In Memphis, March is for basketball. May is for barbecue. 

But this May week of barbecue in Memphis, I’m reminded of a moment in March.

I road-tripped through Ohio to see the Memphis Tigers play in the first round of the NCAA tournament in Columbus, and would you believe that a missed timeout call in the closing minutes wasn’t even the low-light of the trip?

OK, it probably was, but compounding the disappointment was a stop through Cincinnati on the way back, where we tried that city’s signature dish for the first time. 

I like road food and regional color, but Cincinnati chili has always been the “classic” regional food I’d viewed most skeptically.

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If you don’t know: Cincinnati chili is plain spaghetti noodles topped with some sweetened chili-like sauce and mounds of cold, shredded cheese. 

But it was a box my wife and I had not checked, and we felt like we should. So we stopped at one of the many well-regarded local shops, and as I ate a third of it and pushed the rest around on the plate, I was less aghast than struck by the similarity of Cincinnati chili to another regional dish: Memphis barbecue spaghetti.

How was it that one is a widely known example of regional cooking, synonymous with its city, and the other is virtually unknown beyond its local borders and is in fact too-little recognized within them?

Could it be that these middle-of-the-country cousins are, respectively, the most overrated and most underrated of American regional dishes?

(Apologies to multiple people in my life who grew up on Cincinnati chili and adore it. As Percy Sledge taught us, loving eyes can never see.)

In one of those internet serendipity moments that you fear might really be your thoughts being read, this popped up days later on a Twitter feed I follow called “Regional American Food”:

A few select replies, annotated by me:

“I mean, I [mess] with shredded pork and noodles in like an East Asian context, so I don’t see why I wouldn’t like this.” (Indeed!)

“I’d eat 30 plates of this.” (Not and live to tell about it, buddy.)

“Idk if I’m disgusted or thrilled.” (Depends on if you’re on bite #1 or bite #20.)

“LIVED THERE MY WHOLE LIFE AINT NEVA SEEN SOME [STUFF] LIKE THAT.” (A too-common experience, I imagine. Time to hit up some new eateries.)

“As a Cincinnatian: what.” (Look and learn, pal.)

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Cincinnati chili (over spaghetti) and Memphis barbecue spaghetti would seem to have similar roots in Italian immigrant cultures meeting North American influences. 

One thing that Memphis barbecue spaghetti masters know that Cincinnati chili slingers somehow missed: The pasta itself needs to carry flavor, not just be covered with it. (Then again, given the chili in question, maybe that wouldn’t matter.)

Before barbecue spaghetti in Memphis, there was barbecue and spaghetti in Memphis, half-and-half plates of barbecue pork and Italian spaghetti. This was a common dish at pioneering Memphis barbecue restaurant Leonard’s, which had some Italian family roots, according to Craig David Meek’s book “Memphis Barbecue.” That kind of half-and-half plate is still on the menu at Leonard’s, and you can find it at Corky’s, too.

But Memphis barbecue spaghetti, which blends these two halves into a whole, seems to have been born, as best as anyone can tell, at Brady and Lil’s, a barbecue shop (future-looking pun intended) that existed on South Parkway at mid-century, and was the creation of owner Brady Vincent. 

Both of the primary competing variations of Memphis barbecue spaghetti today, one at the Bar-B-Q Shop on Madison Avenue and the other at Interstate Barbecue on South Third Street, descend from the late Vincent. 

Memphis Black Restaurant Week: A&R Bar-B-Q

Vincent sold Brady and Lil’s to Frank Vernon, teaching him the signature spaghetti recipe, which carried over when Vernon relocated and rebranded as the Bar-B-Q Shop in the late 1980s. 

Vincent also tutored Interstate owner Jim Neely, a family friend, on the dish. 

You can find the dish at other, mostly if not entirely, Black-owned, Memphis barbecue restaurants. You can get a spaghetti plate at A&R Barbecue or get it as a side dish at Cozy Corner. But Bar-B-Q Shop and Interstate remain the best and truest versions of a Memphis cult classic. 

Today, the Bar-B-Q Shop version is apparently something close to the original recipe; the Interstate version is more of a riff on the original. 

At Bar-B-Q Shop, it still comes mainly on a “half and half” plate, but that means half barbecue (pork or brisket) and half barbecue spaghetti. At Interstate, it’s sold as a dinner plate, with slaw and bread. 

“You can get a spaghetti plate at A&R Barbecue or get it as a side dish at Cozy Corner. But Bar-B-Q Shop and Interstate remain the best and truest versions of a Memphis cult classic. ”

I’ve talked to Frank Vernon’s son, Eric Vernon, about the Bar-B-Q Shop version over the years. The full recipe and technique is guarded, but it involves pork drippings and a slow-smoked base that the pasta is finished in, infusing the noodles with flavor even before the pork or sauce is added. 

The Interstate version seems simpler and slightly closer to Italian spaghetti, but the noodles have also absorbed the flavor. This isn’t just barbecue sauce and pork on top of plain spaghetti. 

Cincinnati, take note.

Which version is better? Personal opinion: Bar-B-Q Shop on the first bite. Maybe Interstate on the last. That one usually comes half and half and the other solo is appropriate.

Both are great and only truly available in Memphis.