The next step is to subject the meat to a long, slow cooking process.

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"I thought all friendships had to be 'slow cooking, ' taking years of experiencing life together, " Ms. Madrigal says.

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Excellent for slow cooking, and it carries over a range of 100 feet (few barbecues are more than 100 feet from an ESPN broadcast).

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There, as well as in other parts of the country, it usually entails a big marbled hunk of pork shoulder, which is prepared using a combination of smoking and slow cooking over a low fire.

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That is basically why it was invented to break down tough, gnarly cuts via long, slow cooking. (The smoke was just a byproduct of the crude fuel that happened to impart deliciousness.) The reason Texas barbecue is served on butcher paper is because it was popularized by butchers looking to move meat nobody wanted.

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Let this roadmap be your guide to the American states and cities that have elevated the act of slow-cooking meat to an art form.

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All vary by the type of meat favored, and especially by the rubs, sauces or lack of sauces, but all use the same method of cooking: low and slow indirect smoking.

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Even so, she spent almost every night of my childhood cooking up homemade meatloaf, slow cookers full of oxtail soup, chicken casseroles and other Midwestern specialties just like her own mother had done, just like she thought she had to.

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And slow cookers, as we've had several fires in homes where children are cooking for their families.

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For this reason, my backyard is a bit of a smoky fantasy: I have a Weber gas grill I love, a large smoker for doing authentic slow cooked barbecue, and a large homemade Argentinean parillada grill for traditional open wood fire cooking, as well as authentic Santa Maria-style barbecue.

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"Slow and low" is the way to go with salmon, said Ms. Louis, as cooking the fish at a high temperature can dry it out.

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