Here’s some video shot by Jay Francis of the community barbecue we did on March 31 to benefit Foodways Texas. Thanks to Revival Market and the Houston Chowhounds group for their generous support!
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The first cowboy woks were made out of used cultivator discs. The discs start out with sharp edges, they get discarded when the edge wears off. I guess somebody got the bright idea that the worn out metal blades would be great for cooking. I wonder if the cowboy wok was inspired by those Mexican street food fryers with the well full of oil in the center? A friend named Jim Jard loaned me the one I am using, it has a lower disc to hold the charcoal and an upper disc for cooking. The upper disc screws up and down on a shaft to control the heat by raising or lowering it over the heat of the coals. Fajitas, hamburgers, steaks and other items that do well on a flat top are easy to cook on a cowboy wok. And its great for onions, peppers, and all those condiments that you can’t cook on a grill grate.
A more sanitary version of the cowboy wok is now being manufactured using new steel discs with cute little horseshoe handles on the sides. You set them on top of a propane burner stand. They work fine, but somehow it just isn’t the same. Once you start making sanitary replicas, you lose the ingenuity of the original.  Stirring BBQ Gravy in a Cast Iron Washtub But cook-offs and restaurants aren’t where American barbecue came from anyway. The oldest barbecue tradition in America, the community barbecue, continues largely unnoticed in churches, clubs and lodge halls. Many of the pits are ancient, the cooking methods are traditional and the barbecue is generally excellent. Check out a community barbecue near you, it’s worth the trip! Texas Annual Frydek Grotto Celebration 10th Annual Fruehling Saengerfest
North Carolina Mallard Creek Church BBQ (since 1929) Poplar Presbyterian BBQ California Annual Bennett Valley Grange Community Barbecue (since 1872)
In World War II, Vencil served as corpsman during the invasion of Normandy. When he got home, he took a job at Southside Market in Elgin. Southside meat market was famous for Elgin hot guts, a beef and pork sausage with lots of cayenne in it. Southside Market was a rough and tumble joint on the wrong side of the railroad tracks. Laborers ate there, but women and families didn’t go there. Today, Southside Market is a family restaurant out on the main highway. The sausage doesn’t have much cayenne in it anymore either. After making sausage at Southside Market for a while, Vencil decided to open his own place. So he bought a run-down hotel in an old building in Taylor. Vencil Mares opened the Taylor Cafe in 1948. The building used to be two stories, but the top story burned down and was never repaired. Vencil put a barbecue pit in back and served beer in front. Just like the old Southside Market, Vencil’s Taylor Café was a rough joint that catered to working men. read more 2nd Annual Foodways Texas Lifetime Achievement Award Winner: Vencil Mares »  Morgan Weber at Revival Market with the pig
My traditionalist barbecue friends think injecting a pork shoulder or whole hog with brine or flavorings is heresy. The pitmasters of yesteryear certainly didn’t do it. But injecting is standard procedure on the barbecue cook-off circuit. Most competitors, like Chris Lily and Myron Mixon, use an apple juice-based injection. I have cooked up a lot of crazy injection brines including a Dublin Dr Pepper concoction. When we prepare a whole hog at Foodways Texas BBQ Summer Camp at the Texas A&M Meat Science Department, we inject it with a sweetened brine. The salt helps the meat retain moisture. Myron Mixon uses MSG in his whole hog injection. Other competitors use nitrates, nitrites and similiar cures as well. That’s where I draw the line. No chemicals in my barbecue please. You better not be opposed to injecting if you buy your pork and chicken at the grocery store. The enchanced meats in the supermarket are injected with salt, antioxidants, phosphate, water, and or other flavoring before we buy them. (The added water makes it more profitable.) You have to go to Sam’s or Costco to find meat that isn’t enhanced. That’s where barbecue cook-off competitors shop because the rules don’t allow enhanced meats in the competition. So is injecting cheating? What do you think?
El Hidalguense was the second stop on the “World Barbecue Tour” that Chris Shepherd and I led for the Houston Culinary Tour Series. Our group sampled the lamb barbacoa, cabrito al pastor, cabrito ranchero and chicharon gorditas for lunch with several shots of tequila and some wonderful frijoles. On my way out, I noticed this family seated at a table near the door. Dad was enjoying some lamb barbacoa and broth. But the younger generation demanded their own favorite dish–Tex-Mex yellow cheese nachos.
If you have built one of these before, we would appreciate your comments!
Houston “Where the Chefs Eat” Culinary Tours are offered by the Houston Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. Sunday, February 26, 2012: World BBQ with Chef Chris Shepherd and Robb Walsh
There’s also Mexican-style lamb barbacoa and cabrito al pastor cooked in an indoor pit at a Mexican BBQ joint. Click here for tickets or more info. Sorry! If the Black Cowboy BBQ Cook-Off gets rescheduled, we’ll let you know!
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