THE BARBEQUE CAPITAL OF
TEXAS
At the risk of
offending SOMEONE, I’m going to talk about barbeque. Your favorite way of BBQ
preparation may be different than ours here at VFH Central. Dang, there’s even
a schism going on in this House ‘O Travel here in Collegeville, PA as Janet
savors a brisket, while that chopped up pig does my belly a valuable service.
FOUR STYLES OF BARBEQUE
There are four distinct
styles of barbeque in these here United States.
Kansas City:
In Kansas City they
smoke everything from chicken to beef to even fish and the all-important sauce
is tomato-based and tangy and there’s always lots of sides, like baked beans,
fries and cole slaw.
Memphis:
Memphis style the
critter is mostly pig ribs and shoulders and either “dry” rubbed and served
without sauce after cooking, and “wet”, when the ribs are brushed with sauce
before, during and after cooking.
Carolina:
North Carolina Barbeque
gets a bit complicated depending where you happen to be in the Tar Heel State.
Western North Carolina is just pig shoulder and has a tomatoey sauce, while
Eastern North Carolina barbeques the whole hog and chops it all up together
with a vinegar sauce. And, in South Carolina they have been known to make a
“Carolina Gold” sauce that mixes yellow mustard, vinegar, brown sugar and other
spices.
Makes me hungry just
writing this.
Now, in Texas, it’s mostly
beef brisket. Big slices of beef with charred ends and, for some, a little bit
of savory fat and beef ribs. Yes, you can also get sausages and chopped pig and
pork ribs and chicken, but brisket rules the day. From food trucks to brick and
mortar establishments, barbeque is as ubiquitous as horns on steers, and if I
did not have a devout fondness for Mexican cuisine, we would have eaten
barbeque each day while we were recently in Austin, Texas.
BBQ styles in Texas:
In a state as large as
Texas there’s several styles of barbequing.
In the Central
Texas area of Austin where we stayed, the meat is rubbed with spices
and cooked over indirect heat from oak or pecan wood. Sides like mac and
cheese, cole slaw and pinto beans are available and grilled sausages make for a
hearty, filling meal. Oh, and some sweet peach or apple cobblers round you all out!
All served
buffet style, you just have them fill your tray as you walk through the
cavernous bbq halls that serve as restaurants.
In East Texas,
the meat is cooked slowly over hickory wood until it “falls off the bone”!
In West Texas
they use mesquite wood.
In South Texas
the barbeque features thick as molasses BBQ sauces that keep the meat moist.
BLACK’S ROADTRIP
On one of our days in
our recent trip to Austin, we decided to take a quick road trip to get our
barbeque and drove to Lockhart Texas at the original Black’s Barbeque about 25
miles south east from our Hippy Haven AirBnB in Manchaca.
Black’s was founded in
1932 and is one of the oldest BBQ restaurants in Texas, and depending on the
level of enthusiasm about discussing food rather than simply eating it, many
say Black’s serves the best BBQ. In May 1997 Texas Monthly had Black’s slated
as one of Texas’ top 50 barbeque restaurants.
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 13
Now, there are several
franchises of Black’s Barbeque; we ate at one on Guadalupe Street in Austin the
last time we were in Texas; but we decided to drive to the original location in
Lockhart Texas to pick up some take-out barbeque to bring back home. (Currently
you cannot eat inside because of COVID, although there were tables set up
outside.) The 25-mile drive was quick along a 65-mph road. We could have taken
the toll road at 85-mph, but I hate spending the extra money.
 |
| CALDWELL CTY TX COURTHOUSE |
Lockhart itself is a
pretty, neat town with the beautiful Caldwell County Courthouse looming in the
center square with several shops surrounding it. The Lockhart area has been
used in several movies over the years, most recently the HBO series, The
Leftovers, but we weren’t scouting locations and so you’re probably wondering
why the lengthy drive even if gas is hovering around $1.50 in the area and we
had a Jeep Cherokee as a rental. Isn’t the barbeque all the same?
No, we did not travel
to this charming little town to stroll the grounds of the Courthouse, or to visit
the Caldwell County Jail Museum or to check out a book at the oldest operating
public library in Texas, the Dr. Eugene Clark library, erected in 1899. We came
here because this town is, by State Senate Resolution No. 13, adopted in 2003, officially
recognized as the Barbeque Capital of Texas.
You can read the
resolution here:
Yeah, it’s gimmicky and
touristy, but Lockhart does boast four very well-respected barbeque places. Here
are the four:
Black’s Barbeque 215 North Main Street
Chisholm Trail Barbeque, 1323 S. Colorado
Kreuz Market Barbeque 619 S. Colorado
Smitty’s Market, 208 S. Commerce
To read more about each
you can either go to their webpages or read what Lockhart says about these fine
establishments. If you're not feeling the drive to Lockhart, there are other new locations of each place in different locales. Follow the websites.
COME FOR THE BBQ LINGER OVER A BEER
Sadly, we got to
Lockhart too late in the day to explore this charming place and with the COVID we
didn’t want to poke our heads into shops. After collecting our meal at Blacks,
(we had ordered everything online beforehand), we parked near the courthouse and
walked a block to have a quick beer at Load Off Fanny’s.
Nothing on tap, but we
had Karbach Brewery, out of Houston, Hopadilla IPA in cans as we sat for a
while in their courtyard. Everyone here was respectful with mask wearing and every
other table was sectioned off for proper distancing.
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