Going hog wild for LI ribs

Give us ribs. Meaty, smoky, tender pork ribs. Make them with a dry rub or slather them with secret sauce. Then throw down some extra napkins and go away. It's not a pretty sight to see us drenched in BBQ drippings. But we don't care.

We love the kind of magic that happens when meat meets wood smoke.

"It's all about the balance of the seasoning, the tenderness of a good piece of properly smoked meat," said Al Horowitz, owner of two Smokin' Al's Famous BBQ Joints, in Bay Shore and Massapequa Park.

But all pigs are not created equal, Horowitz said. Fat content can vary from one rack to the next. So, to keep those ribs reliable, Horowitz has racks checked for tenderness and moistness by gloved crew members, who open and touch them straight out of the smoker.

Who needs knives and forks? "People just like to eat with their hands," said Dan Monteforte, pitmaster at Swingbellys Beachside BBQ in Long Beach. "There's something soulful about that."

Here are some favorite places to hunker down with a rack:

12 Indian Head Rd., Kings Park

631-292-2520, dixiessmokehouse.com

528 Main St., Islip

631-581-1550, lilyflanagansbar.com.

234 Jericho Tpke. (Muttontown Plaza), Syosset

516-682-9200, marashomemade.com

2367 Hempstead Tpke., East Meadow

516-731-4227, rubbbq.net

 19 W. Main St., Bay Shore, 631-206-3000;

4847 Merrick Rd., Massapequa Park, 516-799-4700

909 W. Beech St., Long Beach

516-431-3464, swingbellysbbq.com

3357 Merrick Rd., Wantagh

516-308-3355, barbeque.li.

3593 Montauk Hwy., Sagaponack

631-537-2271; townlinebbq.com

This restaurant is jammed in summer, so stopping by during the off-season is like getting an extra dessert.

 Baby backs, spareribs and St. Louis-style ribs are all cut from the rib cage of a pig. The ribs are long bones that originate at the backbone (spine) and then curve around the abdomen, hugging the belly. Butchers cut rib cages into sections, or racks, and the names of those sections refer to which segment of the rib cage they come from.

1. Baby back ribs (or just plain back ribs) are the portion of the ribs closest to the backbone. They are usually cut 3 to 6 inches long, are meaty, not too fatty and command the highest price, the Cadillac of ribs, if you will.

2. Spareribs are what's left once the baby backs are cut off. Because these are the ribs that hug the belly -- the bacon -- they are very fatty and full of flavor, a favorite of rib lovers who want to get down and dirty. A rack of spareribs is not so neat as a rack of baby backs, with flaps of meat hanging off the ends. The ribs you find in a Chinese restaurant, which are roasted, not barbecued, are usually cut from the spareribs. In general, a flatter rib is more likely to be a spare than a baby back.

3. For St. Louis ribs, the butcher cuts off the last few inches of the spareribs, resulting in a nice rectangular rack with clean-cut ribs at either end. -- ERICA MARCUS