Could other styles of barbecue succeed in Houston?
Houston is blessed with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to our home-grown East Texas style of barbecue, with an emphasis on pork dishes and Cajun influences such as boudin.
More recently, the beefcentric, sauce-less Central Texas-style barbecue has made inroads in the Bayou City.
But what about other regional and national styles?
For my barbecue-loving friends from famous smoked-meat meccas such as Memphis (“dry” or “wet” pork ribs) and Kansas City (brisket “burnt ends”) and regions including North Carolina (chopped pork shoulder) and South Carolina (whole hog/pulled pork), there are no options in Houston.
We’re not alone in this dearth of barbecue diversity in Texas. Austin barbecue joints are almost exclusively Central Texas style with a few older places known for an East Texas influence. Dallas is mainly Central Texas style with a rare exception of a Kansas City-style joint called 18th & Vine (the name refers to the neighborhood in Kansas City where that city’s barbecue first took root).
So why is there such a lack of diversity?
I would argue that this lack of choice in styles is simply a factor of Texas barbecue’s success. We, as Houstonians, have been eating the same type of barbecue our whole lives, and there’s really no incentive to branch out and try something new or different. Plus, certain popular dishes such as pulled pork and burnt ends already appear on Texas-style-barbecue menus, so why build a whole barbecue joint just for those regional specialties?
Houstonians love our brisket, spare ribs and boudin. Would we give up our beloved chopped beef sandwich served with a tomato sauce for a more obscure North Carolinastyle chopped pork sandwich served with a dollop of coleslaw and vinegar sauce? Probably not. If there isn’t a market/ audience for the product, there’s no incentive to open a restaurant that specializes in it.
But this may be changing. Barbecue has become such an international phenomenon that interest in other styles is growing, if just for the novelty of eating smoked meats from other areas of the country.
In the Houston area, two restaurants have ventured to serve barbecue from cities outside Texas. Boogies Chicago Style BBQ in Missouri City features “rib tips,” the meaty, bony chunks cut from one end of a pork spare rib that Chicago barbecue is known for.
In the Westbury area, Fainmous BBQ has been serving East Tennesseestyle barbecue since 2011. Owners Jamie and Karen Fain hail from Knoxville and feature that area’s traditional smoked-andpulled pork shoulder in a spicy tomato-and-vinegar sauce that adds an acidic balance to the richness of the pork.
And what about the granddaddy of all Southern-style barbecue dishes — the “whole hog” traditions of the Carolinas? This technique features a whole hog that has been dressed and splayed flat over a bed of coals to cook. Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Hemingway, S.C., and Skylight Inn BBQ in Ayden, N.C., are the classic examples of this style.
Could a Southern-style whole-hog barbecue joint be successful in Houston? I’d say yes, based on the occasional pop-up dinners and festival offerings by local pitmasters including Patrick Feges. Feges and his wife, chef Erin Smith Feges, have become nationally known for their whole-hog offerings in Houston. Plans by the couple for a restaurant here include whole hog as part of a menu centering on traditional Texas barbecue.
Certainly, these barbecue interlopers from across the country will always be secondary to our beloved Texas style of smoked meats. But through television and social media, barbecue fans are more aware than ever of different styles and techniques from across the U.S.
The option to indulge in an authentic whole-hog/ pulled pork sandwich without having to drive to the Carolinas seems like something that would only add to an already deep roster of Houston barbecue joints.