When Danny Meyer, president of New York City’s Union Square Hospitality Group (Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Tabla and 11 Madison Park) and one of America’s most respected restaurateurs, decided his next venture was going to be a barbecue joint in New York City, he set out to find the best barbecue in America. He journeyed to Texas, Kansas City and Memphis, but he ended up in Illinois, at Murphysboro’s 17th Street Bar & Grill.
The place is owned by Mike Mills, a man known on the national barbecue competition circuit as “The Legend.”
“For years I had been searching for the holy grail of barbecue,” Meyer said. “I found it at the 17th Street Bar & Grill. Mike Mills is the king of barbecue.”
In a vacant lot across the street and north of the 17th Street Bar & Grill stands Murphysboro’s pastel-yellow water tower, which is stenciled with a big red apple that pays homage to the town’s annual apple festival. It is remarkable that the apple is not shown in the mouth of a barbecued pig, because the tower overlooks the site of the Murphysboro Barbecue Cookoffs, where the Illinois State Barbecue Championship is awarded. It is the hometown event of two sets of champions: the Apple City Barbecue Team (now retired) and the Tower Rock Barbecue Team.
Those who believe Illinois is too far north to have great barbecue should note that Murphysboro is so far south, part of an area known as “Little Egypt,” that some claim it is below the Mason-Dixon Line. It is 335 miles southwest of Chicago, but only 215 miles north of Memphis, home of the greatest pig-cooking fiesta on the planet, Memphis in May.
The stuff of legend
Now the barbecue capital of Illinois, Murphysboro used to be known primarily for its apple festival and for the legend of the Big Muddy Monster. In 1973, several people claim they saw an 8-foot-tall hairy creature covered with mud along the banks of the Big Muddy. A couple of teenagers said the beast smelled like swamp slime. A worker at the fairgrounds reported that it was eyeing some ponies, and Murphysboro Chief of Police Toby Berger said he found a swath of broken saplings and piles of black goo.
If indeed there was a Big Muddy Monster, it was most likely lured out of the muck by the irresistible smoky smell of slow-roasted pork coming from Witt’s, a famous barbecue joint that had been run since the 1940s by an African-American family at a spot not far from the riverbanks.
When I was growing up in Little Egypt, barbecue was the pinnacle of cuisine. I was raised 15 miles south of Murphysboro in Alto Pass, a village known for its softball-size peaches, a 111-foot tall, white porcelain-covered cross that stands on Bald Knob mountain a few miles from town and recently (in this once dry town) the prize-winning Alto Vineyards winery.
In my youth, my grandparents often took me to Murphysboro, where we usually stopped on the way out for smoky, meaty pork shoulder sandwiches with a delicious spicy sauce at Witt’s, the object of many a pilgrimage from the 1940s until owner Carl Wittington died in the early 1980s. (His widow and son tried to keep Witt’s going, but it closed in the 1990s). Witt’s was so good that families came from throughout southern Illinois to sit outside that barbecue maestro’s small place and eat barbecue in their cars.
Not insignificant in Little Egypt’s barbecue history is Witt’s status as a favorite of two local boys, Mike Mills and Pat Burke. Burke would hitchhike from his home at Grand Tower, 18 miles away on the Mississippi River, to eat at Witt’s. Mills used to trade Carl Wittington wild game for barbecue.
Mills and Burke put their barbecue passion to work by creating the Apple City BBQ Team. And like the Big Muddy Monster, they rapidly began to create some legends. Mills and Burke led the Apple City team to world champions trophies at Memphis in May an unprecedented four times in the ribs and whole-hog categories. In 1990, 1992 and 1994, at Memphis, they won the World Grand Barbecue Championship, the national barbecue circuit’s top achievement, a three-peat no other team has accomplished.
After their first appearance at the Memphis in May contest in 1990, the headline in Memphis’ The Commercial Appeal read, “What’s the World Coming to When a Bunch of Yankees Beat You at Your Own Game in Your Own Backyard?”
A team retires
In 1994, after just five years in the circuit, Mike Mills and Pat Burke retired the team from competition after winning more honors than any other team in the 25-year history of international barbecue contests.
Burke still sometimes does catering with Mills under the Apple City name. Burke only stayed off the circuit for a year before forming the Tower Rock Barbecue Team. In 1997 and 1998, the team topped the national standings for most points scored in barbecue competitions.
