas tradition.
Saturday only from 60, 70, 80 years ago.
I work for the Giddings Public School with maintenance and groundskeeping.
So is this fun after a long week of work? I mean I wouldn't have done it for 50 years if I didn't enjoy it.
I stay busy.
Getting here at 2:00, getting the meat on, firing up.
So, between 3:00 and 4:00 is about my slackish time.
That's when you're slacking? Between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning? In the morning.
Mmm-hmm.
How often were women running the pit? Was that a commonplace thing? Oh, no.
I know of very few ladies that are pitmasters.
Growing up, it was just the men back there at the pit.
What is the history of having this food ready at eight o'clock in the morning? Is it from people coming off of night shifts or It wasn't eight o'clock until the recognition.
Texas Monthly and The New Yorker came out with great articles.
And then it just snowballs from there.
Now it's normally 40-something people at eight o'clock.
The owner of Texas Monthly came and told us that we were number one in Texas.
And all Kerry and I could do was hold each other and cry.
We never expected anything like that to happen from old country girl's cooking.
These are local places where everyday people come and eat lunch and dinner and feed their families.
And that is the core of what barbecue is.
It's not even a regional business.
It's a local business.
I know in North Carolina or up in the eastern states, they have the pulled pork.
For me, here in Lee County in Texas, I want a nice pretty steak.
I don't want it pulled all apart.
But that's just my personal feeling.
- Thank you.
Enjoyed it.
- Thank you.
- Everything was lovely.
I'll be back.
- Okay.
Thank you.
It's quite an honor.
Uh, I appreciate it.
Uh A lot of people out there love me, and I love them.
Barbecue especially is bringing people together around the table to eat, and that's where the whole idea of regionalism goes out, because there's a generosity in the fact that you got up at four o'clock this morning and drove down here and started a fire and made us ribs - and cooked them in your way and slept.
- I slept here.
I would sleep here, too.
But going through all of that and bringing this and serving us and that experience is the joy of food.
And I think that's where all of the partisan bickering falls apart.
I agree with that.
When I was studying religion in college, studying a certain kind of Buddhism, and, uh, the Dalai Lama basically said, like, "Hey, if, uh, if science proves without a shadow of a doubt that reincarnation isn't possible, then we would adopt that.
" And I was like, "That's fucking crazy.
" It's a whole tenet of for the most part, of Buddhism.
And he's like, "Hey, we'll move on.
We'll accept that.
" I think you just have to be open to things, because you never know who's carrying the keys to your castle.
That, to me, is the fucking most exciting thing, is when you have this revelation, and you're like, "Oh, I'm a fucking idiot.
" Right? I think you gotta be open to that.
Hi.
- Konnichiwa.
- Hi.
Konnichiwa.
Can I Hi.
Really, this is barbecue in a way that I think most people outside of Japan don't know.
Can you tell me what's so special about this charcoal? This is Japanese binchoutan charcoal.
It's really, really hard.
Dealing with this is like dealing with a living thing.
The fragrance envelops the yakitori like this.
Completely different from regular charcoal.
That's the very life of the fragrance of the binchoutan charcoal.
I don't think people understand that this is not just your normal charcoal that you use in your backyard in a grill.
This is extraordinarily expensive, extraordinarily difficult to make and really hard to buy.
It's only because of this binchoutan charcoal and the ash that I'm able to cook this yakitori.
Can you tell me about the chicken and the produce that you use? The bird that I use is from where I was born, Niigata.
I use Niigata bird.
So I use bird from Niigata and Niigata salt from the sea.
The flame goes down bit by bit, then the oil from the yakitori falls as it's been cooked.
The oil from the bird falls down, and it's the smoke that comes up and envelops it, cooking it that way.
So, basically the fat, when it hits the charcoal, when it smokes and flares up, that's what gives the tori the flavor.
I hate TV shows that say, "Oh, I wish there was Smell-O-Vision in here.
" But it's one of those moments where the chicken fat in combination with the charcoal, it smells like barbecue.
Chicken tail.
Holy shit.
It's so good.
You know it's delicious.
This is not just a normal chicken wing.
It's boned out.
It takes a lot of time.
It's not just blindly frying it.
They do the work for you, so you can just take a lollipop bite of this.
And I'd say, for myself, this is one of my favorite things in the world to eat.
And this is the liver that's been dipped in tare? I think this is probably the most delicious.
Eight chickens to make one skewer.
This is the best yakitori I've ever had.
I don't give a shit there's a camera crew right now.
