S-A Barbecue – Albuquerque, New Mexico
London-based restaurant critic Jay Rayner makes barbecue sound a bit like a scientific process: “the long, virtuous interplay of fire, smoke and time on cow and pig muscle fibre; who sees only joyous caramelisation and the deep flavours gifted by the Maillard reaction, when heat says hello to amino acids and natural sugars and they all get along famously.” He’s actually quite right, but most of us got enough chemistry formulas in high school. We recognize that at its most basic, the formula for barbecue is expressed much more simply: meat plus smoke plus time plus (or minus) sauce equals delicious bliss. Okay, my formula only sounds simple. Mastering the art and science of “low and slow” actually takes…