I welcome Daniel Vaughn, the barbecue editor at Texas Monthly, and we focus on the regional diversity of Texas barbecue. I ask how he moved from architecture to writing and how a blog grew into his job. We discuss how I and he judge barbecue places, with attention to brisket, sausage, and local specialties in East, Central, and South Texas. We share stories about pitmasters and characters, including Tootsie at Snow's, and we explain why those human stories matter. I critique trends like oven‑baked brisket and the recent popularity of stuffed turkey legs. We conclude that barbecue is strong, varied, and rooted in local tradition, and that the people who make it keep the craft alive.

Links referenced in this episode:

• paintedhillsnaturalbeef.com
• heritagesteel.us
• gunterwilhelms.com
• bbqnationjt.com
• thecowboycook.com
• oregondungeness.org

It's time for Barbecue Nation with jt so fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.

Now from the Turnito Burnett studios in Portland, here's jt.

This is an encore.

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to Barbecue Nation.

From high atop the Turn It Don't Burnett studios in Portland, Oregon.

I'm J.T.

Along with Camaro, Dave, Commander Chris, and we'd like to welcome you to the show on the Sun Radio Networks again this week.

We thank you very much for letting us into your headspace.

As I like to say, our guest this week, Daniel Vaugh, has got a title that I don't know of anybody else in the country that has one, which is the Barbecue editor.

Editor.

I should say it properly for a it's called Texas Monthly, but it's really a national magazine.

So we're going to talk to Daniel in just a second here.

And we'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef, Beef the way nature intended.

You can check them out online at paintedhillsnaturalbeef.com Daniel Vaughn, welcome to Barbecue Nation.

Oh, well, thanks for having me on.

I'm happy to be talking with you today.

No problem.

I've looked forward with it to this for actually quite a while.

I just couldn't quite work in the time to, you know, make contact with you and all that stuff.

So now that we've done it, consider yourself invited to be a regular.

Excellent.

Well, I'm spending plenty of time at home these days.

Yes, yes, we all are.

So you're a recovering architect by trade.

How did you get to being a, you know, an editor for barbecue in a very prestigious magazine?

Yeah, well, you know, some strange twists and turns for sure.

Yeah.

As you said, my education was in architecture.

I moved to Dallas 20 years ago to become an architect and did that for 12 years.

But, you know, coming to Texas I really, like within the first year, I was subscribing to Texas Monthly, and they have these barbecue issues that they put out.

Well, now we put out these top 50 barbecue lists.

And, you know, it just really intrigued me that the idea that, first of all, that there was a state that had 50 barbecue joints good enough to, you know, to rank, to recommend people to go to originally from Ohio.

And we, I don't even know if we had one back then that anybody could recommend.

Sure.

And, you know, just the idea of that you could use these different restaurants as a reason to travel the state.

And so, you know, I just started searching, started using that as a guide, going out to eat Barbecue on the weekends.

Eventually started a blog called Full Custom Gospel Barbecue.

Started that blog with my friend Sam Watkins, and we went out on several road trips together.

And then from there it really was just.

It just turned into an obsession.

I wanted to be able to go to every new barbecue joint that opened.

I live in Dallas, so I especially wanted to get to those in Dallas and Fort Worth.

And eventually D magazine in Dallas asked me to put together a top barbecue list for him in the.

In the area for Dallas and Fort Worth.

And before then, I'd never really written for.

Well, I'd never written professionally for anyone.

Never got paid to write anything, that's for sure.

And it was flattering, but it was, you know, I really took it seriously and wanted to do, like, wanted to go to every place in Dallas and Fort Worth I possibly could.

And at that time, I think there was.

I think it was around 180 different barbecue joints that I visited.

You know, some of them I'd been to before the assignment.

Sure.

Really, really wanted to tick them all off my list.

And, you know, that turned into a cover story.

And from there that gave me a little bit of clout as far as the journalism thing went.

