The ABCs of BBQ, By Jeremy Goodwin, Oct 6, 2006

If you ever want to start an argument, just claim you know where the best BBQ in North America is served. Everyone has his or her favorite style, from the boiled then burned, through the soaked in sauce and singed, to the dry rub and slow cooking style preferred in Texas.

It was during my years in Texas that I fell in love with the art of barbequeing, to the point of entering cook-offs, judging competitions and becoming a sponsor and team member of a world champion BBQ team, The Cold River Cattle Company, at the Houston Rodeo Cook-Off. Although the entire event from the BBQ cook-off through the end of the livestock show and rodeo raised money for good causes, our team raised money separately for a nurturing center and The Sunshine Kids. Unlike the corporate behemoths, with their rented pit teams competing for bragging rights and to impress vendors, clients and bankers, Cold River is a loose agglomeration of over 70 individuals, many putting money, resources and buckets of sweat into throwing what continues to be one of the best four-day parties in the country at the end of every February.

There is no experience in the world that matches a Texas BBQ cook-off, and the Houston experience involves four days of drinking, eating and dancing, in the case of Cold River to raise money for charity. The event is held in what used to be the Astrodome parking lot and normally draws around 400 teams from all over the world. Flying over in a helicopter, it looks like someone set a tent city on fire, with thousands of spectators, most in tight jeans and cowboy hats, nursing drinks and watching the place go up in smoke.

Whatever the focus of the sponsors of a particular booth may be, the backbone of the event is the production of huge quantities of smoked meat in three major competition categories: chicken, brisket and ribs. All sorts of other meats not entered in the competition get consumed too. The Cold River booth goes through around 300 steaks on the first night.

I sometimes wonder whether the animals being shipped in for the livestock show are aware of the singeing of corpses of thousands of representatives of their respective species just a few steps away, or that many of them will be auctioned by the people who raised them, albeit for a good cause, and end up on somebody’s pit a few days later.

Nothing like going through college on a scholarship with the knowledge that it was paid for by liver damage, heightened cholesterol counts and wholesale slaughter.

I am a strong proponent of slow-cooking BBQ without using charcoal starter or even manufactured charcoal, because the hydrocarbons leave a noticeable taint on the meat.

I suppose that you can get away with kerosene-infused products if you are just grilling over the fire, as the high temperature and short cooking times reduce the amount of condensate that includes some of the starter fluid. If you are thinking that it burns off, remember that arson investigators can usually smell accelerants after an extremely hot fire that has burned for hours and been doused with water and foam. There are some condensates that I do want for a BBQ: After the base fire has been set with oak, teak or any other nonconiferous and virtually smokeless wood, I put wet wood with interesting flavors on top before adding the meat.

Some of the most common woods you will probably be familiar with—woods such as pecan, mesquite and apple. Not surprisingly, many of the nut and fruitwoods have unique and desirable flavors, some strong enough that you have to be judicious in their use. One of the woods I used most often was pear wood; its smoke is so strong that leftovers in the fridge would impart some of the flavor through a zippered plastic bag to any other food that had been left open.

It is that unique smoke flavor that soaks into meat cooked at low temperatures that leaves behind an unmistakable red smoke ring inside the flesh.

To get a similar flavor when cooking rapidly on a grill, you have to accept that it will be a surface treatment only, but it is still worth the trouble in my opinion. Some people like to smoke using tea leaves or spices, with cumin, dried garlic, rosemary and coriander seeds being the most predominant.

An important note is that here in San Miguel a lot of the meat is cut too thinly for good grilling, or the fat that you need for slow-cooking large cuts has been trimmed off. You have to get a butcher who can cut a steak more than an inch thick, and it can be more difficult that you think. You also should negotiate a reduced price when buying large cuts with untrimmed fat.

I found that there were benefits to my attempts to communicate my needs to butchers in inadequate Spanish, not the least of which was learning more words. Sometimes I had to demonstrate what I wanted, and showing some knowledge and ability in their craft helped build relationships and trust.

This week you are not really getting a recipe, just advice on how to grill steak or chicken and impart some smoky flavor to the meat. You can use any of the aromatic woods—nut, fruit or something with a sharp tang to the smoke, like mesquite.

It is best to soak the wood for 24 hours before you intend to grill. Take either small branches or wood chips and wrap them aluminum foil.

There are two schools of thought about what to do next. Some people recommend poking holes in the packet; others suggest sealing it as tightly as possible. Tightly wrapping it just produces artist’s-grade charcoal for me.

It is important to heat the grill to about 500°F to start the wood smoldering, and that is a good temperature at which to sear the meat. Usually about 3 minutes a side is enough. Depending on how rare or well-done you like your steaks, you can remove them after the six minutes or reduce the heat to about 350°F and cook another five minutes for medium doneness. Cooking good steak longer than necessary for medium doneness just toughens the meat, and in my opinion you are better off just chopping it up and throwing it in a stew.

Jeremy Goodwin is an author, freelance food writer and owner of The Best Kept Secret. He may be contacted at Jeremy@dcnet2000.com