Texas "BBQ" isn't really barbecue at all.  Just some sort of cooked pork or chicken with a ketchup-like additive covering it.  Not saying it isn't popular or tasty, but don't call it "BBQ."  It's kind like when coaches say they're running the Double Wing when they aren't pulling their linemen.  That's not the Double Wing.

--Dave

Posted by: @coachdp

Texas "BBQ" isn't really barbecue at all.  Just some sort of cooked pork or chicken with a ketchup-like additive covering it.  Not saying it isn't popular or tasty, but don't call it "BBQ."  It's kind like when coaches say they're running the Double Wing when they aren't pulling their linemen.  That's not the Double Wing.

--Dave

Dave...with that comment I questions if you have ever had texas "bbq" and your judgement 😛

Yeah, just about everybody offers sauce on the side if they offer it at all. Plus, I don't think they consider chicken to be bbq in Texas. They barely recognize pork. 

Yeah, I was mostly looking for brisket.  If it's done right, no sauce is needed.  

I grew up a Memphis bbq snob -- meaning pork only -- but as I've gotten older I've been able to finally admit that brisket is the king of meats.

Posted by: @spidermac  Dave...with that comment I questions if you have ever had texas "bbq" and your judgement 😛

The Double Wing Symposium used to be held in Dallas and then Frisco for about 5 or 6 years.  I had what the Texas restaurants call "BBQ."  It was edible.  Some of it was good.  None of it was BBQ.

--Dave

Posted by: @coachdp

Texas "BBQ" isn't really barbecue at all.  Just some sort of cooked pork or chicken with a ketchup-like additive covering it.  Not saying it isn't popular or tasty, but don't call it "BBQ."

I think it's a mistake to call any kind of food "barbecue". "Barbecue" is either what you do to a piece of meat, or the equipment you use to barbecue it.  You might even barbecue vegetables.

 It's kind like when coaches say they're running the Double Wing when they aren't pulling their linemen.  That's not the Double Wing.

 

And, as I've written here before, it's also a mistake to narrow the meaning of "double wing" to any system.  A double wingback formation and a number of plays to run out of it go back now over 110 years.  The plays to go with it and even other details of the formation have been applied to a lot of systems over time.  I grew up hearing "double wing" as the general name for the formation, and most of the plays, pro teams usually use now; it was then what they went to when they wanted to get single coverage on a receiver, and was seen in the AFL more than the NFL.

What I think DP is referring to is an inferior form of double wing offense teams might run when they think the Markham-style double wing looks cool but their coaches are incompetent to take advantage of what makes it work.  They're running double wing, but uselessly.  Or maybe they're really running a more typical ace back offense, in which case what DP thinks they're doing isn't what they're about at all; they might be very good at what they do.

Posted by: @bob-goodman

I think it's a mistake to call any kind of food "barbecue". 

--Agree, 100%. Except in Eastern North Carolina, where barbecue is in and of itself.

--Dave

Posted by: @coachdp

Posted by: @spidermac  Dave...with that comment I questions if you have ever had texas "bbq" and your judgement 😛

The Double Wing Symposium used to be held in Dallas and then Frisco for about 5 or 6 years.  I had what the Texas restaurants call "BBQ."  It was edible.  Some of it was good.  None of it was BBQ.

--Dave

You probably went to the wrong places. Texas, just like NC or any other state has a lot of places that serve slow cooked, smoked meat that they market as "bbq". NC can't even agree on what constitutes "bbq". Whole hog or shoulder? Does chicken count? Brisket probably doesn't fit the bill as "NC bbq", but the #2 bbq joint in NC, Little Richard's in Clemmons has brisket on the menu, but they call it "Texas Brisket", LOL.

Sauce? Not a fan. I worked my tail off to smoke 5 packer briskets, 5 Boston butts and 20lbs of chicken for 2 graduation parties. I was more than a little upset when I saw people dump sauce on that beautiful meat without even tasting it first. Don't really care what kind of sauce it is.

NC "sauce"? aka dip aka mop: Vinegar, salt sugar, black pepper, red pepper flakes, cayenne. Still sauce. I don't mop my bbq. I leave it alone.

Just watched a nice lady on Youtube making "real" Carolina bbq with the vinegar dip. Unfortunately, she cooked the pork shoulder in the oven.

So just what has to happen to a piece of meat before you can call it "bbq"?  It can't come down to slopping it in vinegar, can it?

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

NC can't even agree on what constitutes "bbq".

--True.  But I can't help it that North Carolinians (outside of eastern NC) are clueless.

So just what has to happen to a piece of meat before you can call it "bbq"?

--1) It has to come from Eastern NC.  2) It has to have a vinegar-based flavor without being a table-top additive.  3) I have to like it.

--Dave

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

So just what has to happen to a piece of meat before you can call it "bbq"?  It can't come down to slopping it in vinegar, can it?

That'd be a waste of the word "barbecue" (or the "word" "bbq"), since we already have perfectly good words by which to name foods so prepared: "sauer[German word for whatever it starts as]".  Or anglicize it to "sour-".  But the "slopping" has to be for a long enough duration before cooking -- or for vegetables, long enough to sour naturally by fermentation.  Just cooking something and then soaking it in ketchup or whatever...not sure that even needs a name.  And I see no reason to require souring of any kind to be a prerequisite for barbecue.

I made sauerbraten once.  Delicious beyond what I'd expected...but not worth the trouble to do again.  Now the longest I marinate anything is overnight, and rarely even that long.

Posted by: @coachdp

--1) It has to come from Eastern NC.  2) It has to have a vinegar-based flavor without being a table-top additive.  3) I have to like it.

--Dave

 

Ah. Now you're making sense.

@festivus15: Enjoy Aaron Franklin's non-bbq, award winning, world renowned slow cooked smoked brisket. If I were in Austin, I'd make the 90 minute drive to Luckenbach, TX, but I'm a Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson fan. If you're not into that, skip it.

Posted by: @bob-goodman

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

So just what has to happen to a piece of meat before you can call it "bbq"?  It can't come down to slopping it in vinegar, can it?

That'd be a waste of the word "barbecue" (or the "word" "bbq"), since we already have perfectly good words by which to name foods so prepared: "sauer[German word for whatever it starts as]".  Or anglicize it to "sour-".  But the "slopping" has to be for a long enough duration before cooking -- or for vegetables, long enough to sour naturally by fermentation.  Just cooking something and then soaking it in ketchup or whatever...not sure that even needs a name.  And I see no reason to require souring of any kind to be a prerequisite for barbecue.

I made sauerbraten once.  Delicious beyond what I'd expected...but not worth the trouble to do again.  Now the longest I marinate anything is overnight, and rarely even that long.

Next time I smoke a Boston butt, I'll try the Carolina vinegar mop, although I'm not a fan of opening my smoker until the meat's done.

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

Posted by: @coachdp

--1) It has to come from Eastern NC.  2) It has to have a vinegar-based flavor without being a table-top additive.  3) I have to like it.

--Dave

 

Ah. Now you're making sense.

See?!  Yes, exactly!

--Dave

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

Sauce? Not a fan. I worked my tail off to smoke 5 packer briskets, 5 Boston butts and 20lbs of chicken for 2 graduation parties. I was more than a little upset when I saw people dump sauce on that beautiful meat without even tasting it first. Don't really care what kind of sauce it is.

 

Easily the best chicken I have ever had. 👍