Barbecued meat has long been a staple of Texan cuisine, but in recent years its main star — the smoked beef brisket — has become synonymous with the best of BBQ nationwide.
There are as many regional styles of barbecue in the United States as there are football teams. While many today would rank Texas-style barbecue as the top in the country, its beef brisket was once considered an outlier in the world of smoked meats.
A recent segment of the podcast Texas Wants to Know on Audacy asked a very important question: “Why is Texas barbecue the nation’s best?”
Already, it is essential to distinguish what makes Texas barbecue, well, Texas barbecue.
According to John Bates, who is the owner and pitmaster at Austin’s Interstellar BBQ, three things distinguish Texas barbecue.
“It’s very much driven by offset smokers,” Bates began, per Texas Wants to Know. “Our style is typically very low and slow with a lot of smoke and clean flavors going through the pits.”
“It’s also built on mostly brisket,” Bates went on to say. “It’s definitely the most important item in all Texas barbecue.”
Other styles of barbecue, like that seen in the Carolinas, center around pork: shoulder, ribs, belly, and sausage.
So why has brisket become the star of the show in Texas?
For one, it is a relatively cheap cut of meat that, when cooked properly, can be incredibly tender and flavorful.
Texas is home to a large cattle industry, which means there is an abundance of brisket available. But more than that, brisket has become a symbol of Texas barbecue, representing the state’s unique culinary heritage.
The immigrants from Central Europe who settled in Texas during the mid-19th century heavily influenced this culinary heritage, per MasterClass. Notably, the techniques they brought with them, for instance from Germany, mingled with what the land had to offer.
This translated into smoking meat — especially beef — in order to preserve it.
In Central Texas, where many say Texas barbecue originated, the flavor is imparted by the wood — mesquite or pecan — used for the smoke, so the dry rub remains simple.
East Texas veers more towards hickory wood for its smoke and often bastes meat in a sweet tomato-based marinade.
South Texas tends to sweeten things up even more by adding molasses to its marinades. Mexico also imparts an influence on this regional style of barbecue, with the slow and low cooking technique applied to a variety of tougher cuts like tongue or varieties like mutton.
Standing apart from the other regions, West Texas does not shy away from applying meat to an open flame. In true cowboy fashion, meat is grilled over a mesquite wood fire pit.
While noting that each region of Texas has different influences, Daniel Vaughn, the BBQ editor of Texas Monthly, said during the podcast that what they have in common is Texas customers.
And this indeed might be the major contributing factor behind Texas barbecue’s rise to the top.
“You know, there is no singular Texas barbecue but I think the standards here, the expectations from the customer are higher here than a lot of other places which just makes for better barbecue for everybody,” Vaughn explained in the podcast.
Nowadays, sliced brisket has a place on the menu of every Texas barbecue restaurant alongside housemade sausage, beef ribs, smoked turkey, and all the sides you can dream up.
Here too, you can see some regional differences.
Yet brisket remains at center stage for most Texas barbecue joints.
For Vaughn, who is originally from Ohio, it was his first meal of smoked brisket in Dallas that drew him to barbecue in the first place.
“I didn’t really know what smoked brisket was … I fell in love with it almost immediately … it was so foreign to me, the idea of smoking meat for hours and hours. The texture that was created, the flavors, it was so different from anything I’d ever had,” he explained during the podcast.
Indeed, brisket-focused barbecue restaurants are on the rise in Texas, and for good reason.
In Dallas, there are tons of establishments to choose from, with the Pecan Lodge, Lockhart Smokehouse, and The Slow Bone ranking highest on Tripadvisor as of May 1.
As The Dallas Express recently reported, the co-founder of Chili’s, Larry Lavine, has even launched a new smokehouse restaurant called Loop 9 BBQ. The new location on State Highway 161 in Grand Prairie began serving customers Central Texas-style barbecue on March 6.
Brisket, of course, is named first on the menu.
