I have to admit that I have been questioning the integrity of my pork rub lately. I’ve been eating A LOT of ribs lately, and the rubs all seem far less flavorful than mine. I can only suspect this is to allow the “pork flavor” to “come through”. I use shame quotes because I generally consider such statements utter cop-outs. I happen to like my meat well-seasoned, and BBQ has always meant the presence of a high sweet/savory ratio. I am beginning to think my rub, and resulting ribs, are quite non-traditional.

In any case a few months ago, after maybe three years of pretty slapdash experimenting, I decided to document, as it were, one particularly good combination:

Writing down recipes is for chumps! Well not really, but this is more fun and less work all at the same time. The astute will be able to

narrow the ingredients sufficiently to reproduce it reasonably well. Actually that’s completely false, a bajillion spices could comprise layers of those colors. The pic does however represent ratio well, and with a list of the component spices, I think it should serve as a pretty good template:

• brown sugar
• sugar
• cane sugar
• nutmeg
• coriander
• black pepper
• cayenne pepper
• dry mustard
• onion powder
• garlic powder
• paprika
• white pepper
• ground ginger

Another sneaky ass trick I’ve been trying recently – smoking the rub! Yep, throw your spice mixture on some foil, and smoke it for an hour or so. The result is actually not quite recognizably smoky, but it does add something akin to smokiness. Definitely adds complexity: