Thanks for the warm welcome everyone and if you're ever passing through the area look me up. We can have ribs from the Stanley Cup. I think it's part of the city constitution that each resident gets time with it 
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Welcome Spoon from Louisiana, enjoy the Wikipedia of BBQ.Comment
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spoon Welcome from Gibsonia (Pine-Richland.) You've joined a great community full of men and women with untold experience who are always willing to share friendly advice. Stick around and join in the fun.
Let's Go Pens!!
BTW, you mentioned you're not a native Yinzer. Where are you originally from?Comment
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I'm part of the yinzer diaspora, my body left in 1987 but part of my soul will always live at the confluence. WTH is going on with Gerrit Cole? He needs to ditch the two seamer and trust that four seamer, if you ask me. Just blow it by 'em.
There is a long, long bbq tradition in the Mon Valley, south of Clairton down to Brownsville. The best known of these is probably Jerome's in its various incarnations, aka "The Rib Joint", and Blaine Hill BBQ. Mon Valley ribs are grilled at high heat, with a fiery hot sauce that tops out at "Batman Sauce". I have a written out history of it somewhere, there were a lot of feuds going on. I'll take a few minutes and find it, and post it up.
Supposedly Jerome lost the recipe for his sauce in a poker game. everyone says they have the recipe but they promised not to share it. I have it, and I promised not to share it, but I've also never made it, as it looks really bad. You can buy it on line: http://www.stellofoods.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=397
I bought some and didn't really like it very much, it wasn't as good as it was when I was 18 and drunk on two beers at 1AM standing in line for ribs.
Right now there is The Rib Cage, in Mon City, claiming "real Monongahela style BBQ" ("Our barbecue is not smoked, but done over an open hardwood fire, as is the tradition in this area. We won’t give you a bunch of hype, but we do have many, many customers who come back time after time and love our food. Check out some of their comments on the Zomato website.") and The Rib Crib, In Elizabeth, claiming lineage back to Blaine Hill.Last edited by Mosca; August 25, 2016, 08:42 AM.Comment
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Here is ONE history, there area many more.
A bit of history.
After over 35 years I am still trying to duplicate the ribs and bbq sauce I had the good fortune of tasting at Joe Gray's ribshack which was located along the Mon river along side the railroad track around Monongahela PA. Just today, an old friend and I were chatting about the recipe and in my searches (googling) I came across this forum. Several of you name Jerome as the proprietor of the shack. Here is what I know.
I frequented the ribshack from the late 60's through early to mid 70's, as well as I can recall. My friends and I made the trip all year round from Washington PA as often as we could even though in inclement weather the off road dirt tracks down to the shack were sometimes difficult to manuever. The shack was open for business 2 days a week -tuesday and either friday or saturday. Those two days, at the crack of dawn, Joe Gray (or was it Grey?) with his helpers Buddy and Red, began cooking ribs, chicken, porkchops, and hotdogs for a bar Joe had, which I believe was in Elizabeth PA., as well as for his "locals". Talk about slow cooking! Food was not ready for customers until around 3pm or later.
The shack was indeed just that....a shack with a big open pit grill in the center of the room and stand up counters around it on three sides. If you wanted to sit you took your food outside and sat on your car bumper. Heavy plastic was tacked up where windows used to be. The floor was dirt. The grill was 4-5ft high and in the back the huge vats of MILD, HOT, and BATMAN sauces sat on part of the grill made up of, well, bedsprings. Joe used whatever wood was available in his pit and in times where good wood was not readily available that included old railroad ties. Finished ribs, etc., were stored in newspaper lined wicker laundry baskets and kept in coolers in the shack next door. Yes, there was electricity. The meat was served on paper plates drenched in sauce with a couple of pieces of white bread. Joe sold soft drinks, and although he hid beer in the cooler, he would not sell it to customers. This is why.
The jungle club was mentioned in some of the posts. I guess at one time this obscure, hidden area was an after hours place of sorts. There was a small concrete building not many steps away from Joe's ramshackle rib place. Anyway, according to Joe, someone had been shot at the jungle club and the cops shut it down. My guess is that police had been paid off to ignore the area until this major situation occurred. I can't say for certain but after all this I'm sure Joe must have been paying off whomever in order to maintain a sub-standard restaurant. Much later the (new? original?) owner of the jungleclub -Jerome- opened a rib place there. Everyone continued to patronize Joe's with incredibly few going to Jeromes. After a length of time the spare shack next door where Joe stored his meat mysteriously burned down to the ground. These places of course were tinder boxes still it was unlikely that there was not a helping hand in the start of this fire. Joe kept his ribshack open. And still, few people frequented Jeromes. I don't remember how long it was after the first burning incident, but the last time we went for ribs we found Joe's shack had been burned to the ground. Word was it was Jerome who had done the deed. Jerome's was open for business but we refused to eat his bbq and never returned to the area. Apparently Jerome usurped the ribshack traditon along with its customers and any new bbq seekers in the area.
Details
Joes sauce was very thin and not at all sweet tasting. I think that's why I liked it so much. If you read the label on the bottled bbq sauce today the first ingredient is usually high fructose corn syrup. YUK. Anyway, for those with any interest, I was once desperate enough to rummage through Joe's garbage cans in search of sauce ingredients. I remember cayenne, yellow mustard, worchestershire, vinegar, and tomato paste containers in abundance. I've been working with those ingredients as a base all these years and still haven't come up with the exact taste.
As far as the ribs go, they were the st louis style ribs sold as long end and short end. They were slow cooked in open air so they didn't get that fall off the bone state which some folks think is a sign of great ribs. To me it means too much moisture; they've been cooked in an enclosed oven or kept warm over steam. One secret Joe showed me is to pull off the thin casing like skin on the back of the ribs. He said it allows the fat to drain out. He hand trimmed fat off each slab. Also, he was known to return ribs to his supplier stating that they were "too fresh". Anyway, the end product was tasty bbq.
Joe's ribs and sauce were the best in the business. I live in Kansas city now where bbq is big business. I haven't found anything that compares to the ribshack and I have done alot of tasting. In my quest for the best I have even won a ribbon for ribs in the American Royal BBQ contest. I keep making sauce from scratch, trying to get the exact flavor of Joe Gray's hot sauce. Did Jerome also get Joe's sauce recipes? If anyone knows the exact recipe, or even the ingredients please let me know.Comment
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Tut299 I got a photograph of a hand written recipe from someone who got it from someone who got it etc., I looked at it and thought about it, and didn’t want to spend my time trying it. I can get it again and send it to you, if you want. In the meantime, you can buy Blaine Hill BBQ sauce on line! The link is to Batman, but you can poke around the site and find Mild and Atomic.
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Here is someone who has spent a good part of his life trying to duplicate the recipe for the sauce (he isn't close).
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Woah. My worlds are colliding here. Father Spoon from Should I Drink That?! I used to listen/watch you guys ages ago. I specifically remember a video where you guys had a paramedic on site just in case something happened. Used to love the show. I think the last episodes I remember listening to was when Bocktown beer opened up in Robinson?
I stopped listening to all beer podcasts cause I couldn't keep up with the influx of new breweries so now I just try new ones as I can instead of the "must try them all" mentality.
Awesome to run into you as I'm literally seeing if my Philly area house will sell to move to the north hills of Pittsburgh.Comment
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Here you go! Use it wisely. With great power comes great responsibility.Originally posted by Tut299
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Welcome!Comment
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BINGO!
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Welcome from St. Cloud, FL.Comment
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Welcome to the Pit, from Yadkin Valley, NC.Comment
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Welcome from OzComment
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Howdy from Wilson County, Texas!Comment
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Welcome from NE FLComment
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