Continue your BBQ odyssey with Barbecue Crossroads

Tis’ the season for barbecue! So much so that Texas Monthly gave it the coveted cover story for their June issue – “The 50 Best BBQ Joints in Texas in the World.” In it, Texas Monthly staff and barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn provide a map of Southern BBQ noting Memphis ‘que as “shredded swine” and Mississippi/Alabama/Florida barbecue as “God only knows.” They primarily stick to Texas. Below, we’ve got a map to help you find some of the best barbecue in the southeast based on the work of James Beard Award-winning author Robb Walsh and acclaimed documentary photographer O. Rufus Lovett. They do know the barbecue cultures beyond Texas borders and hit the trail on a mouthwatering epic road trip from East Texas to the Carolinas in the new book Barbecue Crossroads: Notes and Recipes from a Southern Odyssey. You can recreate their journey with the Google map below.

Continuing from our previous installment across Texas and Arkansas, we join Walsh and Lovett in Little Rock as they head east and south, through Memphis, Muscle Shoals, and everywhere in between. Take Walsh’s word for it, “the varied traditions of American barbecue in this part of the country are worth exploring and savoring.”

And, don’t miss Texas Monthly’s first-ever statewide Texas Barbecue Week – July 15-19 and take advantage of deals from BBQ joints across the state!

Disclaimer: The route linked below maps the odyssey Robb and Rufus traveled in the process of writing Barbecue Crossroads. To get the most out of this journey, we recommend buying and reading the book in full before embarking. Enjoy!
Access the Google map here: http://goo.gl/maps/GpEzm

From the book:

North Carolina and Texas make a big deal about their old-fashioned barbecue pits, and those places get a lot of national attention. But the treasure trove of barbecue joints in Alabama came as a shock to me, and so did the variety of shapes and sizes they came in. As a native of Alabama, Rufus adopted a bemused, “I told you so” attitude about the state’s unsung barbecue glory.