And I started working with Texas Monthly, some just doing a few short write ups, mostly online stuff.

Yeah, let me jump in here for a second, Daniel.

Had you eaten much barbecue prior to coming to Texas?

No, no, not at all.

You know, I remember very vividly going to.

Between Ohio and New Orleans, going to college, making that drive, and stopped in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and went to Dreamland barbecue with my parents.

And that was.

That was an eye opening experience right there.

Just going into a restaurant that at that time, the original Dreamland had only rib and bread on the menu.

And you didn't order the bread, it just came with the ribs.

If you wanted anything else, there were chips hanging on the wall.

And so I think we got a whole rack of ribs and they were massive spare ribs.

And so we got this whole rack of ribs and it came with a half a loaf of bread.

And I think we ordered a second plate too.

It came.

Came on a platter and then everybody got paper plates.

And that was like my first experience with, you know, a true barbecue joint.

And up until then, you know, it was like riblets at Applebee's was considered barbecue back in Ohio.

Sure.

Yeah.

When I got to Texas, everything changed.

And, you know, having to smoke brisket for the first time and really gaining an understanding of what Texas style barbecue is and really the many versions of Texas style barbecue that there are around the state.

Yeah, we're going to talk about that a little later in the show.

But you know, they've, people have broken down the country into areas of barbecue, but I noticed you have actually taken the time, time to break out the regions in Texas for different barbecue stuff.

So like I said, we're going to get to that in a minute.

What did you think?

And I actually have never asked anybody this question, but you're the man to ask it to.

What did you think when they had a slice of white bread with barbecue?

I'm sure from Ohio you had never seen that.

No, I hadn't.

I mean, it didn't really take long to understand what it was really there for.

And that was just soak up some of the barbecue sauce.

Sure.

With, with the ribs and eat it.

I mean, I thought it was great.

The idea that, you know, you didn't, didn't really waste anything on the plate because you had this white bread to sop it all up.

And the fact too that they were serving it, you know, if you ordered like two racks of ribs, you get a whole loaf of bread.

Our rack of ribs got us a half loaf of bread.

That was, you know, that was pretty funny since they just cut the loaves right in half, right in the plastic and just handed it to you.

So yeah, it's, it's, it didn't, you know, from then on it just seemed like that's the appropriate thing to eat at a barbecue joint.

Oh yeah.

Well, I spent a lot of my adult life in another industry and I traveled to Texas frequently and I remember I was in my early 20s, you know, maybe 24, 25 something like that, and went to Texas and they took me out for barbecue and there was this white bread and I thought it was really odd until I saw what they were doing with it and then it made perfect sense to me and that.

But you know, I'm the Northwest kid, you know, I was a Yankee all through and through and we had never, never seen any of that in our version of barbecue up there then up here then was stuff kind of semi burnt and lots of sauce on it.

And that was our version of barbecue.

And I think it was that way a lot across the country years ago and of course we've expanded greatly since then.

But yeah, I remember seeing that slab of white bread on, on the plate and you know, wax paper underneath type thing and that and going.

What is that?

You know, anyway.

Yeah, well, if you go to some of the more old school places Like Kreuz Market or Smitty's.

You can even get saltine crackers along with it.

Like just a whole sleeve of saltine crackers.

Yeah.

If you want to talk about, like, real old school Texas barbecue there.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

That's the thing.

Like, I hear complaints about the white bread and it's like, you know what, it's free.

Like, if it wasn't white bread, it'd be nothing.

So.

Yeah, they're not charging you two bucks a slice, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

So sorry it's not a brioche bun, but, you know.

Yeah, you don't have to pay a whole lot for it.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's.

It's good.

I just.

Little true confessions here and people I think probably have heard me say this on the show before.

I've got a brother in law, lives in Houston and they come up every year, spend a week or two with us.

They work for the airline, so they can travel, you know, pretty inexpensively and all that.

His favorite thing is McRibs.

