Last Sunday Chris Shepherd and I lead our World BBQ Tour for the GHCVB. Last Monday I taught a BBQ class at my house with guest instructor and veteran cook-off judge, Richard Flores. Then on Tuesday I met photographer O Rufus Lovett at Baby J’s BBQ in Palestine. Lovett and I worked together on the Saveur story titled Zen and the Art of Barbecue.
read more Zen BBQ »

“The heavily-sauced, chopped East Texas barbecue is a reflection of the fact that it was originally a Negro phenomenon, an ingenious method for rendering palatable the poorer, less-desirable cuts of meat which often were the only ones available to the poor black. Hence most of the attention was lavished on the hot sauce, whose purpose was to smother the dubious flavor of the meat which the barbecueing process had at least made tender.

In Central Texas, by contrast, the Saturday barbecue at the town meat market was developed by the dominant social class, who could pick and choose from among the best cuts of meat and cooked them to emphasize their flavor. Piquant sauces had little appeal in that situation, and it is therefore not surprising that Central Texas sauces are often a rather bland incident to the large well-flavored chunks of beef enjoyed for their own sake.”

Griffin Smith, Jr.
“The World’s Best Barbecue is in Taylor, Texas. Or is it Lockhart.”
Texas Monthly, April 1973

Reminds me of a story I wrote in the Houston Press back in 2003 titled Barbecue in Black and White.

Have attitudes about black and white barbecue changed? Has the nose-to-tail eating trend altered our perception of “less desirable cuts?”

What do you think?