I feel very lucky.
That's right.
The aroma's really there.
Infusing that aroma is my job.
Hold on.
Chef, I have to give you a hug.
It's it's unbelievably good.
Thank you.
You guys know it.
This is not normal yakitori.
This is unbelievable.
He's a master.
Master.
Thank you.
That's the I mean, without being totally cliché and redundant, that's as good as it gets.
And I have a hard time understanding that he's not, like In my mind, it's, like, world-class meal.
It really is.
Yes, he's very famous, but it's like There should be a fuckin' 300-person queue out here right now.
The fact is this.
You guys are out here.
I'm gonna go back inside.
This is the best fucking, uh The best compliment I can give is, while eating it, I'm thinking, "When can I schedule to eat here again this week?" Everything you do when you take from other cultures or other ideas, you have to internalize it and you have to almost rationalize that, "This is how I would have done it.
" Or, "If this was my idea, this is what I would've done.
" And it's using that as a platform to do something better.
Sometimes, that "better" will make it worse.
Right? I'm prone to do that all the time.
Playing with fire is fun.
That's essentially all barbecue is to me.
It's fucking grown men playing with fire.
- Should I not open this? - Yeah, go ahead.
Oh, my God, dude.
- It tastes like kalbi, though, right? - Yeah.
But that's not ready right now? - Almost.
Almost.
- Yeah.
I don't ask you when your fuckin' paintings are ready.
- Yeah, you do.
- I do, though.
- You ask me all the time.
- You're right.
Choe, why are you wearing that? I got paint all over my suit.
So I have a jumpsuit with my suit on it.
I mean, this end is looking nice, but this is where you slice from, and it's not ready.
This little trick is wrap it in plastic individually and then put it in the towel.
All right, so let's do that now.
- I'll get the platter, anyway.
- Okay.
Yeah.
'Cause it'll hold it in.
"Make it fucking happen.
" That's the name of the game.
You wanna help us pack this meat? What's going on here? Um, it smells like lighter fluid.
The whole, uh, place is gonna go up like a powder keg.
Making kalbi.
It's basically a soy, pear-marinated short rib that people eat in Korean barbecue all the time.
But I've never seen it cooked this way.
People don't wanna mess with Korean food, and people don't wanna mess with American barbecue.
- Until today.
- Until today.
So this is the new style.
And, what, my mom's gonna do the traditional? Yeah, your mom's gonna do traditional Korean barbecue.
- Ooh.
- Smells delicious.
Very well.
Finally here.
Oh, is this a taste-test comparison? I didn't know we were in a meat-off.
- Is it the same marinades, or are you - Yeah.
That's basically Mama Chang's marinade.
Just different style.
Dude, you gotta touch it.
It's like meat Jell-O.
- Yo, that looks bonkers.
- I'll let the master do it.
Mom, you can have the first taste.
- Whoa.
Word.
- You should eat this.
- I love it.
Mmm.
- Do you like it? And that's ssamjang.
That's with chickpea instead of your traditional miso.
I feel like now it's healthy.
Now that it's been wrapped in leather.
Do you think it tastes Korean, though? How is it not Korean? It's my mom's recipe.
It's a kalbi marinade.
- I soaked it in for 48 hours.
- Yeah.
- And I cooked it over charcoal.
- Right.
How is that not Korean barbecue? Oh.
There's so many things on the table, it's hard to keep track of.
Man, we're gonna eat till we're so unhappy.
Wow.
- Wow.
I like that.
That's great.
- Yes.
Koreans must spend a lot of time washing dishes.
I have a dishwasher.
- Cheers, guys.
- Cheers.
- Thank you so much.
- To barbecue of new and old.
Thank God for everything.
To the white guys.
Thank you.
Oh, yeah, Mom, you'd be proud.
Dave, he has a Korean wife.
Steve's got a Korean wife, too.
- Yeah! - Him, too.
To your Korean wives.
- Yes, yes.
- Thank you.
- To our wives.
- To our wives.
Cheers.
- How about your wife? - She's Korean.
I just want to fit in.
Let's have a barbeque party It's a sunny day Let's have a barbeque party Under cherry trees Cow's stomach and sausages Shrimp, squid, marshmallows Potatoes, eggplants And, of course, juicy meat Pig out, pig out, pig out! Pig out, pig out, pig out! Pig out, pig out, pig out! At the barbeque party Pig out, pig out, pig out! Don't worry about your diet Pig out! Pig out! Pig out! Pig out!