And I just give him the hardest time about that because here he is, lives in Texas, down out of Houston.

Lots of great barbecue around there and over in Katy and, you know, going north and all that stuff.

And he likes the McDonald's McRibs.

That's his idea of good barbecue.

It just makes me gag.

But anyway, yeah, you know, it was, it was kind of funny when McDonald's announced that they were going to do them, you know, launch the McRib across the country.

I think that was like a couple of months ago.

It almost seemed like performative.

But all these pitmasters started ordering it and taking photos of it across Texas and like, yeah, I like a McRib.

And I just, I didn't get it.

Like, I mean, I've, I've eaten McRibs and certain.

You know, as a, as a barbecue journalist, you got to eat it all.

And who knows, maybe there's a story there, but in the end, it just tastes like barbecue sauce and like textured barbecue sauce.

Yeah.

And.

Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.

I'm.

I'm not a fan of the McRib.

Yeah, if I'm going to McDonald's, like, I'd rather just get like a Big Mac.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

No, I just think that it's, it's.

If I want pressed meat, I'll eat Spam or something, you know?

Yeah.

But, you know, I wrote an article a while back which really.

About the, that idea that the McRib sort of embodies which Is that for.

And I think you were talking about earlier, just this, like, if it had barbecue sauce on it, it's kind of burnt.

It was barbecue.

And, and the idea that if you can barbecue something by adding barbecue sauce to it, all of a sudden it's barbecued.

You know, a barbecued chicken sandwich just being roasted chicken with, or boiled chicken, who knows, with barbecue sauce mixed in and all of a sudden that's barbecued.

That's, that's what the McRib is to me.

You know, it's just.

There's nothing barbecue about it until dunked into bar sauce.

No, that's not barbecue enough for me.

It always reminds me of like, you know, when they paint, when they're getting fenders painted for cars on the mass production lines, they dip it.

You know, there's robotic arms and they dip it.

And that's what I envision the McRib being, is they just take this kind of pressed meat, whatever it is, I'm sure it's pork in there, but there may be other things.

We're never sure.

And they, they dip it in there and then they push it on down the line.

That's the vision I have of it.

So.

Yes, yes, I'm with you.

It's, it's.

If that's your idea of barbecue, folks, you may be listening to the wrong show.

I'm just going to put it that way right now.

But you're more than welcome to stay and learn something here from our guest, Daniel Vaughn from Texas Monthly.

Daniel and I are going to be back in just a couple minutes here on Barbecue Nation on the Sun Radio Network.

Please stay with us.

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This is an encore.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation here on the Sun Radio Network.

I'm jt.

Today we're talking with Daniel Vaughn for Texas Monthly.

Daniel has the great title and probably an honor.

I've been Thinking to be the barbecue editor at Texas Monthly.

And if you've never seen the magazine, look it up and I would, you know, subscribe to it.

It's really a great, great magazine.

If you'd like to email us, it's very simple.

You can just go to barbecue nation, bbqnation jt.com and there's a little icon there you can send me an email on or you can do it to my other handle, which is what I use on TV.

It the cowboycook.com and just info@the cowboycook.com we're also on Facebook and Twitter and a bazillion platforms out there in social media and podcasting.

So there you go.

Like I said, we're talking with Daniel Vaughn today, the barbecue editor from Texas Monthly.

Did you think when you started, Daniel, that this would turn into what it has for you?

Meaning that you kind of started a blog and you and your buddy were kind of doing some road trips and blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, and that's all great, but it's turned into a full time job for you?

Yeah, certainly not.

I never envisioned that it was going to turn into a full time job when I started blogging about it.

I really just did it originally to keep track of the places that I'd been and so I could make sure to return to the ones I liked and not return to the ones I didn't.

So that was the initial idea.

You know, once it started taking up too many of my nights and weekends, my, my wife certainly had some questions about whether I was ever going to actually try and make money off this and if it was ever going to be end up being worth all the hours that I spent just, just doing it for free.

