Yes, really. Make a ham. From scratch. Don’t just reheat one from the grocery store like you did for Easter. You still have the time to get it on if you start now. After a seven- or eight-day brine, you can have one you can call your own on your
Hitting the barbecue trail in Texas is something of a weekend sport. Plenty of people create their own routes, but one of the more official itineraries—the Texas Barbecue Trail, which takes you from Taylor to Elgin, Lockhart, and finally through Luling—is enormously popular. As the name suggests it’s a great
Not all briskets are created equal. That much is obvious to anyone who’s had a great one—or a bad one. Those experiences are easy to contrast, but what about when it’s not a question of good or bad? When it’s a matter of simply being different?I was struck by the variety in
Smoked turkey is now so common that nearly every grocery store deli case in the country carries at least one variety (and more often, many more than one). We now take this protein option for granted, but smoked turkey doesn’t have the same long history as beef and pork barbecue do in this
Chicharrón, pork rinds, gratons, cracklins—call them what you like, but fried hog fat with the skin on is a wonderful thing. I recently attended a Louisiana boucherie (what is essentially a communal gathering where a whole hog is butchered and broken down; read more about it here), and I was
This feature was originally published in the Fall 2015 issue of Gravy, the quarterly magazine from the Southern Foodways Alliance.Patillo’s Bar-B-Q in Beaumont, Texas, is the fourth-oldest barbecue joint in the state. You’ve probably never heard of it. Its founder, Jack Pat(t)illo, is believed to be a
De’Andre Jackson never thought he’d be cooking barbecue for a living. As a football star out of Garland, he started for the Big 12’s Iowa State. Entering his senior year, some had him graded as the third best cornerback in college. An ACL-tear toward the end of the season kept
A midterm report.
There’s a little red building with yellow trim along Kuykendahl Road on the north side of Houston. The fresh coat of paint is hard not to notice even while speeding along, and inside is some of the city’s best and most thoughtful barbecue.For Steve and Sherice Garner, this building has been a long
Author: Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue CountryAge: 52In the mid-nineties, Lolis Elie and photographer Frank Stewart travelled around the country eating barbecue for the book Smokestack Lightning. There aren’t many books as influential to my writing about barbecue than
Last week I had the honor of being included in a list amongst a group of barbecue folks who I greatly admire. The list was entitled America’s Most Influential BBQ Pitmasters and Personalities. Those listed, at least the top ten, were all very deserving of recognition.
Owner/Pitmaster: Bludso’s BBQ; Opened 2008Age: 50Smoker: Steel offset smoker and gas-fired rotisserie smokerWood: Red oak, pecan, apple, and mesquite charcoalKevin Bludso’s roots are in Compton, but he earned his barbecue chops in Corsicana, Texas. His great aunt, Willie Mae Fields, ran a semi-legal barbecue business at a local gas
Hint: Slaves brought it with them.
Walter Jetton's rise to national fame.
Pitmaster: Freedmen’s Bar; Opened 2012Age: 29Smoker: Indirect Heat Wood-Fired PitWood: Post OakEven at his young age, Evan LeRoy doesn’t want for confidence. He once told viewers of American Grilled, a cooking show he was competing on, that “I can cook anything to perfection on any grill.” It was a bit
Smokey Denmark’s has been known for making sausage in Austin for decades. Even up in North Texas, if you ask a barbecue joint where their hot links are from you’ll likely hear “Smokey Denmark.” While they have a storefront at their facility on East Fifth Street,
It’s big, it’s bright red, and Jackson Street BBQ is a great new option for Texas barbecue in downtown Houston. Opened earlier this year, it’s a joint venture between Houston chef Bryan Caswell and local pitmaster Greg Gatlin. The two joined forces on a menu with plenty of variety, and
TMBBQ welcomes guest writer Megan Giller who takes us to Japan for some Texas barbecue. Craig White. Photo from White Smoke’s Facebook page.Craig White is a Texan. He’s a pitmaster and an expert in smoked meats, and like many of his breed he can be secretive. White
With all the candidates thus far who have entered the 2016 run for president, the logos and mottos abound. Our new crop of Texas Monthly interns figured that none of the candidates matched the qualifications of one Aaron Franklin, proprietor of Austin’s Franklin Barbecue, so they made some alterations to the
It was twenty years ago that Ivy Chambers moved his budding sausage business out of his home and into a bona fide restaurant in Fort Worth. Over the years he added more barbecue items to the menu – brisket, ribs, bologna – and continued to operate the business until handing
Owner/Pitmaster: Whup’s Boomerang Bar-B-Q; Opened 2000Age: 64Smoker: Wood-fired Offset SmokerWood: Mesquite, Post Oak, and PecanBennie Washington’s business may only be fifteen years old, but his barbecue experience goes back four decades. As a delivery truck driver for Pepsi, barbecue was a hobby, then a short-lived foray as a professional in
The menu of Emancipation Day.
