A TikTok BBQ Debate Says Only One Region Does It Right. Texas And Oklahoma Disagrees

I was mindlessly thumbing through TikTok late last night and ran across the wildest trend. Ranking the best barbecue styles by region, and as an adventurous traveling eater who's had it all, it's hilarious how stuck in a bubble some places can be.

You get it too. Perhaps you absolutely love the local burger shack you grew up eating in your hometown. When you've had the chance to share it with others, opinions varied, but it's a hill you'll die on because it's always been the same to you.

That pretty much sums up the barbecue cultures around the country.

Case in Point

There was a TikTok that ranked the Midwest's Tri-State Area of Indiana/Kentucky/Illinois as the only place in the country that can make real barbecue.

If you've never been to the Tri-State, and let's admit it, there's no reason to have been... their idea of barbecue is roasted meat with sweet sauce. Like a backwoods, Appalachian Chinese food restaurant. Unless you want their roasted pork, then it's a sour/mustard sauce like you'd find in the Carolinas.

They don't even know what brisket is in that part of the country... Or really outside of Texas, Oklahoma, and New York City. (NYC pastrami's their brisket, and it's also delicious)

Now, you have to understand that the entire population of the Tri-State likely grew up thinking what they have is barbecue, so you can't fault them much... but for those who've traveled and had the best out there, and still choose to deny it, that's wild!

Opinions Vary

It's not an easy thing to distinguish. What is the best style of barbecue? Every region pretty much does things differently.

Texas is known for brisket. And even I can admit that Texas brisket is the best on this planet. It's because they slice the whole brisket and serve the lean with a heaping helping of rendered fat. Makes it juicy.

At the same time, Texas adopted their rib culture from everywhere else. While they don't always smother their ribs in sauce, they do love their sugary pork. And of those few Texas BBQs that don't, the bitterness of burnt bones overpowers the meat.

It's OK, not everyone can be good at everything.

For instance, Oklahoma tries to do brisket, but every OK BBQ joint I've been to tends to chop the fatty half and only slices up the lean. Makes for dry brisket you have to sauce up. And it's not just the few BBQ joints where I live, it's the same at every Oklahoma BBQ joint I've ever been to. Doesn't matter where they are on the list of Best BBQ in Oklahoma, it's dry brisket. You may love it, but accept that it's wrong.

What Oklahoma Gets Right

Not all Oklahoma BBQ is dry and crumbly, I'm convinced this is the only state that knows how to smoke ribs and bologna.

I also know that is a really hot take, especially with Kansas City within driving distance... but KC doesn't serve ribs, they serve diabetes on a bone. Smothered in sugar, you end up with more sauce in your beard than in your gullet. The burnt ends are OK as a dessert option, but hard pass on the entrees.

Memphis/Delta

Same/same. Too sweet, too smothered in sauce. This area also has no idea what brisket is. It may say "brisket" on the menu, but it's roast.

The Carolinas are so different, do we even dare to call it barbecue? Nobody can deny that they own the whole-hog style of making meat... but it isn't barbecue. They don't smoke the hogs, they roast them over coals in a pit. And while it's not a taste for the faint-hearted, the sweet and sour outcome is uniquely theirs.

Also, North and South Carolina have no idea what a brisket is... and since that's the gold standard of which we, at least those of us in our part of the country, consider to be barbecue, that's why Texas and Oklahoma make up the BBQ destination in America.

Texas owns the brisket and sausage game. Oklahoma owns the ribs and bologna.

Together, the Lone Star and Sooner State makes up the best BBQ region in the world.

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