Barbecue Culture
A regional barbecue cheat sheet
I found this great quick reference guide to the different regional barbecue styles you’ll find in the United States. It’s a one page cheat sheet that lists the type of meat, sauce, and preparation associated with each style of barbecue, including:
- North Carolina
- Texas
- Kansas City
- Memphis
- South Carolina
- Alabama
- Kentucky
An example is in order. Carolinians on the whole point to pork as their meat of choice, but South Carolinians prefer a mustard based sauce, while in North Carolina (at least in the Western areas) they use a ketchup and vinegar based sauce.
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OLN’s Iron Chefs of barbecue
I finally got around to watching a couple of episodes of the Outdoor Life Network’s new series “The All-Star BBQ Showdown” which have been beckoning from the Tivo for the past couple of weeks. Maybe I’m just a big barbecue nerd, but I really enjoyed it. It’s basically Iron Chef barbecue without the funny costumes.
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Where there’s smoke… there’s firewood
On a recent trip to Lockhart, Texas (population 11,000) I had the pleasure of enjoying some brisket and sausage at Smitty’s Market. Smitty’s Market is one of the top 5 barbecue resturants in Texas, and deservedly so.
It’s a quaint old place, and as soon as you walk in the door you are drive back by the heat coming off their huge smoking pit, whose burning fires have been creating great barbecue for 50 plus years. I have no idea how much wood they use in a day, but just look at the stock piles of post oak logs behind the store.
This part of Texas is full of post oaks, and Lockhart is pretty much 30 miles from anywhere in any direction, so they’ve got plenty of trees around. In fact, they say it this seemingly endless supply of trees (and the cattle no doubt) that have made this area such a barbecue haven. Lockhart is home to several barbecue joints, in fact 3 out 5 of the top rated in Texas call it home.
Despite Smitty’s humble furnishings and down-home attitude (no utensils, just butcher paper) they bring in folks from all around the state for non stop business, so I’m sure they are doing allright financially. No doubt there’s plenty of woodchoppers that make a fine living as well.
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Road Trip: Blues & BBQ
The Lonely Planet series of travel books is known for its quirky and always interesting travel recommendations. Their book Lonely Planet Road Trip: Blues & BBQ is no exception.
Clear, concise, and honest — the guide offers a variety of day trips and longer excursions thorugh the heart of the American South where you can sample the best in BBQ along with it’s companion, Blues music.
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Choosing the right wine for your BBQ
A wine expert I am not, let me assure you. I buy whatever’s on sale with the coolest looking label. (I’m hip enough to stay away from the box-o-wine). However, I often have guests attend my BBQ’s (which I do know a thing or two about) and I recently read an article in The Seattle Times that makes selecting an appropriate wine far less painful.
For beef and other richly favored BBQ dishes we’re talking red wine. Even I understand that much. But in this case we are looking for a really full flavored wine that can stand up to the strong flavors of grilled meat. The stronger the better.
The second factor to look for is that the wine be cheap. I’m down with that, it certainly fits into my criteria. Especially since I’ll probably be drinking a beer anyhow. However, there’s another reason that inexpensive red wines are the prefered option here. It again come back to that bold flavor we are looking for. One of the factors that makes one particular bottle of wine more expensive than the other is the length of aging and type of cask the wines are stored in. A longer aging process and more sophisticated types of wood casks means a more delicate flavor. Cheap wines are cheap because they ignore such luxeries, and thus retain a stronger more resilient flavor. My guess is that they make them in bath tubs.
Acidity is the final factor. The acid in a good barbecue red cuts through the fat in the meat while providing lift to the smoke and spices and flavorings in the sauce. Fortunately this is another trait easy to find in inexpensive wines.
Yea, yea. So what do I buy. The author’s top pick? Carchelo 2004 Monastrell ($8) a Spanish red which according to the article “offers big, chunky fruits laced with spice, clove, mint and smoked ham… with an extraordinary finish”. More picks and details on selecting the perfect wine for your next BBQ can be found in the article.
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A Profile of Kell Phelps
Read an interesting profile of Kell Phelps, publisher of the National BBQ News, a monthly tabloid that covers the professional barbecue curcuit.
The paper itself has 6,000 subscribers in all 50 states and seven foreign countries. It runs about 40 pages a month. It is published out of Georgia.
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Three Out of Four Americans Own a Grill
I read a couple of different studies about America’s grilling habits that I thought were pretty interesting. The first fact I learned was that, as I general suspected, most American households own a grill. Depending on the study, somewhere between seventy five and eight five percent of households own a grill, and forty plus percent of those own more than one grill. That’s 66.2 million grillers.
When it comes to the age old gas vs charcoal debate, gas wins out but not by as big a margin as you might think. Sixty percent of grill owners own an propane gas grill compared to fifty percent who own a charcoal grill. Natural gas (at seven percent) and electric (at three percent) round out the balance. The average age of a grill seems to be about three and half years.
