Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- I never thought I’d say this, but I
miss Arthur Bryant’s original barbecue sauce.
His Kansas City smokehouse, which was made famous decades
ago in a Calvin Trillin essay, served a sauce that’s been
described as a mixture of Comet and ketchup. That description
isn’t far off. The sauce’s gritty texture negates whatever
pleasant flavors its ketchup-like ingredients might offer. By
the standards of traditional sweet barbecue sauces, it’s a
bitter abomination. But when it comes to personal aesthetic
statements, Bryant’s sauce is without peer. It represents a
throwing down of the gauntlet; a simple, unwavering declaration:
“This is the sauce we serve. Take it or leave it.”
