Growing up in suburban Northern California, with Jewish New Yorker parents, Southern culture was, to put it mildly, not a large part of my early life. So far as I was concerned, America was the West Coast, the East Coast, and a whole bunch of ‘fly-over states’ in between.

But, over the past five years, largely due to living several of those with a Georgian and a Kentuckian, I’ve slowly begun to believe there might actually be something good going on in all those places jumbled up in the beach-less middle.

My iTunes library has filled with bluegrass and alt-country. My DVD collection has grown to encompass swaths of ‘regional storytelling’ – from *Matewan* through *All the Real Girls*.

And I’ve eaten barbecue. Lots of barbecue. With a host of guides ready to toss aside ‘Yankee bullshit’, I’ve toured the range of New York options, tasting scores of hush puppies, comparing the merits of vinegar- and tomato-based sauces, and marveling at the wide array of ways to chop up and char-broil the contents of an average barnyard. (Pig snoot sandwiches? Seriously?)

So it was with great anticipation that, yesterday at high noon, I headed down to Madison Square Park to meet James, Colin and Bill at the 3rd Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party. The event brought together pitmasters from places like Little Rock and Decatur, Murphysboro and St. Louis, Elgin and Driftwood, each carting with them a little slice of home.

Or, as it turned out, a big slice of home. Which was good, because New Yorkers came in droves to the event, yielding hour-long lines at each separate stand. The restauranteurs were ready, having towed along fleets of trailer-hitched industrial-sized grills, and having piled high stacks of animal carcasses, part and whole, bound for fiery fates.

I arrived at the park just after noon, and found James already in line for the Salt Lick’s stand. Ten minutes and ten feet of line later, it became clear my initial wide-sampling intentions likely wouldn’t work out. Buying plates from just two different vendors, it seemed, would be an all-afternoon affair.

Moments later, however, Colin arrived with our salvation: a Bubba Fast Pass he’d scored from a VIP the day before. The pass took us ‘backstage’, past the crawling lines and into the cordoned-off sections behind each stand, where the barbecuing itself was actually underway. From that vantage point, we could amble up to any of the serving stations and score selections of grilled goodness in mere seconds.

By the time we left the park, some two hours later, I could barely walk. Sated and sauce-spattered, I was nearly sweating from the sheer effort of ongoing digestion. James pointed out that he was trying not to step too hard when he walked, for fear of triggering an emergency bathroom run.

But, goddamn, that was some barbecue.

As we headed towards the subway, Colin announced he was considering holding his upcoming birthday party at Blue Smoke, a relatively recent addition to the NYC barbecue scene, which brings a rather New York perspective (“you can improve anything, or, at least, make anything more expensive”) to it all by serving up what might be called haute barbecue cuisine.

Normally, I’d have been more than happy to pencil that into my calendar. But with the taste of authenticity still literally stuck between my teeth, it seemed like, well, kind of a waste.

Turns out, my Southern friends are right: when it come to barbecue, them yankees don’t know shit.