By Nathan Smith
Last Saturday, I found myself in Llano, Texas. When driving through Llano, it’s almost a sin for a devout Texas barbecue disciple to drive past Cooper’s Old Time Pit barbecue without paying homage to the great, above-ground smoking pits.
I stopped and was not disappointed.
While enjoying the delicious brisket, red beans and spicy sauce, I started wondering how Texans’ love affair with barbecue began. So I did a little digging.
The origins of Texas barbecue, like many things about the state, were influenced by European immigrants.
Dutch, Mexican, Italian, English and especially German barbecuing techniques have shaped what we know and love as Texas barbecue.
In the mid 1800s, African-Americans brought pork barbecue with heavy sauce and trimmings into East Texas from the deep south. After the Civil War, beef became plentiful and cheap in the Lone Star State so brisket, as we know it today, found its way to plates across the state. It was easy to eat, didn’t require a fork and knife and would keep until you got to the farm or ranch.
What we call barbecue restaurants came to life as more of an accident than a carefully planned business endeavor.
In Texas, they began as a way for meat markets to salvage leftover or undesirable cuts. Before refrigeration, they had no choice but to cook the meat and sell it. Back then, it was all about the meat. Forget the beans and potato salad. Slap a piece of brisket on some bread and get back to work.
Travel to Lockhart or Luling and you can still dine in the remnants of those early meat market buildings.
The markets weren’t the family-friendly eateries we know today. They often attracted rowdy cowboys and drifting laborers to their tables. These tables had knives staked down by chains to prevent theft and stabbing. The next time you travel the Texas barbecue trail, look for the holes in some of the older joints.
Barbecue experts like Robb Walsh have great videos on YouTube that give information about the best locations in the Lone Star State.
For the barbecue purist, it’s still all about the meat. But if you’re craving coleslaw and cobbler, you can find it from the Red River to the Rio Grande.
Reason number 189 for loving life in Texas: Barbecue with a tasty history.
At Texas Table Top, we love hearing about great Texas barbecue. Where do you find it?
Nathan,
Good thoughts as always. I truly enjoy reading your articles, especially when they’re about BBQ.
Great post, Nathan! My family and I took a barbecue road trip over spring break. We ate at Cooper’s, Smitty’s, Kruez, Coopers (in New Braunfels), Franklin, and Louie Mueller’s. We had great time and ate lots of good ‘cue.
It is a historical myth that texas barbecue was intertwined with the cattle drives and the trail drive. Most of what those cowboys ate was cooked in a cast iron dutch oven or skillet. First, the cook did not have time for something that cooked 8-10 or more hours. Second, the lack of available firewood meant that most of what they ate was cooked over a cow or buffalo chip fire. finally, they ate very little beef on the trail. A typical trail drive crew was 10 to 12 cowboys, and the cook had no wat to keep fresh meat from spoiling. They ate lots of beans, biscuits and bacon, washed down with Arbuckles Coffee.
There’s a great list of the “best Texas barbecue” piling up on the Texas Farm Bureau Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/texasfarmbureau. The list includes:
City Market, Luling
The original Rudy’s, Lon Springs
Inmann’s
Laird’s
Chisholm Trail, Lockhart
Cooper’s, Llano
Sonny Bryan’s
Big Boys BBQ, Sweetwater
Stubbs
Saltlick, Driftwood
Kreuz Market
Joe’s BBQ, Corpus Christi
Vitek’s, Waco
Louie Mueller’s, Taylor
City Market, Giddings
Big Bob’s Steakhouse, Cameron
Sam’s BBQ, Austin
Liking County, Houston
Black’s, Lockhart
Smitty’s, Lockhart
Mr. F. Anderson’s stand, Cedar Creek
Snow’s, Lee County
Martin’s, Bryan
Hard Eight, Stephenville
J. Cody’s, Bryan
Smokehouse, Lindsay
Keep the recommendations coming!