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The Real Texas Beef--Barbecued
| Article
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11312 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
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5 / 1986 |
2,060 Words |
| Author
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Dotty Griffith
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Authenticity, like beauty, often is in the eye of the beholder. So it is with barbecue. To me, a native Texan, the style of barbecue practiced in the Lone Star State is the yardstick by which I measure others.
That means barbecue is beef. The sauce is savory not sweet. The meat is sliced, not chopped. That's it. That's all you need to know.
I don't pretend that Texans are quite as passionate about their barbecue as they are about chili. I've been party to some vigorous discussions between Texas barbecue cooks about the finer points of barbecue--such as the merits of hickory versus mesquite--but I've never seen the kind of passion that can be aroused when a couple of "chiliheads" clash over the advisability of adding a teaspoon of sugar to a bubbling pot of red.
That, my friends, is high drama.
In Texas, barbecue is regarded with a bit more distance than chili--the difference being the perspective of a critic and that of an artist. Whereas most every Texan thinks he or she can produce "that best" bowl of chili, most every Texan knows good barbecue and also knows that it is almost impossible for the home cook to achieve it. That's because most barbecue cooked at home over a small grill is only a pretense, a nod to real barbecue which requires large grills and ponderous cuts of meat to achieve the perfections which can be reached after twenty-four hours over smoking coals.
Every Texan is a chili cook; every Texan is a discriminating connoisseur of barbecue.
Perhaps that is what distinguishes Texas barbecue from other styles practiced in the States. We can display our individual cooking talents on the state dish, chili; thus making it a personal dish. We take pride when you like it and considerable umbrage when you do not, but the problem is never with my chili, but rather with your palate.
With barbecue, we can remain a bit more detached. When we barbecue, we aren't exposing our inner souls, unless of course we are cooking it to sell. Then perfection is expected.
Oh, to be sure, there are other differences. Fairly significant ones at that. Like, for instance, the meat. To most Texans, barbecue means beef brisket, sliced, not chopped. The meat never swims in sauce before being sliced and served. Only then is the sauce ladled sparingly over the beef. Chopped beef soaking in sauce is reserved for sandwiches and is considered a step down from first quality. Chopped beef is something you make from the trimmings, leftovers.
That Texans would prefer beef is understandable. No longhorn pigs ever roamed the plains of West Texas nor plodded up the trails to Kansas City. The Western romantic ideal does not include a whole hog roasting on a spit over a fire.
Consider this example of the Texan attitude toward pork. Barbecue cook Sam Higgins likes to relate the conversation he had with an old East Texas farmer who asked if Sam was familiar with the barbecue they serve "back
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