Sure.

So when I was offered the job, I called her and, you know, I was incredibly happy, really just ecstatic about the idea that Texas Monthly was working on a contract to make me the barbecue editor.

And she's just like, well, how, how much does it pay?

It's like, well, not nearly what I make now, but who cares?

I'm going to be the barbecue.

Well, well, maybe we need to sit down and talk about this.

Wives do that.

Yeah, wives do that.

It worked out okay.

But yeah, I'm, you know, seven, I'm in my eighth year now doing it.

And would there still be an interest in that subject?

Would, would restaurants still be opening?

Would it still be as popular as it was back then?

And you know, for eight years I've been asked like, is this the peak?

Have we hit the peak?

Are we, are we headed down, down the other side of Barbie of Texas barbecues popularity?

You know, every year.

It's just not yet.

I don't.

Daniel, I don't think we will really.

I mean, I don't think it's going to become the national food, so to speak, but I don't think we will.

Because if you look at the number of people that the estimates of people that barbecue at home when the situation is relatively normal, meaning.

No, Covid, no.

All the junk that went with that.

Barbecue businesses seem to do well overall if they're, if they've got a good product and, and you know, if they're a smart operator, they keep their costs in line and they can do really well.

So I don't see it going away.

I don't see it, you know, maybe that might happen someday with the barbecue competitions or something.

I hope it doesn't, but it might.

I can see it maybe going that way, but not in the day to day life of people.

I think barbecue is here to stay for a long time.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah, well, I mean, I certainly don't see, I don't see any time in the near future where the flame is going to die out, excuse the pun.

But you know, one of the things that's great about being the barbecue editor at Texas Monthly specifically is that as barbecue expands across the country and hits all these cities that don't themselves have their own barbecue tradition, it seems by and large that they're adopting a Texas style of barbecue cooking, which is always nice to see.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I, you know, we've got it up here now.

Of course, I know you've been up here.

Yes.

And, but we've got quite a few barbecue restaurants around and they're the ones that are managed well, are doing quite well.

And some of them have even survived.

Covid.

Quite well in the Portland and Seattle areas.

I know that because I know the owners and you know, they had to make a lot of adjustments, but they stuck it out and, and I think they're going to be just fine.

Let's talk a minute before we go to break.

We've got about three and a half minutes here.

Daniel, what are your parameters when you go to a barbecue restaurant?

And I'm pretty sure it was easier when you were first getting started.

Maybe people didn't know who you were.

And now when you walk in.

I'm sure people that pay attention know who you are.

But what are your parameters when you're writing something about a particular barbecue pit?

You know, what do you look for?

Well, I mean, first off, these days, with a mask and sunglasses, it's a little bit easier to maybe go incognito.

So there's some benefits there.

But, no, I'd say, really, though, the biggest change hasn't been whether people recognize me or not.

It's simply been how much more I've got to focus on as far as the menu goes.

You know, it's just that the menus are so huge these days that it's.

It's not like just going in and getting your brisket, ribs and sausage and calling it a day.

Right.

Right now, you know, we got a place that just opened up down the street from me called Oaks, and they have a pastry chef.

They've got, like, literally have a dozen different desserts, like creme brulee, which they fire off, like, to order.

So, you know, it is harder and harder these days to be able to go in for.

Go in for a meal and get.

For one meal and get a good idea about what this place is doing.

But, I mean, really, it all boils down to generally, brisket.

Right.

How good is the brisket?

But also try to get some idea of what that place, what the owners, what the pitmaster values, what the community values about that place do.

And, you know, sometimes that's not the sliced brisket.

You know, sometimes this place is known specifically for their smoked chicken, or maybe they're just known for those ribs, or they make a specialty sausage that everybody comes in for.

So try to get an understanding of that as well.

You know, also understanding that from a health code standpoint, like, there is no other type of food that you could cook that you go back in a kitchen that look like a pit room and be okay with it.

Right, Right.