The most popular grilled food is beef, with hamburgers and steaks the top two dishes. Hot dogs, chicken and potatoes are the next most frequently grilled items.
To enhance that flavor seventeen percent of gas grillers use a smoker box or wood chips to add real wood smoke. Most people (ninety one percent) use barbecue sauce on their foods, but only a smal percentage make their own, most prefering the store bought variety.
While sixty percent of households use their grill all year long, the most popular holidays for barbecuing are the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day and Father’s Day. The top reason given for the love of grilling? Quite simply, the flavor it gives food. Other reasons given as motivation s for grilling included entertaining friends and cooking messy dishes outdoors.
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Barbecue Brits Stick To The Basics
I just read an article that suggests that British barbecuers are, for the most part, living up to the stereotype of bland British food.
According to a poll by the, ahem, Well Hung Meat Company, only about 15% of British barbecue strays beyond burgers and sausages.
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Sausages! (Elgin, Taylor, and West)
While on the whole, Texas is known for its barbecue brisket, sausage is king in Elgin. Elgin is a small town outside of Austin, Texas that is home to world class smoked sausages. Many an Elgin smoked sausage is packaged up for sale in local grocery stores, but its just not the same as eating it right there in the meat market. In this article, on the DallasFood forum offers an excellent tour and review of Elgin’s (and neighboring towns) sausage kings. Nice photos accompany each stop, giving you a nice feel of Elgin’s sausage joints, in case you can’t make it down yourself.
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Legends in Lockhart (and Luling!)
Here’s a fairly old, but still relevant post comparing the various barbecue joints in Lockhart, Texas. Lockhart is widely regardes ad the home of the best barbecue in Texas, and the author offers a tour and review of each of the BBQ joints in town, complete with photos.
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The Texas BBQ Trail
If you live near, or plan to visit central Texas I recommend you take a stop on the The Texas BBQ Trail!. Along the trail, which runs through many small towns around Austin – Lockhart, Round Rock, Elgin, and others – travels the heart of barbecue country.
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Barbecue is a Noun: The Movie
I haven’t seen this film, but Barbecue is a Noun sounds like something I’d like to see. It’s a feature length documentary about Carolina style barbecue culture and its dedicated and eccentric followers. The title is a reference to the core belief of Carolina barbecuers, that barbecue is roast pork – period. Their website says that it is in post production, but I’ve seen that it has indeed been released, and shown as several film festivals. If anyone knows if it is available on DVD, please drop me a line.
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A Trip to Kreuz Market in Lockhart
Here’s an entertaining article about the author’s trip to Keuze Market, one of the best (and oldest) BBQ joints in Texas.
Wasn’t it Socrates who once said that Barbeque is the highest art form which a cook can aspire to? Or is that why the Golden Age ended – they lost the secrets of marinating brisket properly? Somehow, passed down from generation to generation and from the old world to the new, the deepest secrets of smoking meat to perfection have been preserved by the Schmidt family and put on display at Kreuz Market in Lockhart, Texas.
One of the thing out of town guests always get a kick out of is the way they serve the BBQ at Kreuz Market, wrapped in butcher paper, a knife, some paper towels, and NO SAUCE. They don’t want you to spoil the meat they’ve worked so hard to prepare!
If you don’t live in the area, you can also buy BBQ online from their website.
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Korean BBQ makes exotic fare accessible
This is a review of a Korean BBQ restraunt in Arizona where you do your own grilling. Apparently each table has its own gas grill where you are on your own to cook a variety of tasty dishes seasoned with Korean spices.
That point is the unique Korean flavoring system. Koreans take the Asian concept of “five flavors” very seriously, and they don’t believe in subtlety. So you’re going to be hammered by many notes: salty, sweet, sour, spicy and bitter, produced by soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, chiles, ginger, sesame, black pepper, scallions and enough garlic to keep you safe on a midnight graveyard stroll in Transylvania. The lingering scents can be so powerful that you may need to open the car windows for an overnight airing after driving home.
Sounds good to me! Even if you are no where near this restraunt (I’m certainly not) it is a good introduction to Korean BBQ and other signature dishes.
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Hungry and Tired? Take a Culinary Vacation
Here’s an interesting article about the growing popularity of the culinary travel industry, and visiting Steven Raichlen’s Barbecue University in particular. This new vacation trend has tourists visiting some countries just to experience the cuisine. You can either eat your way through a new country, or get a piece of the action — by attending cooking classes.
Bring your checkbook though, The Greenbrier’s Barbecue University for example costs $2,300 for singles, and $3,100 for couples. For three half-day sessions. Yes really. I guess lunch is included, but you have to cook it yourself.
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