Live Wire Blog

Smokin’ hot

Posted on Sept. 11, 2008 by Jamie Scheppers
Category: MU Journalism School Centennial

When organizers of the Missouri School of Journalism Centennial and Dedication decided to kick off the celebration with barbecue, they didn’t choose just any old barbecue. They went for the big guns: Mike “The Legend” Mills — three-time Grand World Champion at the International Memphis in May Barbecue Cook-Off, aka the “Super Bowl of Swine.”

Photos by Shane Epping

I stopped by Mizzou Arena yesterday to see how the pre-event preparations were going down. When I arrived, Mike Whiteley of Lonnie Ray’s Barbecue in Harrisburg, Mo., was there with some ribs he’d made. “When I heard Mike was going to be in town, I just had to stop by and meet ‘The Legend,’” Whiteley said.

As if the Grand World Champion designation wasn’t enough of a reason to kick off the centennial celebration, Mills also co-authored a book about barbecue with his daughter, Amy Mills Tunnicliffe, BJ ’86. Called Peace, Love, and Barbecue, the book earns some major street cred in the culinary world with a foreword by “America’s most innovative restaurateur,” Danny Meyer, and an introduction by Vogue food critic and regular Iron Chef America judge, Jeffrey Steingarten. Not to mention a James Beard Award nomination — the “Oscars of the food world,” according to Time magazine — in 2006 in the Food of the Americas category.

Years ago, Mills was working as a dental technician and barbecue was simply a hobby. But things fell into place over time. On a whim, he opened a restaurant in Murphysboro, Ill. His mother made the sauce, and he “practically gave away the barbecue to sell the beer.” Well, now he has a chain of four barbecue restaurants in Illinois, called 17th Street Bar & Grill, and three more in Las Vegas that go under the Memphis Championship Barbecue name.

Mills thinks most people will be surprised by his barbecue. “This whole area is a mecca of great barbecue places, and normally it’s a lot sweeter than the style we do, which is called Memphis style and is drier.”

He isn’t kidding! Mills kindly let me taste some of his first batch — 150 racks that cooked from midnight to about 6:30 a.m. — and they caught me so off guard I was afraid I’d offended him. I’d grown up with very saucy barbecue that didn’t allow the flavor of the meat to shine through, but Mills’s ribs were different. They had a good, dry crust on them, were completely moist on the inside and had a rich pink tint, thanks to the smoke, which (for once) I could actually taste. Sure, there was sauce on them, but it was playing a supporting role to the overall effect, which can only be described as balance.