IV. Texas BBQ "The Staple of Texas Life"
If you live in a crowded city, as this writer does, the requirements for a meal called barbecue are simple. You need a balcony smaller than a shoe closet, one that hangs precipitously over horn-clanking, exhaust-pumping traffic. You need a hibachi which may -or may not- be large enough to cook a steak for one.
Aware that hibachis are for grilling only, and that a real barbecue pit is larger than most city balconies, we set off to enjoy the real thing. Luckily for us, our guide was Terry Thompson-Anderson, culinary professional extraordinaire. We asked her to lead us to the real and the delicious.
Thompson-Anderson guided us to Riley's in the tiny town of Blanco. Once inside this barbecue place, we were puzzled. The cafeteria-style counter was spartan, no pit was evident to our untrained eyes, not even a hibachi. But then we saw that the counter was full of meats, and and were shown the large stainless steel 'pit.' We told the young woman behind the counter that we'd like brisket, sausage, chicken, and ribs. She sliced, piling the food high on a single sheet of waxed paper, weighed the meat, then put it all on a platter. All-you-can-eat beans and condiments are in the next room she told us. No owner of an hibachi had ever dreamed of this barbecue. We were filled with questions.
"What makes good barbecue?" we asked Thompson-Anderson? She told us that brisket is a classic meat of choice and that the meat is not marinated, least of all in a sugar-based sauce. "You use a rub and it's called a rub because that's exactly what you do. You rub it into the meat. And I mean you rub it, all the surfaces. When you put the meat on you start mopping with the mopping sauce. Vinegar, mustard, nothing sugary that would burn which is why you don't put barbecue sauce when you are cooking."
As we tasted the succulent meat, we commented on the juiciness inside and the crispness outside. "What you try to achieve is the outside part of the brisket they call the bark. You get that by mopping," she said, and we had visions of a brush frantically painting a piece of meat. "Barbecue is very serious. It's the staple of Texas life. Barbecue and chili can get you in a lot of trouble in Texas. There are so many ways to cook it, so many cuts of meat, though beef is king and brisket is generally the chosen cut. And there are so many breading, frying methods. But the sauce is the most disputed element."
As for the wood used, she told us that it was a matter of taste, that the most popular were mesquite, pecan, oak, and apple. "You need to be careful with mesquite," she said, "since it is a resinous wood that could be overpowering to brisket when cooked for a long time."
While she spoke, we had picked up a rib, thick and meaty. When we bit into it, it fell away from the bone. Another succulent piece of meat, we asked what was the standard for ribs. "It should not fall off the bone when you pick it up," she said, "it should fall off the bone when you bite into it."
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