>>> Home Page
>>> Go to Navigation/Site Map
>>> Go to Most Recent Posts

America's BBQ capital Submitted by Michael Fielding on Tue, 04/14/2009 - 10:51pm.

Location

June 4, 1997
Kansas City, Kansas

We're driving south in I-35. It's 9:17 a.m., and it was a good and unexpected stop in Kansas City, that town that would become famous for its barbecue, that town that lives at the westernmost edge of what used to be the Great West, that City of Sculptures and Fountains.

On every block can be found numerous fountains of various sizes and crafted from some very different influences. Most are ornate designes, with the main stream of water jettisoning 10 feet or so into the sky surrounded by smaller jets of water that form tiny arches on all sides of the fountains. One was in the middle of a suburban lake. Another was at the edge of the Plaza - a quarter-mile retail development that people around here call America's first mall. It's all outdoors, and streets run through it, although there are no stoplights, stop signs or yield signs.

Cars go when they please, and pedestrians saunter past the vastly different collection of shops, coffee houses and restaurants.

It's a weird amalgamation of architectural influences - Mediterranean, Spanish, etc. In fact, KC is the sister city of Seville, according to Mike's father. The Plaza was the first place he took us after we arrived in town. All the stores were closed or closing, but there were plenty of window shoppers.

It was quite a few miles from downtown, but I got the sense that the area was similar to the glitzy shops that line Michigan Avenue. But the actual style of the buildings and walls that line the sidewalks is very much influenced by the Spanish.

From there, we went to one of the two KC Masterpiece restaurants in the city. Apparently there are three types of barbecue sauce in the barbecue capital of the country: sweet, hot & spicy and one in between that's a bit thicker. KC Masterpiece is on the sweet side. One of its restaurants is located just at the edge of the Plaza. I ordered a glass of the local brew - Boulevard wheat - and an order of short end spare ribs with sides of baked beans, potato salad and apple sauce. I've heard there's no better barbecue ribs than in KC. Juicy, tender and a little fatty, those were some of the best ribs I can remember I've ever had. And filling. Out in KC, they don't skimp on the servings.

Tuesday we made our way to the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant, where Mike's dad runs a research farm through Kansas State University. It's on the former buffer zone between the plant (where they mainly used nitroglycerine to make explosives from 1937 to about five years ago. Right now, the government is in the process of cleaning it up by burning the buildings, most of which still stand - empty and locked amid weedy lots and narrow, nameless roads that wind through the abandoned ghost town of sorts. To confuse spies, the engineers designed the roads to intersect five or six at a time, and since they're all nameless, it's not hard to lose direction.

The site itself was more mysterious than eerie. Imagine: For 50 years the U.S. government operated a bomb-making plant - just a few miles form the sites of the Oregon and Santa Fe trails where a century earlier Americans migrated west with an insatiable desire to expand - it's that uncontrollable American desire to move, continue to move, outward, away from our established roots in search of establishing new ones. And inevitably we always cross the wrong path somewhere along that journey west - whether it's a physical move or mental.

That pioneer spirit only can be stretched so far. Translated to modern times, it's our perceived military might that always seems to get us in trouble. And ironically it's that search for more, for new, unexplored regions of the spirit that force us to defend it. And so it goes that in the center of the country, among the wheat fields and sunflowers, there sites an army ammunition plant - on land still so contaminated that you can't enter without passing through security at the main gate.

But developers are eyeing the property, and it looks like it will become an industrial park sooner or later. So we arrived at the research farm (which was nothing but trees and grassy fields). Mike and I started to walk into the woods, but my concerns about poison ivy made Mike's dad realize we were in fact walking among patches and patches of the stuff. So we returned to the car.

It was hot and humid, but it never rained. After a while we got out to talk through what used to be a well-traveled road that extended straight out from Kansas City to a little town before the government condemned the land in 1937.

The entire tiny town had to abandon its houses to make way for the plant. Anyway, we walked through a heavily forested area that was flanked on both sides by pastures. We came upon a large creek that acted as a natural road block. Just a few of the rotted timbers that acted as the supports of a bridge spanning the creek were visible - half-buried in the ground and nearly blanketed with overgrown weeds.

Central Kansas evokes memories of Ireland in many ways. Slight, easy, endless hills of green - rocky in some areas and dotted with trees in others. An overcast sky casts a fog-like appearance in the far reaches of the fields.

Eventually we drove about 30 miles east of the city back into Missouri to the Powell Gardens, a botanical garden established about seven years ago.

We're in central Kansas and we're listening to A.M. radio. Here's a sample of what we've heard:

"We gotta get over this $37,000 shortfall so I can perform my exorcism. ... I will provide you with my bonus video after the exorcism."

Yikes.

The garden was pleasant, despite the overcast sky. The gardens feature a host of wildflowers that line the walkway from a chapel to the gardens themselves.

I have to admit I love flowers. I started making a list of what I like. Asters seem to be one of my favorites. But I loved the ribbon grass. The iris, golden peony and celandine poppy (a tiny, beautiful purple flower). The meadow anemone (little, white, buttercup-like flowers). But the one that left the most impression was the white evening primrose. I think it's an annual, but it was amazing: soft-colored pink flowers that grow low to the ground. And the blanket flower (I think it's called golden globe), which is part of the aster family, also caught my attention.

We drove to the neighborhood of Westport, a funky, colorful section of Kansas City loaded with cafes and trendy but subtle shops. Lots of students. Lots of crafts and art. Lots of sculptures.

Colorful houses painted in bright pastels and wacky reds and oranges. Trees. Hills. And a monument marking the start of the pioneer trails. Older man with long hair in pony tails. Parks. Fountains and fountains. Trendiness at its best at the gateway to the west.

We wound up at Arthur Bryant's, which has been called the best barbecue in the world. There's only one restaurant. It's located just down the street from where the Kansas City Negro League team used to play half a century ago. I guess that's how it got started - people stopping by on the way to the ballpark.

It definitely was spicier and grainier than the sweet, smooth barbecue of KC Masterpiece, but I think it was much tastier - soaked on a two-and-a-half-inch-thick beef brisket sandwich with Bryant's fried and a Boulevard Pale Ale. Definitely a better environment: cafeteria-style, gruff black man taking my order and slapping on freshly sliced beef on the thin bread; it's a small place, with newspaper articles and plaques covering the walls. On the side of the sauce containers it declares Bryant's is "the president's choice," named after Jimmy Carter sampled the food and subsequently sent for carry out from the White House regularly.

Casual dining. Messy. Lots of napkins and a big jar of pickles to load on your sandwich. Families, lovers and cops all made their way through the loose screen doors in the half hour we were there. The only people to actually eat in were white. All the black customers ordered carry out. So with the grainy barbecue sauce on my face and a wide-grinning Jimmy Carter staring down at me, with a gritty vinyl tile floor under our feet and sweaty black men plopping handfuls of slow-cooked beef on tiny slices of bread, the experience was something I don't think I'll be able to replicate again.

• arthur bryant's
• barbecue joints
• City of Sculptures and Fountains
• kansas city royals
• kansas city travel
• KC Masterpiece
• Powell Gardens
• Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant
• westport