YOU MAY TRY TO EAT THEM with a knife and fork, but sooner or later, almost everyone gives up and uses their hands. Don’t be surprised if you end up with 10 sticky fingers and a sauce-smeared face by the time you finish your plate.
As one journalist noted in 1917, “You eat with the tools Nature has given you, and the back of your hand is your napkin.”
IN AMERICA, FOLKS have been eating barbecued ribs from the earliest days of the Virginia colony. They were likely cooked as part of a whole hog, slow-roasted over an open fire and basted with a sauce of vinegar, oil, salt, and red pepper. In the late 19th century, city butcher shops and refrigeration allowed barbecue stand owners to focus on less expensive cuts of meat, like ribs. By that time, eating