Mills, who says he “watched and listened to other competition barbecuers who were winning,” honed his cooking techniques to a simple, but nearly perfect style.
Since the early 1990s, Mills’ down-home barbecue joint has been the destination of many barbecue aficionados from around the country. They come to sample his prize-winning ribs, sauce and “Magic Dust” dry rub.
For the past decade, in my home in New York, I had been hearing about the exploits of the barbecue teams from my native region. In September 1999 I attended the Murphysboro barbecue championships to check out the prowess of Little Egypt’s barbecue teams.
There I ran into Michael Romano, chef-partner of Union Square Cafe, and his executive sous chef, Kenny Callaghan, and had lunch with them at Mike Mills’ 17th Street Bar & Grill. Romano and Callaghan were in Murphysboro on a mission for Meyer, whose Blue Smoke restaurant was in the planning stages.
Back in New York, I got the rest of the barbecue story.
“I grew up eating barbecue and I love it,” Meyer said. “I will drive 50 to 60 miles out of my way to try a great barbecue joint.”
Meyer’s guide to the Grail of barbecue in New York was Thomas Viertel, a barbecue aficionado who happens to be co-producer of such musicals as “The Sound of Music,” “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” and “The Producers.” Viertel and a business partner, Rocco Landesman, had attended more than 50 barbecue contests, and Viertel had judged at Memphis. Viertel and Landesman had Mills ship pork shoulder, ribs and sauce to Meyer in New York.
Holy Grail of hog
Meyer was so impressed that he went to Illinois to eat Mills’ barbecue: “I have not had better barbecued baby back ribs in this country.”
Meyer enlisted Viertel and Landesman as investors in Blue Smoke, signed Mills as their consulting partner, commissioned large smokers and a 13-story high venting system, and in April brought the Holy Grail of hog to downtown Manhattan.
Mills trained chef Michael Romano of Union Square Cafe and Kenny Callaghan, now Blue Smoke’s head chef, in the art of smoking barbecue at his 17th Street facilities. He also went to New York several times to supervise the restaurant’s smoking procedures.
Mills’ Apple City team put the Illinois State Barbecue Championships at Murphysboro on the national competition cook-off map and now, a decade later at Blue Smoke, he has put southern Illinois barbecue on the national gastronomic map.
Barbecue tips from `The Legend’
The success of Mike Mills and the Apple City BBQ Team was no accident. Mills, a.k.a. “The Legend,” expounds on his philosophy of barbecue cooking:
He believes in cooking pigs for a long time at a low temperature: “Low and slow. It’s the old smokehouse theory. Cooking a pig takes all day. Anytime we tried to make it easier and faster, it didn’t work.”
Mills uses only apple wood to smoke his pigs and hickory charcoal to cook them. “Oak is too strong,” he says.
“Never shock your meat by putting it into a hot smoker. Start it out cool.”
“Oversmoking destroys the flavor of the meat. Meat should not be too smoky, it should taste like pork.”
Mills uses his secret “Magic Dust” for a light dry rub. He does not use wet sauces on the meat. “Sauces are condiments for use when the meat is served and should complement the meat.”
“Beer is an important part of every successful southern Illinois barbecue team’s strategy,” Mills claims. “For every beer you drink, you should add some more wood or charcoal.”
Mills hastens to add that, while southern Illinois teams put away their share of beer on the circuit, teams that take their pig cooking seriously drink in moderation (intoxication is grounds for disqualification). At least until the judging is done.
You can sample the barbecue of Mike Mills at 17th Street Bar & Grill, 32 N. 17th St., Murphysboro, Ill., 618-684-3722; www.4-17th-rib.com. Mills also ships his prize-winning ribs, sauces and other items nationwide: 888-417-8474.
— Gerry Dawes
Barbecue cookoff approaches
This year the Murphysboro Barbecue Cookoff will take place Sept. 20-21. A maximum of 35 teams will compete for a modest $8,000 in total prize money, which is divided among the grand champion and the top five places in each of three categories: whole hog, ribs and shoulders.
The team scoring the highest total in any category is named grand champion and gets an automatic invitation to the 250-team Memphis in May. They also gain automatic entry into The American Royal Invitational at Kansas City, Mo., and The Jack Daniels Invitational at Lynchburg, Tenn.
— G.D.
