The pitfalls of defining true ’cue
I once sat in the middle of a busy dining room at a barbecue restaurant not known for having great barbecue. I was dining with a few self-proclaimed barbecue experts. We picked through the desultory, sauce-soaked plate of barbecue and righteously declared it to be inferior. One of my companions suggested we let the owner know that there are better ways to make barbecue.
I looked toward the counter — customers were standing threedeep waiting for their orders. The line was out the door. Every table was filled.
I then realized the folly of telling a barbecue restaurant owner/ pitmaster how to run their business. If you work hard, take care of your customers and provide a popular product, why should you change anything?
Still, writers and selfproclaimed barbecue experts often try to influence how barbecue is made. One of the more recent efforts is called “The Campaign for Real Barbecue” (truecue.org), founded by retired University of North Carolina professor John Shelton Reed and barbecue blogger Dan Levine. It focuses on the traditions of North Carolina barbecue, including pulled pork and “whole hog” techniques.
“True ’Cue” is determined to define great barbecue and persuade noncompliant restaurants to join in the movement through a certification process. This process involves True ’Cue members (they call themselves “Regional Smoke Detectors”), most of whom are writers and critics, judging barbecue joints in terms of their definition — specifically, barbecue cooked on pits that only use burning wood to cook and flavor the ingredients with smoke (no gas or electric assistance).
Needless to say, a few pitmasters took umbrage with this definition and compliance method. Pitmaster Carey Bringle of the popular Peg Leg Porker barbecue restaurant in Nashville responded on his Facebook page: “I can assure you that (the True ’Cue folks) are not experts. First off, they are writers, not pitmasters.”
Bringle’s disdain for writers soaked his comments like an overly sweet barbecue sauce soaks a bad plate of brisket. Why is it your business to tell me how to run mine? Bringle uses some gasassist equipment at his restaurant, and yet is known for having great barbecue. This would seem to nullify the True ’Cue definition. In subsequent interviews, Reed has admitted that gas-assist is acceptable in some situations.
Most barbecue folks, including Bringle, acknowledge that the heart of the True ’Cue movement is in the right place. But the method and tone may need some reworking.
In Houston, I like to think of it as the carrot-or-stick method of influence — or, if you will, the brisket-orstick method. On the occasion that I think an underachieving restaurant has the potential to make great barbecue, I don’t pick up my figurative stick and walk into the pit room and start telling them how to make barbecue.
Rather, I’ll dangle a (figurative) smoky, moist brisket in the form of a casual conversation about how they make barbecue and gauge their potential interest in hearing how to make theirs better. Several years ago, I did just that at Pizzitola’s Bar-B-Cue.
I’d become acquaintances with owner Jerry Pizzitola and general manager Tim Taylor. They had a loyal clientele, beautiful brick pits and a busy dining room. No need to change anything, right? But they (and I) thought they could do better. This was at the start of the “craft” barbecue movement, and their techniques were showing some age.
But we didn’t sit around and write out a definition of great barbecue. Rather, we piled into our cars and headed to the epicenter of the craft movement — Snow’s BBQ in Lexington and Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor. Jerry and Tim visited with the pitmasters and observed their techniques. I just watched, listened and learned.
By all accounts, the barbecue at Pizzitola’s has greatly improved over the last few years, thanks in part to that fact-finding trip. I’d say the process of making great barbecue is not really about definition, as it is about encouraging discovery and curiosity.