PLEASE NOTE: THESE REVIEWS ARE FROM THE MENTIONED SOURCES FOR SAMPLE ONLY

Willingham, who competes in contests nationwide, moves in a subculture where serious barbecuers guard their recipes like the most valuable of trade secrets. He defines barbecue, in contrast to grilling or roasting, as cooking meat at 250 degrees or lower for a long time with indirect heat. He encourages 'cuers to build their own cookers and to use wood fuel rather than charcoal. No gas, please. Recipes (more than 150) kick off with starters and breads (using mostly indoor methods) and reach a section called Slow-Cooked Heaven?Real Barbecue, which contains Willingham's World-Champion Ribs: beef, pork or lamb rib slabs marinated and massaged with a dry rub, refrigerated for 12 hours and cooked at 250 degrees for up to five hours. World-Champion Brisket cooks for up to 10 hours at 210 degrees. For those unable (or unwilling) to build or buy a serious barbecue cooker, Willingham provides a recipe for Screamin' Mean Oven-Roasted Beef Barbecue, a three-hour chuck roast. Among the unusual ploys for standard backyard grills is Dancing Chicken, in which the bird is grilled with a half-full can of beer in the cavity. Although he provides many sauces, rubs and marinades, Willingham emphasizes the authentic barbecue cooking process, which makes his book most useful to those with the space and time for a serious commitment to 'cuing. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Nine years and a half million copies after its first edition, this handy resource for barbecue done the right way returns in an expanded volume. The Jamisons have added an extra 100 recipes as well as 20 new recipe variations. Classics like a Humble Hot Dog, which demands a bun of "squishy white bread," and Cajun County Ribs sopped in cider vinegar and Worcestershire share the pages with Jerked Salmon done Jamaican style in a sauce of tamarind, honey and ginger. Sometimes worlds collide as with Southwest Stew on a Stick, chili-powdered sirloin glazed in beer and molasses and served as a kebob. Given the proper amount of smoke and time, even the lowliest of meats find dignity, as with the Triple Play Tube Steak, wherein a two-pound chunk of bologna is draped in sauce and smoked for two hours; the sauce caramelizes, making for a sticky-sweet sandwich. An at-first-surprising inclusion is the Kentucky Burgoo, but it turns out to be merely a mix of chicken, beef and lamb, forgoing the possum and squirrel that sometimes turn up in the stew. The authors end the book with a selection of chilly desserts, such as Peach Melba Ice Cream, and cool drinks like Cold Buttered Rum. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

If you wanted to provoke a second civil war in America, you could propose amending the Constitution to require a single best way to barbecue. As it is, hotly defended differences among styles of barbecue not only are regional but also subdivide into microgeographies as small as an urban backyard. Browne and Bettridge have scoured the country for the "best" barbecue, but no one seems quite able to agree on a single standard against which the thousands of variants may be measured. Add to that the diversity of basic meats that may be barbecued (beef, pork, poultry, lamb, and even salmon), and you increase the catalog exponentially. The authors have carefully documented the basic types of barbecue, and their recipes will only multiply the summertime fragrances wafting from America's grills. Although some of the authors' favorite barbecue items, such as mutton, may be hard to find, most of the book's ingredients are readily available in any large supermarket. Review written by: Mark Knoblauch.