Making sausage ain’t easy. There’s the trimming, grinding, seasoning, stuffing, and then the smoking. For barbecue joints, buying a few boxes of cheap sausage from your food distributor is a tempting prospect when compared to the hours required to make your own. But Texas is a place where smoked sausages are a
We love our beef in Texas, and historically, the rest of the nation did too. According to numbers from the USDA, beef and pork battled for protein supremacy until about 1950, when beef took a clear lead for the next six decades. Today, with falling beef consumption and the surging popularity
Owner/Pitmaster: Billy’s Old Fashion BBQ; Opened 1986 (estimated)Age: 68Smoker: Indirect Heat Wood-Fired PitWood: Red Oak and HickoryIt seems that everybody who drives by Billy’s Old Fashion BBQ in Jasper honks and waves. George “Billy” Mahathay is a popular man, almost as popular as his barbecue. He told me jokingly that
Owner: Patillo’s Bar-B-Q; Opened 1912Age: 67Smoker: Indirect Heat Wood-Fired PitWood: Hickory, red oak, white oak, and pecanPatillo’s Bar-B-Q has been operating in Beaumont since 1912. It has moved around a lot in the past 100 years, but it’s always been in the family. That makes it the oldest family owned barbecue establishment in
Bad brisket is nothing new on the barbecue trail, but there are some days when you just can’t catch a break—or, as was the case for me recently, two consecutive days where I searched high and low for a good slice of smoked beef in Beaumont and Southeast Texas.It began in
Saturday morning—yes, Saturday morning—is meant for feasting on brisket and sausage at Snow’s, in Lexington.
George Gerard didn’t have much time for adjustment to running a barbecue joint. He had planned to leave behind the family business for a life as an electrician in Austin, but his parents pleaded with him to come back home to Beaumont. He relented and a short time later, his
Owner/Pitmaster: Brooks’ Place; Opened 2009Age: 45Smoker: Indirect Heat Wood-Fired PitWood: Red Oak, Pecan, Hickory, and MesquiteBrooks’ Place isn’t exactly easy to get to, but that’s part of its charm. Cypress is at least a thirty minute drive from downtown Houston. It’s a destination, and those in line
It’s not exactly new, it’s not flashy, and it’s not dogmatic about the barbecue style it serves, but Off the Bone Barbeque in Dallas’s Cedars neighborhood is just good. Dwight Harvey has run this joint in a converted gas station with his son Steven since 2008. It was a scheme to
Owner/Pitmaster: Davis Meat Market; Opened 1988Age: 76Smoker: Gas-fired Rotisserie SmokerWood: OakI rang a buzzer outside this bright red metal building in Houston’s Fifth Ward, and owner James Davis met me at the door. As soon as I stepped inside the smell of raw meat was present, but not
If you follow barbecue news (and I’m going to assume you do if you read TMBBQ.com), you’re going to hear a lot more about barbecue in Alabama in the coming months. Or at least that’s the goal of the Alabama Tourism Department, which launched its Year of Alabama
No matter how much barbecue I’ve consumed (typically five times the recommended daily allowance), it always feels like there’s room left for something sweet. A bowl of peach cobbler or a slice of buttermilk pie offer comfort, but their recipes don’t really vary much from one end of the state
Owner/Pitmaster: John Mueller Meat Co.; Opened 2013Age: 46Smoker: Wood-fired Offset SmokerWood: OakMercurial is often the word chosen to describe John Mueller. Verbal attacks on customers and employees are a regular occurrence, but they keep coming back for his famous barbecue. There’s a famous name involved too.John’s father was the legendary Bobby Mueller