But if it's barbecue, it's like, okay, this pit room looks just right.

There's some grease dripping over there in the cor.

We got smoke everywhere.

And like, yeah, this.

This smells right.

Yeah, they got smudges on their aprons or their shirts or whatever.

Yeah, it's all looking good.

Then, you know, you're in the right spot.

Hey, we're going to return here on Barbecue Nation with Daniel Vaughn from Texas Monthly right after these messages.

Please stay with us.

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This is an encore.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation here on the Sun Radio Network.

We'd like to thank you for listening today.

I'm JT and we've got Daniel Vaughn from Texas Monthly magazine.

Daniel is the editor of the Barbecue is the official title Barbecue editor.

Yeah, it was a great day when I got my first box of business cards.

Barbecue Editor right on there.

That was an amazing site.

There you go.

Oh, I forgot here.

We don't thank our friends at Painted Hills Natural Beef for supporting our show.

Beef the way nature intended and also the way grandpa used to make it.

If you had a grandpa that raised beef.

And our friends at Gunter Wilhelm Knives.

I've got some, and they work great.

Try them.

Look them up [email protected].

You know, when you're.

When you're traveling around looking at the different restaurants and stuff, you meet a lot of characters.

I mean, I have in my life, and I'm not a professional writer like you are to do what you do.

Tell us about some of the unique characters you've met in your travels around Texas.

I know you could probably spend all day talking about them, but maybe narrow it down a little bit.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I mean, one of the most.

One of the most famous yet incredibly interesting pitmasters is Tootsie Tominettes at Snow's Barbecue.

So Snow's Barbecue is only open on Saturday mornings.

They open at 8am and they're usually sold out by noon.

It's incredibly popular.

And their pitmaster is Tootsie tomnets, and she's 85 years old now, and so she still works for the school district during the week, and she comes and cooks at Snow's Barbecue to serve it up on Saturdays.

If you've seen the Chef's Table on Netflix, they have a barbecue series, a short barbecue series with some great pitmasters, and Tootsie's one of them.

And I mean, her story is an amazing one.

And, you know, so few female pit masters in Texas, and to have one that's 85 years old and still going strong is.

Is always amazing to see.

I've never met her, Daniel, but I've read about her and I saw a little bit of that next Netflix thing.

Seems like a great lady, but I wouldn't mess with her.

She hurt you?

Oh, no, no, for sure.

Yeah, she's.

Yeah, she's.

She's got more strength than you'd expect from any 85 year old woman.

Oh, sure, absolutely.

What do you.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

And then.

Yeah, well, down in Houston, a guy I just connected with immediately was Ray Bush at Ray's Barbecue Shack down there.

And he had been in law enforcement before and he retired and decided to open up a barbecue joint.

And the barbecue is incredible.

And he does this, this boudin.

They do homemade boudin, but he also does this one called a muddy water boudin, and it's made with crawfish and shrimp and some of the most unique stuff.

But just sitting at the, at the bar at Ray's, eating some.

Eating some his sausage and ribs and fried catfish and having a chat with him is.

I mean, that's, that's good eating and good conversation right there, man.

I know it's not barbecue, but I love fried catfish.

I just love it.

Well, I did a whole series on surf and turf catfish or surf and turf barbecue.

Yeah.

And I guess it's.

It's not really surf if it's catfish.

Right.

It's not exactly from the ocean, but close enough.

And there are a lot of, A lot of places around Texas that do a lot of barbecue joints that do great catfish.

And, you know, being able to pair a good piece of fried catfish up with some good ribs or sausage or brisket, it's always a bonus.

I know.

Way back when, I think it was like the second time I went to Texas, which was, you know, 45 years ago or something, guy said, come on, we're gonna go have lunch, we'll have some mud bugs.

And I went, what?

And he says, we'll have some mud bugs.

Well, once I saw them, I knew what they were because I grew up on a crick at our family ranch and we always caught crawdads, you know,.

