I created three podcast episodes of a new series as part of a group project in spring 2024. Our best episode is embedded below. I was the reporter for this episode, and you can read the story I wrote below. The podcast and a shortened version of the story were also published by Reporting Texas.
Beyond Brisket: The intricacies of Texas barbecue
by Aislyn Gaddis
To some, barbecue might just be a food, but to many Texans, especially Dr. Kathleen McElroy, it is so much more than that.
“I’m so obsessed with barbecue,” said Dr. McElroy, a journalism professor at UT Austin and a self-proclaimed barbecue lover.
She joined host Ivy Fowler on the newest episode of the “Bless Your Heart” podcast, produced by Bri de Latour and reported by Aislyn Gaddis.
The interview was supposed to start with everyone trying brisket from two popular Austin barbecue joints, Terry Black’s and Black’s, to see if they could tell which was which.
But, Dr. McElroy proved herself as an Austin barbecue expert right away when she could tell the difference before she even took a bite.
“We’re gonna have to blindfold her for this part,” Ivy said jokingly before it came time to taste the barbecue.
Dr. McElroy said she knew the difference based on the packaging — even though it was unlabeled — and the size of the brisket cuts. And while she said there were notable differences between the two, she wouldn’t say which one she thought was better.
“I try not to rate barbecue publicly because I think of them as all my children,” she said. “There are also particular ways people make and wrap barbecue that will affect it just minutes away from the establishment. So, I am not going to judge.”
Despite being a native Houstonian, Dr. McElroy didn’t become interested in barbecue until she was living in New York.
“I had access to some of the best sushi in the world, so of course, I became obsessed with barbecue in New York, which at that point did not have a whole lot,” she said.
When she moved back to Texas, she initially wanted to get her Ph.D. in barbecue, but then she found out that the program would take eight years, whereas journalism would only take four.
“It’s fine. It turned out okay,” she said. “But I still love studying the culture of barbecue, especially how media makes us think about barbecue.”
Many people trace the origins of Texas barbecue back to the Czechs and Germans in Central Texas, but she said that isn’t the whole story.
“Central Texas barbecue was not the first barbecue in the state, but it has become the narrative of what barbecue is in Texas,” she said “The enslaved in East Texas were doing barbecues before the Civil War.”
After the Civil War, former slaves would go to the Czech and German butchers and ask for barbecue.
“Part of that was they weren’t allowed any other place, but they could get these pieces of meat and sit on the back porch with some crackers and have barbecue, and they’re the ones who called it barbecue,” she said. “The brisket and the sausage is definitely Czech German, but how it becomes barbecue is a much more wider story.”
She said that barbecue has taught her that everything has a complicated history.
“Nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems. You think: barbecue? It’s brisket. It’s sausage. It’s German. It’s Czech. And it’s more complicated than that,” she said. “And this is not even along racial lines or ethnic lines. It’s just different regions of this state had a different idea. You go to parts of Texas close to Louisiana, and it’s a very different sense of what barbecue is.”
Ivy said that the technique or style of barbecue shouldn’t matter as much as the people you are with.
“If it tastes good, you’re feeling happy, and you’re with people that you love, you’re enjoying it in a space you enjoy, not to be corny.”
Dr. McElroy said It’s important to her to learn about all types of barbecue, not just the Central Texas variety.
“A lot of what we think about food is because someone told us that’s what we’re supposed to think about food,” she said. “You don’t have to eat anything and always have to know the history of it, but for me, if I’m going to really care about a subject, I want to make sure that I know as much about it as possible.”
Aislyn Gaddis 