Dean Stull, the barbecue master and one of nine directors overseeing the entire event, explains how it's done: "All winter long we cut wood--elm, mesquite, anything we can get--approximately twenty-five bobtail truckloads. Then we dig two pits, four foot deep, four foot wide, and seventy-five foot long. We dig two in case it rains and one of 'em gets flooded out. Then we put the wood in one of the pits, filling the hole and stacking it up about five foot high above the ground. We light it at about two on Friday morning and let it burn down to the coals for about twelve hours.

"Friday morning, we go to cutting and wrapping about eleven thousand pounds of meat, rolling it in our seasoning--I can't tell you what's in that. Each roast [topside round] weighs about fifteen pounds, and we cut it in half and roll it. Then we put the roast in a paper ice sack, then in a burlap bag, and tie it with wire. We soak it in water, put it in the truck, then--just before we throw the meat on the coals at about two in the afternoon on Friday--the fire department comes along and soaks the bags of meat again. Then we lay grader blades [from a road grader] across the pit and cover them with tin, then dirt. It takes about six minutes to fill and seal the pit. Then we let it cook for twenty-four hours. Afterward, we scrape away the dirt, pull away the tin, remove the grader blades, and eat. You'll never taste anything like it." jnp

Vera is probably the last restaurateur in the state who prepares barbacoa, Mexican-style barbecued cow's head (usually eaten for breakfast on weekends), in the traditional manner. Though the word "barbacoa" is Spanish for "barbecue," in South Texas it refers strictly to the meat from the cow's head. Most of the barbacoa served today isn't even barbecued (though the head is still sometimes smoked in conventional pits): It comes from prepackaged meats--cheeks are the most popular--cooked in massive steamers, or the whole heads are baked in ovens. But Vera cooks barbacoa in the ground.

As he does every weekend, the 36-year-old Vera waits until the wood burns down to the proper heat--which he ascertains by holding his hand over the pit--then puts the heads into that big hole in the ground. Next he covers it with a thick sheet of steel, and covers that with dirt, watering it down to settle the dust. His operation, which doesn't meet present-day health regulations, is grandfathered in. But if his eleven-year-old son, Armando Junior, does not eventually take over the business, as Vera did from his own father, Alberto, 25 years ago, true barbacoa will come to an end. (Alberto Vera, 73, still helps out around the place.)

After the meat has cooked for about eight hours, the dirt is shoveled off and the lid removed, and an overwhelmingly savory, meaty smell fills the pit room. Armando uses a shopping cart to move the heads to the restaurant building. The slick, shiny meat pulls easily from the bones. He puts cheeks, eyes, brains, and tongues into separate containers, combining the meat behind the tongue (what he calls the "sweetbreads") with what remains--mostly fat, but also meat scraps from elsewhere on the head--to create the mixed meat. The next morning customers will order their favorite pieces by weight; prices range from $4.50 per pound for eyes to $7.25 for cheeks, with tortillas and fiery homemade salsa a little extra.

The cheeks, which are a dark brown, taste almost like pot roast, while the mixta is stringy and fatty, getting its comparatively bland taste from the sweetbreads. The tongue is similarly mild and juicy. Brains are firm-textured, dry, and bitter; the eyes are almost pure fat and definitely an acquired taste. The deep smokiness of Vera's barbacoa puts it in a class of its own. "For Latin people, this is like marijuana; they're hooked on it," says Alberto. Adds Armando: "That pit in the ground is what gives us our competitive edge. Ninety percent of our business is repeat, so we must be doing something right." Vera's Backyard Bar-B-Que, 2404 Southmost Road, Brownsville, 210-546-4159. Checks accepted, no credit cards. Open Saturdays and Sundays from around 5 a.m. to around noon. jm