And did you catch them and cook them and eat them?

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Made the.

My dad hated it because by the time he get home from work, the kids were up from the creek.

We had a big pot going and it all smelled like pickling spice and stuff.

We had newspapers on the, on the kitchen table with these crawdads dumped out there and we were eating them and it damn near made him gag.

But anyway, we Loved them.

And.

And so they, they took me to this little place, I think it was called, like, Elaine's.

And it's not Elaine's in New York City, folks.

It's Elaine's, like in a abandoned gas station that they fixed up for a restaurant.

And you went in there and.

And Stevie opened, ordered me a order of Mud Bugs, and then we had whatever was the lunch special.

And it was great.

It was just great.

Yeah, yeah, that'd be.

I guess that'd be quite a surprise if you.

If you didn't know that.

That term for them.

Yeah, absolutely.

When you, when you meet these characters and stuff and you've, well, Tootsie's famous.

I mean, she's in the hall of fame, I think now and all that.

But when you meet some of these other folks along the way, how do their stories influence you as a writer?

Well, it's not really the individual stories so much as the fact that as I've written, my style of writing has changed pretty dramatically.

When I started off, certainly when I was blogging, it was all about the push.

And when I started at Texas Monthly, there was much bigger focus on specifically the food.

You know, sort of standard restaurant review.

You go in for the atmosphere and how was the service and how was the, you know, how was the entree and the dessert and this and that.

Right.

And I still cover that, but just not in as much detail.

And I don't really like to write about a place anymore unless I get part of the story of the people who run it or own it or started it, or the pit master who runs the pits.

Their stories are really what I think interest readers more, and they're really what interests me more as well is, you know, where did these people come from?

Why did they start cooking barbecue?

And everybody's story is different.

You know, you get the idea that in Texas, these old school places, that it's always like, well, my dad taught me that's gonna be your story over and over and over.

And these days it's rarely is that the story, rarely is it that it's just a simple, like, pass down from father to son.

So hearing how everyone got involved in barbecue and why they were crazy enough to go open up a restaurant and try and serve it to people too.

So that's been the focus of the stories that I've been writing over the last couple of years now.

That is just what's changed in my own style of writing.

I noticed that I was looking at one of the stories you wrote last night about A young man who had.

Was it.

I'm going to get the name wrong because I actually didn't write it down.

I was just reading some of your stuff again.

And.

Was it Boudin's?

And then he had worked there, and then he had had some personal problems, and then he came back, and he's working for.

Is he working for Aaron or.

He's working for somebody down there?

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

So you're talking about it at Bodacious Barbecue.

Bodacious, yeah.

Sorry.

Yeah.

So Bodacious Barbecue up in Longview.

You know, that was one of my favorite spots.

And so, you know, it was one of my favorite spots.

I spent a lot of time eating there, and when Jordan Jackson was the pitmaster there, and I spent a lot of time getting to know him, and.

And then he just sort of disappeared and didn't really know what happened to him.

The guy who had worked for him, worked under him, took over things at the pits.

And then Jordan showed up a few months later in.

Not in Longview, but a whole long way away in Austin, Texas, at the pit room at Franklin Barbecue.

And so I talked to him, you know, on a personal level about the struggles he went through, and it took a few months, really, before he was comfortable having me tell that story to the public.

And it's understandable.

It's a kind of a situation that he's in the middle of.

But.

But, you know, now he's.

He's clean and sober and got through his rehab, and Aaron Franklin gave him a chance to look in the pit room there, and he's.

He's flourishing now and really turned his life around.

Yeah, I love those kind of stories, too.

I really do.

And I.

Regardless of the aspect of barbecue, I just think they're really great human interest stories like that.

So let's share something with the audience here.

Daniel, when I first called you a couple weeks ago, you were driving down the road with a turkey leg in your passenger seat, and I.

And I told you a story, which I won't repeat here because people have heard it before, about my experience with SeaWorld in San Antonio and a turkey leg that floated away in a flash flood.

