MEAT MAD ROAD TRIP OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH
Clint the chef is quite drunk. It’s late, dark, and we’re stood with him at a totally lightless junction somewhere on the outskirts of Kansas City. The three men who he’s just questioned – the only other people on the deserted road – cross over to our side to get a better look at the large man yelling at them.
“No sir,” says one of them, adjusting his tie. “We don’t drink. We belong to the Church of the Latter Day Saints. You might also know us as Mormons.” And then, after a pause. “Uh… who are you?” It’s a fair question.
“Well,” says Clint. “We’re from Britain. And we’ve come to eat your barbecue.”
“Where are you guys going tonight? Where’s good? You heading out for a few drinks?”
Clint’s right. We are from Britain, and we are there to eat their barbecue. All of it. We are the Mongol Horde, sweeping across the plains of an unconquered frontier, leaving devoured cattle, eviscerated swine and baffled service station attendants in our sauce-smeared wake. Or in more mundane terms: FHM has hopped on board the battle bus of a bunch of mates travelling through the southern states of the US in a bid to track down rad ribs and brilliant brisket. Scott Munro, James Douglas and Clint Britz are to barbecue what your teenage niece is to Harry Styles. Ultra fans. Slobbering meat groupies. To them, the act of taking a post-sack-sized slab of beef and cooking it perfectly in a smoker is an artistic feat, worth travelling across the world to see up close.
They do this, by the way, not solely in a bid to get obese and decrease their life expectancy by about a decade, but because they’re pro
