Smoke SIGNALS

MEMPHIS-STYLE BEEF RIBS! I recently saw that banner flap in the breeze outside the third location of One & Only BBQ, a new Memphis-based minichain. Later that day, I stopped for a chopped pork sandwich with slaw at Tops Bar-B-Q, a fifteen-unit Memphis institution founded in 1952. Tacked near the register, a blurry photograph promoted barbecue wraps. Made with flour tortillas, they looked like burritos that got lost in transit from Texas.

In Memphis, where dry-rub pork spareribs and pork shoulder sandwiches became twentieth-century coins of the barbecue realm, and where pork obsessives still convene each May to crown world champions of whole hogs, pork shoulders, and pork ribs, barbecue is in flux. Across the city, across the South, across the nation, new definitions, new dishes, and new personalities have emerged. For lovers of barbecue, this is a time of great change and great promise. It’s also a time of questions: Do