Sitting around waiting for the 48th
Annual Wild Game Feed to roll around on the third Friday in September has
started me thinking about barbeque. The
AWGF serves some good stuff, and although it isn’t Texas barbeque, it’s good
enough to make me want to be first in line to get served.
I’ve mentioned many times before that
barbeque is where you find it. I’ve
also mentioned regional preferences.
I’ve been surprised many times by what people call barbeque, but I’ve
enjoyed sampling my way through the many style and approaches to cooking meat
and veggies. The one thing I just can’t
wrap myself around is barbequed tofu, although it does seem to be popular in
California. Maybe popular isn’t the
right word. I probably should have said
it is not considered unusual in California.
Then again, it’s California.
The west coast includes three states,
Washington, Oregon, and California, but what I’m looking at here is the lower
half of the state of California from Paso Robles at the north end to San Diego
in the south.
I live in Los Angeles and have spent more
than thirty years in the Southern California area. Many things brought me here, and many things keep me here. Although it is not Texas, it is a great
place to live, but the barbeque is just not my preference.
Santa Maria, near the central coast and a bit
south of Paso Robles, is the place where everyone points when they speak of
California barbeque. I find it to taste
like juicy, smoky grit. But many people
swear it’s the best barbeque in the nation.
Okay. I’ll leave it to
them. It’s not often I’ll walk away
from barbeque, but this is one of those times.
Even a tuna fish sandwich sounds better to me than that stuff.
Every town in California has its barbeque
place, and many have several of them. I
have tried out any number of these eateries, and I’m struck by the sameness of
the flavors. Some are labeled as ‘real
Southern barbeque,’ ‘real Texas barbeque,’ ‘real Memphis barbeque,’ etc., but
they are all about the same. As long as
they don’t call themselves ‘Santa Maria barbeque’ I find them enjoyable enough,
but not exciting.
I’ve spoken with many of the restaurant
owners and realized they are just making the best of the ingredients
available. Most started out with good
intentions and with experience in the style they desire to emulate, but the
local ingredients in one part of the country are not the same as the local
ingredients in another part of the country.
And then there are the local laws governing
restaurants. Barbeque has to be handled
differently in each city and town, and counties have their own set of laws, not
to mention the state regulations. Smoke
is not allowed to fill the air in some areas, and gas and electric sealed
smokers are substituted with only moderate success. In some areas, smoke must be in liquid form, and barbeque must be
oven cooked.
Well, I do understand why pollution control
is necessary, but something’s lost when something’s gained, and in this case
that which is lost is flavor. Some of
the places really try hard to produce a good product, and I’m not faulting the
effort, nor am I faulting the knowledge and abilities of the people. Given the right ingredients, many of these
restaurants could be producing very good stuff.
This makes me think that California needs to
rethink barbeque. First things
first—Santa Maria barbeque. The only
thing wrong here is the wood ash that gets all over everything. Most of it is grilled directly over a bed of
coals with chunks of red oak burning on it.
The wood pops and sputters spraying the meat with junk. Maybe it’s the characteristic of the red
oak, but whatever flavor the smoke may add is negated by the ash and wood bits
imbedded in the meat. Just simply
smoking in an offset box would make a huge difference. If the meat is to be grilled directly over
the fire, just increase the cooking grate by a few extra inches above the
fire. It will take a little longer to
cook, but it will taste less like eating hot wet sand. (I’m sure going to hear about this
one.) Then again, it wouldn’t be Santa
Maria barbeque.
There are a few barbeque societies
represented out here. I have managed to
go to a number of the contests they have put together, and I found some very
good barbeque. Some of the top crews
own or work at barbeque restaurants, so why isn’t the restaurant’s food as good
as the food at the cook-off? Maybe if
they put the same effort into the restaurant as they do the competition…, or am
I just getting back to the laws governing the restaurants?
Well, I won’t be the one to fix the
problem. The best I can do is to make
my own, but I must admit, it’s not the same as when I made barbeque in
Texas. Maybe it’s the weather. I don’t know. I just miss good barbeque.
With all of this negative, there is still
some positive about the barbeque found in California. Seafood is often found on grills instead of beef, chicken, or
pork. While it isn’t my approach to
barbeque, it can be very good eating. A
large fresh fish stuffed with some seasonings and placed on an indirect heat
grill along side of some oysters on the half shell and some fresh veggies is
both delicious and healthy.
I know this sounds like a broken record, but
I really am open to different approaches to barbeque. It just needs to taste good.
Where is the Annual Wild Game Feed when you
need it most?
