Kansas City barbeque has few equals

Barbequing is Kansas City's favorite pastime. Almost every type of meat is barbequed here, from chicken to ham to ribs. In fact, you don't' have to venture far before hitting a Kansas City barbeque joint. The place is crawling with barbeques. Kansas City also hosts frequent barbeque competitions to reward the best barbeque chefs.

Not only this, Kansas City is also known for a sauce named after the city. All Kansas City barbeques are basted heavily in this sauce during and after cooking. The KC BBQ sauce is rich, tangy and spicy. There is also something called the KC Masterpiece barbeque sauce that was invented by Rich Davis. This is thicker, sweeter and spicier than most Kansas City sauces.

The barbeque culture exists on both sides of the Missouri/ Kansa state line. It incorporates styles from all over the country. So there is dry rub existing side by side with the basting technique with the famous Kansas sauce.

The first recorded barbequer of the of Kansas City was Henry Perry who started working out of an old trolley barn in 1908, serving succulent pieces of rib on old newsprint. This barn was the training ground for the legends like Byrant and George Gates.

Otis Boyd is another name in the barbeque history of Kansas. He was one of the founding fathers of Kansas City barbecue with formal training having attended a culinary school in Chicago before moving to Kansas City in the early 1940s. He established Boyd's Bar-B-Q soon after.

Anthony Rieke made his mark in Kansas barbecue history with a thinner, hotter sauce which was more Southwestern in style than most of the other brands in town, a variation that is still popular today.

So the next time you want to journey through barbeque land try Kansas City. No barbeque lover worth his basting sauces can afford to give this destination a miss.