Life-Altering Barbecue

Barbecue Top 10 lists, BBQ restaurant ratings, rib rankings and all the rest of it are, as the Buddhists would say, illusion. There is no best barbecue, anymore than there is a best symphony or a best painting. This website is about the art, the culture and the Zen of…

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Pitmaster: Shayne Carter

Shayne Carter was tending the pit at Kenney Hall when I got there on the morning of the 4th of July. This was his first year helping out at the Kenney community barbecue. Beef shoulder clods, mutton, and pork butts were the meats being cooked. I had recently seen Carter…

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Mustard BBQ Sauce Recipe

Harley Goerlitz, the famous Texas cook-off competitor, told me he entered the mutton category of a cook-off in Tennessee. His entry was shunned by the judges because it didn’t include mustard barbecue sauce—the traditional accompaniment to mutton. “Now I know,” Harley said with a shrug. While researching our new barbecue…

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Hog Heaven: 2012 FTX BBQ Summer Camp

BBQ Summer Camp Counselers: From top left: Robb Walsh, Dr. Davey Griffin, Hoover Alexander, Dr. Jeff Savell, Dr. Elizabeth Englehardt, Mary Kimbrough, Ray Riley Kneeling: Thomas Larriviere, Daniel Vaughn, Marvin Bendele, bottom row: the hog. Saturday night’s dinner this year at Foodways Texas (FTX) BBQ Summer Camp was a traditional…

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Barbecued Mutton Recipe

Barbecued Mutton (Adapted from the Barbacoa de Borrego recipe in The Tex-Mex Grill) Expect strange looks when you invite people over some delicious barbecued mutton. Back in the day, what we now call lamb was known as mutton. (In Australia, it’s lamb up to one year of age, then it…

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Heritage Hog BBQ

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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BBQ Revelations: One Fine Pig

The first whole hog I ever barbecued came out amazing–but then again, I had a lot of help. Starting with Morgan Weber, my pig farmer/butcher. The meat had a melt-in-your-mouth texture, thanks to the marbling on the Red Wattle/Mangdalista heritage hybrid Morgan bred for his Houston store, Revival Market. Morgan’s…

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Barbecue Time Machine

At dawn on the morning of Sunday October 16, I drove into the parking lot of the Washington Lodge of the Sons of Hermann. As I described in an earlier post, a handful of old fraternal organizations in this part of Texas have preserved the pit barbecue style that was…

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Texas BBQ Pork: The Brown Pig

The “Brown Beef” (top), “Brown Pig” (center) and “Little Pig Ham” (bottom) are the three most popular sandwiches at Neely’s Sandwich Shop on East Grand Avenue in Marshall, Texas. The first is made with chopped barbecued brisket and sells for $2.85, the last is made with sliced barbecued ham and…

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2012 Foodways Texas BBQ Summer Camp

Foodways Texas announces BBQ Summer Camp dates and details: From Foodways Texas: “Mark your calendars for June 8-10, 2012, for the Foodways Texas Barbecue Summer Camp held in partnership with the Texas A&M University Meat Science Center in College Station, Texas. Tickets for the camp will go on sale sometime…

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