The American tradition of barbecue has grown from Southern roots and expanded to almost every corner of America, including along the coast of California and in Lowell’s own backyard. But this tradition is not just about succulent slow-cooked ribs, perfectly charred ears of corn or wood-smoked chicken breasts; it is about getting together with friends and taking a break from the daily grind.

“There is no better way to wind down after a long week of school than with a big barbecue on a sunny Friday afternoon,” said senior Nick Allen, another member of the club. “It ushers in the weekend wonderfully.”

Aaron Kingon Piggy paraphernalia.Customers enjoy hearty meals in the heavily decorated lower Haight barbecue eatery, Memphis Minnie’s, named after the owner’s Tennesee-born mother.

America’s barbecue tradition dates back to 1492 when Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean, where the native Arawak Indians practiced a style of cooking they called <>barabicu, which means “a sacred fire pit.” The Spanish explorers learned this method of cooking meat slowly over hot coals from the natives and brought it back with them to Europe, according to the California Barbecue Association ( www.cbbqa.com ). In 1608, when English colonists first arrived in America, they brought barbecue back with them to the New World.

The rise of barbecuing in the South can be credited to an abundance of pork. According to an article in the Dec. 12 edition of The New Yorker, no larger animal on the planet reproduces faster than the hog, which explains its rapid spread throughout the South and the rest of the continent. During the Civil War, the hog became a valued food supply for the South, and farmers first began plumping them up to soften their meat.

Today, the traditional Southern style of barbecuing is cooking the meat “low n’ slow.” For purists, the meat must be slowly wood-smoked with indirect heat for several hours and barbecue sauce is added only for flavor and not while cooking. But as with any American tradition, fans continue to develop new styles.

Bob Kantor, the owner of the popular Memphis Minnie’s Texas style barbecue joint, spent the better part of two years traveling around the South researching barbecue styles for a menu he was hired to re-work. “I started to get interested in barbecue, discover what barbecue was, discover some of the traditions and history of barbecue in the South, and I really fell in love with it,” he said.

During his travels, Kantor noted the many organizations involved in promoting barbecue in the South, such as the Kansas City Barbecue Association and the Memphis in May Organization.

Noting that no such groups existed in California, Kantor became the founding president of the California Barbecue Association in 1995. Today, he remains a member but is inactive, busy running his restaurant.

Kantor opened his barbecue joint in September of 2000 on Haight Street between Steiner and Fillmore, and named it after his mother Minnie, who grew up in Memphis, Tennessee.

Memphis Minnie’s is a bright red building with its name scribbled across the front like confetti. A smoky smell hangs in the surrounding air. Inside, an assortment of barbecue T-Shirts and memorabilia line lemon-colored walls, and above the counter where customers place orders stands a carnival of different sized, shaped and colored pig replicas. Red-and-white checkered tablecloths cover less than a dozen small tables.

But the colorful décor is not the reason Lolis Eric Elie, author of Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country, wrote in a review for Gourmet Magazine in June of 2002 that Memphis Minnie’s “may well be the finest restaurant in the state. (Kantor’s) brisket, without a doubt the best I tasted in California, was fork-tender, crusted on the outside with spices and slightly charred meat. Most importantly, the flavor was complex all the way through.”

I couldn’t agree more when I visited Memphis Minnie’s and took my first bite into the smoky, tender brisket sandwich. Although the sandwich and my side order of barbecue fries combined could happily feed two people, I polished my plate after a 45-minute feast. All three sauces on the table were delicious, so I had no choice but to use all of them together.

Memphis Minnie’s honors the American tradition of slow-smoked, Southern-style barbecue. Kantor is particularly proud of the brisket that he cooks for 15-18 hours. “The process of slowly smoking it at a very low temperature for a long period of time takes this tough piece of brisket and turns it into a mouth-watering, succulent piece of meat,” he said.

