Barbecue

Barbecue in Texas

It was an exciting night with my family.  We rolled up into a large parking lot.  People were everywhere.  The wait of an hour gave us another chance to exchange family stories and do a lot of laughing.  Music and the hum of hundreds of voices accented our conversation.  Finally, it was our turn.  Nana took a quick picture of me in front of the barbecue pit.  The heat radiated from the wood coals.  I had to be careful not to get too close.  I thought eating meat would be "tricky" with my flat hands, but my family helped me by shredding up the meat into small pieces that hardly needed chewing.  No barbecue sauce for me.

 

 History of Central Texas Barbecue

I learned that the word "barbecue" comes from the Spanish word "barbacoa."  Did barbecued meat migrate to Texas from the Caribbean slaves that were brought to the Carolinas in the 17th century?  Or did Texas barbecue come from the local native American Caddo Indians?  In Texas in particular, the Caddo Indians were smoking meats over smoldering wood fires 10,000 years ago.    Or maybe the greatest influence, were the European meat smoking traditions brought by German and Czech settlers to Central Texas during the mid-19th century.  The original tradition was that butchers would smoke leftover meat that had not been sold so that it could be stored and saved.

"Traditional barbecue definitions don’t make sense here in Texas. “Barbecue is always served with a distinctive sauce,” say some.  Not in Texas—some of our most famous barbecue joints serve no sauce at all. “Barbecue means slow cooking over the low heat of a wood or charcoal fire,” say others. Sorry. Some of the best smoked meat in the Lone Star state is cooked at 600° F. "
Learn more by following this link: https://www.southernfoodways.org/oral-history/southern-bbq-trail/texas-bbq/