Later today, after the inauguration of Greg Abbott as the forty-eighth governor of Texas, 17,000 hungry ticket holders clamoring for food will line up for lunch on the Capitol grounds in Austin. Forty-five minutes later, they’ll all have a full plate of barbecue. At least that’s what mega-caterer Eddie Deen has
Houston Wright cut meat, made sausage, and cooked barbecue at Kreuz Market in Lockhart for sixty years. He was tying sausage there before the brick building that housed the market (and is now home to Smitty’s Market) was built in 1924. He was deaf and mute by then—former Kreuz Market
It was a phone call that brought me back out to Hickory Hill BBQ. It sits along a stretch of State Highway 31, right on the western edge of the East Texas pine curtain. I’d driven by it a few times, but always found it closed, then owner Kerry Shaw
– Pitmasters have embraced the term “joint” to describe their restaurants:If it’s not a barbecue “joint,” then what is it? My latest for @HoustonChron. http://t.co/C44IXkh8Ci — J.C. Reid (@jcreidtx) December 15, 2014 – Carl’s Jr. has announced a grass-fed beef burger that they starting serving
Chris Manning, Siretha Davis, and Earl HarrisOwner: Smokey Joe’s BBQ; Opened 1985Age: 24Smoker: Wood-fired Brick SmokerWood: HickoryThirty years is a long time to keep a barbecue joint going, but Chris Manning wasn’t even born when Smokey Joe’s opened in 1985. The twenty-four year old swore he wouldn’t work in the
In a Dallas city directory from 1948, there is a listing for Hardeman’s Barbecue. In fact there were two at the time, both of which were located in what was known as Freedman’s Town. It was a segregated African-American neighborhood just north of downtown in what
Can the beef industry sustain it?
Keith (left) and Ricky (right) MumphordCo-Owner/ Pitmaster: Mumphord’s Place; Opened 2000Age: 57Smoker: Direct heat steel pitWood: Mesquite and OakWhen your family came through Indianola, Texas, which suffered two hurricanes and was essentially abandoned by 1887, you know the family’s been around a while. That’s where the Mumphord’s landed
Brave new hogs.
The smokers were everywhere. Co-owner Rhonda Scales had led me through a swinging door into the kitchen where a hulking rotisserie pit was churning with tomorrow’s briskets. “We use all oak,” she told me as we walked out the back door. Split oak logs were piled around two more trailer-mounted
Owner/Pitmaster: McMillan’s Bar-B-Q; Opened 1974Age: 69Smoker: Wood-fired Offset SmokerWood: Oak, Mesquite, and PecanLouis McMillan wasn’t happy, and I knew he wouldn’t be. I was in his restaurant to interview him because he’d been honored as one of Texas Monthly’s Top 50 BBQ joints, but we had a longer history. While
Conventional wisdom holds that traditional Texas barbecue doesn’t need to be sauced. That Texans have an aversion to the stuff. Case in point? A recent primer on national barbecue styles in America on Eater noted that “while the rest of the nation is busy making barbecue sauces, many
The popularity of Texas barbecue—and specifically Texas-style smoked brisket—has launched a frenzy of new activity. New joints pop up all the time, and relatively new pitmasters are hailed as masters of craft. Many of these places and people are deserving of considerable attention and high praise, but we shouldn’t lose sight of what
Patience. Not only is it a virtue, it’s the key to good brisket. No meat in barbecue suffers more when it’s subjected to the foolish habits of the impatient pitmaster: cranking the heat too high in the smoker; obsessively opening and closing the lid to check on the smoker’s contents; or just taking the
Owner/Pitmaster: Leon’s World’s Finest In & Out Bar-B-Que; Opened 1987Age: 74Smoker: Wood-fired Rotisserie SmokerWood: Post OakLeon O’Neal didn’t get into the barbecue business until he was forty-five years old, but he’s managed to be successful in Galveston for nearly three decades in a converted house that once contained
