HOUBBQ News - Houston Barbecue Events

How Houston’s Frenchtown gave rise to the ‘Barbecue Ward’

January 22, 2025 No Comments

How Houston’s Frenchtown gave rise to the ‘Barbecue Ward’. Driving through Fifth Ward — the area northeast of downtown that’s known by its residents as “The Nickel” — you can’t avoid the railroad tracks. Today, the Union Pacific tracks slash diagonally though the neighborhood exactly as they did in the 1862, when they were laid as the Texas and New Orleans Railroad. The Southern Pacific Railroad would eventually take over the route, and the Union Pacific after that. By 1880, the full route between Houston and New Orleans was complete, and many of Houston’s most important cultural traditions began to flow west from southwest Louisiana into Southeast Texas. This flow

Cornbread & barbecue at The Brisket House

Cornbread’s connection to barbecue

January 9, 2025 No Comments

Cornbread’s connection to barbecue. On a recent visit to the Memorial-area location of The Brisket House, I found an unusual item on the menu: cornbread. Cornbread is surprisingly hard to find on Texas barbecue-joint menus. For anyone who grew up in Texas or the southern U.S., cornbread was a constant presence on the family dining table or at local restaurants. My first memory of cornbread, beyond the ubiquitous box of Jiffy cornbread mix that appeared in our kitchen every Thanksgiving, was at The Black-Eyed Pea restaurant in Beaumont where I grew up in the early ’80s. Long before it expanded to dozens of locations throughout the southern U.S. (and eventually

In Houston barbecue, there’s more than one way to make fried pork ribs

December 30, 2024 No Comments

In Houston barbecue, there’s more than one way to make fried pork ribs. Fried pork chops are a staple of Southern cuisine and soul food. At its most basic, a rib cut (bone-in) pork chop is seasoned, dredged in all-purpose flour and deep fried until crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. There are variations. Smothered pork chops, for example, feature a crispy fried pork chop that’s covered in a savory, rich cream sauce or brown gravy and served over rice or mashed potatoes. At the late, great Burt’s Meat Market (closed in 2021) in Houston’s Fifth Ward, you could order the fried pork chop sandwich, which featured

How the two-meat plate became the workhorse of Texas barbecue

December 10, 2024 No Comments

Ask any Texas barbecue joint owner what their most popular menu item is and they will probably say the two-meat plate. Those big, Instagram-friendly trays piled high with every type of smoked meat may get all the publicity, but a modest plate with two meats, two sides, pickles, onions and a slice of white bread is the profit-making workhorse for most neighborhood barbecue joints. To be sure, not every barbecue joint has the classic triumvirate of one-, two- and three-meat plates on the menu. Many stick to the butcher shop technique of ordering meats by the pound. Pinkerton’s Barbecue in Houston and San Antonio is famous for adhering to the meat market

When it comes to cuts of beef in barbecue, there are winners and losers

December 2, 2024 No Comments

Over the past two years, Texas barbecue joints have continued to evolve and innovate in response to changing market conditions. For example, pitmasters have experimented with different cuts of beef to supplement the old standbys of Texas barbecue: brisket and beef ribs. Texas barbecue is still very much a meritocracy, and consumers have voted with their pocketbook when it comes to which cuts of beef they want to eat. Based on my own experiences traveling the state, perusing hundreds of menus and tasting as many meals, here are the winners and losers when it comes to the popularity of new cuts of beef you will occasionally see on menus. Let’s

How ‘low and slow’ became the standard in cooking Texas barbecue

November 28, 2024 No Comments

Texas barbecue has many unique characteristics, mainly related to how it is cooked — low and slow — and how it tastes (salty and smoky). Central Texas-style barbecue is further characterized by the method used to cook the meat low and slow. Specifically, it uses a technique in which the heat source is separated (“offset”) from the chamber in which the meat is cooked. This process is known as “indirect” cooking or smoking, in which the heat and smoke from the fire flow over the meat to cook it, rather than being directly under it. This technique gave rise to the traditional cooking appliance of Central Texas-style barbecue: the offset

HOUBBQ News & Info

How Houston’s Frenchtown gave rise to the ‘Barbecue Ward’

Cornbread’s connection to barbecue

In Houston barbecue, there’s more than one way to make fried pork ribs

How the two-meat plate became the workhorse of Texas barbecue

When it comes to cuts of beef in barbecue, there are winners and losers

How ‘low and slow’ became the standard in cooking Texas barbecue

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