First of all, tell us, how good was that turkey leg when you ate?

Was a good turkey leg?

Yeah, we've got this sort of trend going on in Texas now.

These stuffed turkey legs, which aren't so much stuffed as they are just smothered.

So these massive turkey legs, and people are putting all kinds of stuff on them, whether it's Mac and cheese Or I mean, there's places doing like shrimp Alfredo.

There's.

There's a guy.

Turkey Leg Hut is certainly the most famous of them down in Houston.

But there's a guy over in Fort Worth now at Smokeaholics Barbecue.

And on Tuesdays, he's doing stuff three legs only on Tuesdays.

But when he does, he's got.

He stuffs them with dirty rice.

He's got one of them stuffed with, stuffed with a shrimp Alfredo sauce and just all kinds of different combinations of things.

And it's just amazing to see this trend that really started like only about four or five years ago is now something that's really popping up in a lot of these different barbecue joints and really outside of barbecue as well.

So the smoked turkey leg is certainly a hot item these days.

I know for a plate of ribs, I'm a four napkin guy.

How many napkins do you go through eating a turkey leg?

Well, see, that's the thing is not many.

Because these turkey legs, these people, they're not like the.

What you get at the festivals, right?

Which you, you know, they've got to be.

There's almost a way to cook them at festivals so that they're a little less than super tender, right?

So that you can actually walk around with the thing.

But at these places, they're cooking them till they're incredibly tender.

Some of them like turkey leg paradise here in Dallas.

It's a.

If it, if it doesn't fall off the bone, it's free.

We're gonna take a break.

Danielle and I will be back in a few minutes here on Barbecue Nation.

Stay with us.

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This is an encore.

Hey, welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm J.T.

We're talking with Daniel Bond today from Texas Monthly and Great magazine.

Daniel writes great articles about barbecue and characters and barbecue and all that.

And like I said, he's a recovering architect.

I only say that, Daniel, because when I talk to lawyers, I always call them recovering lawyers, too.

Or attorneys.

Yes, well, there's, there's plenty of those who own barbecue joints these days, too.

I'm sure there are.

I'm sure there are.

They don't always feel like they're pleading their case or something.

I don't know.

You wrote, you wrote something too.

And I normally stay out of politics on this show.

It's been my kind of steadfast rule.

But you've got a senator down there, John Cornyn and his brisket.

I didn't even read it all because I was just wanted you to tell the story about it because you basically said, leave the guy alone, let him enjoy his brisket in peace.

I'm paraphrasing one line he wrote.

Tell us about that.

Well, all right.

So, yes, Senator John Cornyn, he posted on Christmas Eve a photo that was immediately shared all over Twitter.

And it was a photo of his family's traditional brisket.

And he didn't really say much more about it, just posted a photo of, let's just say, a less than appetizing looking brisket.

The lighting was bad.

It looked like it was covered in ketchup.

It had been sliced and then, and then put in the oven and it just didn't look great.

Right, right.

And especially for the barbecue crowd who's used to just staring at like luscious photos of brisket, you know, day in, day out, it was a bit of a visual shock, should I say.

And so, you know, I thought I'd have a little fun with it.

And you know, as I said in the article, like, if it's truly a family tradition, like, like most main courses that remain a family tradition aren't terrible.

Right?

Sure.

Like, yeah, sure.

Like, you know, Aunt Sally might bring her terrible salad or whatever every holiday and you're not going to say much about it, but the main course, like, it's got to be good.

And so I got in touch with one of his spokespeople and tried to get the recipe and didn't.

Wasn't successful in getting the recipe.

But I was really wanting to create the version that he did at my own house and get some idea of what that, you know, everybody saw what it looked like.

I wanted to get an idea of what really tasted like.

Sure.

And so I went around snooping around his Instagram, found some older photos of the brisket process that for this particular brisket that they seem to cook at least once a year and Just tried to find a recipe.