What makes Memphis Minnie’s especially unique from other barbecue joints in the Bay Area is Kantor’s resistance to allowing barbecue sauce to dominate the flavor of the meat. “I’m a bit of a purist,” he said. “Not everything the sauce goes on automatically turns to barbecue.” Kantor’s approach has gained him fans across the nation. “We have a lot of folks that come from all over the country: from the South and people from Texas,” he said.

One of those fans is English teacher Bryan Ritter. “Memphis Minnie’s is fantastic!” he exclaimed. Like Kantor, Ritter is particularly enamored with barbecue. “I’m a lover of food, and when you barbecue, you particularly make more food than you ever eat, so it’s a great excuse to have a special event with food — food is love,” he said.

He is no stranger to the barbecue scene. When he was a boy, his father was always barbecuing, and being an Eagle Scout himself, Ritter possessed a good deal of experience over the fire before he started barbecuing. “Probably more burning than barbecuing at the age of eight,” he said.

Ritter’s true barbecue experience began when he attended college in Washington, and his brother bought him a Sun Beam gas barbecue with lava rocks. Like any other grill, it requires a personal touch. “You have to be one with the grill,” Ritter said. “You can’t try to control the grill; you have to work with what it gives you. So, if the fire’s too hot or it’s too cold, you have to compensate cooking time. Other than that, just try and have fun doing it because it’s supposed to be fun.”

Last summer Ritter went on a six-week, 8,000-mile long motorcycle tour across the South, passing through states like Texas, Louisiana, Missouri and Kansas. In many parts of the country he saw gas stations with smokers in the back every 40 miles or so. “They smoke this pork brisket for 14 hours, pull it out, and then they take tongs and just start ripping the flesh off and putting it on a sandwich — oh my gosh, I lived on whole pork for about a week,” he said.

Both Ritter and Kantor note a vast array of regional differences in barbecue style. For example, Texas and Southeastern style barbecue are quite different. According to Kantor, Texas barbecue is produced by burning whole logs and then throwing that wood into a firebox that will produce smoke at a very low heat. In the Southeast, like Tennessee or the Carolinas, the wood is put into what they call a burn-barrel, and then burned down to hot coals. The hot coals will then be shoveled into a smoker, giving a very different flavor than the Texas-style meat.

Different styles appeal to different palates. “I prefer a Southern or Southeastern style barbecue; I’m kind of in between,” said Ritter, who enjoys grilling, or cooking meat at high temperatures with direct heat for a short period of time. “I really like spicy things, which come from the Southeast, and I like really smoky things that come from the South. I kind of go back and forth about mixing the smoke and the spice.”

Ritter has created his own barbecue sauce from experimenting with different flavors. He uses Worchester sauce, brown sugar, salt, pepper and sometimes a little beer as a base. “My barbecue sauce comes off very tangy and it comes off smoky,” he explained.

In late October of last year, Ritter and a group of friends visited former Lowell English teacher Lael Hanerfeld at her family’s ranch house outside of Fresno for a weekend. There, Ritter often manned the barbecue grill. One attendee brought some very thick cuts of filet mignon, an already dense steak. “It was a glorious steak,” Ritter said.

Ritter marinated the fillets in red wine with black pepper to loosen them up. He then soaked a bunch of oak wood, burned it down until it turned to coals and cleaned and lowered the grill closer to the heat. Working with high heat for a short period of time, he also threw fresh rosemary branches on the coals so the oils would spark, leaving the steaks with a beautiful, smoky flavor.

The guests were, like Ritter, amazed at the outcome. “Mr. Ritter is a barbecue artist.” Hanerfeld wrote in an email.

But no matter what style barbecue fans gravitate toward, all agree that the social aspect of barbecuing unites them. “The American culture doesn’t have a lot of community based activities — especially in a city — that revolve around food,” Ritter said. “We need to have more food rituals. When you barbecue, you have people over. It’s an excuse to socialize and exchange ideas and good wishes, and we need more of that.”

Allen agreed. “Barbecuing is an activity that really brings people together,” he said. “The combination of great food and great company makes for the best of meals with the best of friends.”

Perhaps that is why the American tradition of barbecue continues to become more popular with the coming of each year, even as it strays further away from its traditional roots.