It matched up with it as closely as possible.

But, you know, whether it's covered in barbecue sauce or not, it seemed like the worst offense for this particular recipe was his directions to trim all visible fats.

And so it basically you're trying to cook a brisket flat with no fat in it.

And that's just, that's just not a way to.

Good way to get a juicy brisket.

So, no, I did it at home.

I did my best.

I, I wasn't trying to do a bad version of it.

I wasn't trying to mail it in just so I could get a funny story to write, but I tried at home as close to the method that he posted.

And it's not going to become a family tradition, I'll tell you that.

I understand.

I saw some pictures of it and didn't he do this in an oven?

Yes.

Yeah, it's a fully oven baked.

So the process is you cook it for three hours and then you cook it covered for three hours.

You refrigerate it overnight.

Then you remove all the fat off of the brisket, you strain out all the liquid to save only the liquid and strain out any fat.

And so you discard all the fat, slice the brisket, cover it in barbecue sauce and put it back in the oven for an hour and a half.

And yeah, already sliced brisket back in the oven with no fat to help.

It is not a, a, not a recipe for juicy brisket.

No, it's, it's not.

We've got just a few minutes left here before, and Daniel's going to stick around for after hours.

So that, that's going to be fun.

What do you think is the biggest influence on Texas barbecue?

Now?

You've covered more and eaten in more Texas barbecue joints than anybody in the world on the face of the earth, I think.

And so, you know, we talked about regions and I, and I pushed it out a little bit.

So we're going to talk about the Texas region regions and after hours.

But there's got to be a, somewhere kind of a centerist influence on Texas barbecue.

Is it the historical perspective of, you know, maybe the, the Mexican influence, the Spanish influence?

What is it?

Well, and, and that's why it is so important to talk about the, the different regions of Texas barbecue.

Because as you said, when people talk about different barbecue regions, they like to, they like to distill everything down into like a short sou.

Each one.

Sure.

You get somebody talking about North Carolina or South Carolina or Memphis, Kansas City and Then they're like, okay, and this is Texas barbecue.

Well, there's no one answer for what Texas barbecue is.

Right.

Texas is a huge state with a lot of different styles.

And.

And so there's also not one answer as far as where the tradition of Texas barbecue came from.

And so, I mean, if you look into East Texas, I mean, the enslaved population in East Texas was huge around the time of the Civil War.

So.

And a lot of those enslaved were cooking barbecue for their plantations.

So their skills translated after slavery to really when restaurants began.

So you see that influence pretty heavily in East Texas, Southeast Texas as well, down in the Houston, Beaumont area.

If you're in Central Texas, you know, it really is the place where meat market style bars, barbecue emerged as the.

As the most popular way of cooking.

And that style was really about selling raw meat and then using any of those leftovers to make barbecue.

And, you know, you put something that's been sitting on an unrefrigerated shelf for a few days, put that cut of meat, put plenty of salt and pepper on it, and put it into a smoker, and you might be able to mask that off flavor.

And, you know, if you're going to grind it up and add a bunch of spices and put it into a casing, than smoke it, you might be able to hide even more.

So those smoked sausage traditions are really important in Central Texas.

I don't think there's a whole lot of other places in the country where sausage takes on such an important role in the barbecue style of Central Texas barbecue.

But then you get into South Texas and you're talking cabrito and barbacoa.

Fajitas.

Smoked fajitas.

Fajitas, cooked or cold.

So all those things that.

That's very much Mexican influence and influence from, you know, influence from Mexico, sure.

But also influence from parts of Texas that.

The parts of Texas that used to be Mexico.

So, you know, the influences change across the state, which is the reason that those styles change all over the state as well.

Daniel Vaughn, thank you for being with us today.

Daniel is gonna stick around for the after hours in some of our markets.

Excuse me.

You got hour two coming up, and if not, we'll join you again next week for Barbecue Nation right here on the Sun Radio Network.

Take care, everybody.

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