ROUSES_Summer2024_Magazine Pages Web

SUMMER 2024

THE

ISSUE

THESE JOINTS ARE JUMPING gulf coast Barbecue Has Never Been Better

Grilling, Smoking & Barbecuing When it comes to outdoor cooking, you have three main methods to choose from: You can grill. You can barbecue. You can smoke. The choice of technique depends mostly on how much time you have — and how much beer you plan to drink. Grilling is what most of us do. It is all about cooking something hot and fast. Think steaks, chicken, sausage and burgers. If you like steak as much as I do, check out our Chairman’s Reserve USDA Angus Choice Beef, which is sourced from independent farmers and ranchers, and selected using strict standards to ensure you’re getting the very best. Chairman’s Reserve USDA Angus Choice Beef is beautifully marbled, juicy and delicious. Marbling, or fat, doesn’t just add flavor; as it melts during cooking, it also makes your steak richer, juicier and more tender. Our in-store butchers hand-cut and hand-trim our Chairman’s Reserve USDA Angus Choice Beef steaks to guarantee the highest quality. With hand-cut, you get just the right thickness and just the right amount

100% USDA ANGUS CHOICE BEEF SOURCED FROM INDEPENDENT FARMERS AND RANCHERS

proudly served at

ALL OF OUR BEEF GETS THE USDA STAMP OF APPROVAL “Our beef is sourced from independent farmers and ranchers for optimal marbling, for juiciness, tenderness, texture, and flavor. You can taste the difference from the first bite.” - Donny Rouse, CEO, 3rd Generation

of exterior fat, which adds extra juiciness and flavor. Our butchers also grind and make gourmet burgers in-house using 80% lean/20% fat ground chuck. That blend makes the juiciest, most flavorful burgers. I like the Rouses Bayou Boys Burger, which is loaded with jalapeños, cheddar cheese and bacon, and the Green Onion and Bacon Burger. I also make grilled chicken wings, which take about 45 minutes to cook on a medium-high grill. I use a bottle of our Rouses Peach Hot Sauce and half a stick of butter, melting them down to create a delicious sauce for my wings. As soon as they come off the grill, I douse them with the sauce — I think it’s better than Buffalo sauce. Barbecuing, often referred to as “barbequing” (see page 15), typically involves cooking meat at medium to high temperatures, usually between 225°F and 350°F. You can use direct or indirect heat from a grill, smoker or barbecue pit. Wood chips or chunks can be used to add smoky flavors, but the primary method involves cooking over a heat source. Smoking takes barbecuing a step further. Smoking is a low and slow process. You are cooking for an extended period of time at a lower temperature, which allows the meat’s fat to render, effectively basting it from the inside. Smoking uses the smoke from the barbecue to cook the food, and helps you get the flavor and texture you’re after. Smoking can take anywhere from several hours to 10, 12, 16 or 18 hours

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— or even overnight, depending on what you’re smoking. Brisket is the largest cut of meat most of us cook at home. Our Chairman’s Reserve USDA Angus Choice Beef brisket has excellent marbling and a substantial fat cap, which renders out as the meat cooks. I usually smoke brisket for a generous 15 to 18 hours to achieve a rich, smoky flavor. Lastly, we felt incredibly honored recently when Jason Gonzales traveled from Luling to our corporate office in Schriever and treated our team to lunch (see page 21). Jason’s brisket was at least as good as mine (OK, maybe even a little better), and having Jason cook for us was a truly memorable experience. Barbecue lovers travel from all over to visit Gonzo’s Smokehouse & BBQ in Luling, Louisiana; it should definitely be on your barbecue bucket list. — Donny Rouse, CEO, 3 rd Generation

We recently wrapped up our Rouses Markets Vendor Summit and 2nd Annual Charity Golf Tournament. Nearly 60 teams participated, with team members from our corporate office and stores across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, either playing golf or helping run the event. Funds from the golf tournament — $300,000 this year — support the Rouses Employee Disaster Relief Fund, our charity that assists our team members when they need it most. Founded in 2016, our Employee Disaster Relief Fund has distributed more than $6,000,000 to team members affected by storms, floods, hurricanes and the pandemic.

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Contributors DAVID W. BROWN

David W. Brown is a freelance writer whose work appears in The Atlantic , The New York Times , Scientific American and The New Yorker . His most recent book, The Mission: A True Story , a rollicking adventure about a motley band of explorers on a quest to find oceans on Europa, is in bookstores now. Brown lives in New Orleans. Susan Langenhennig Granger is editor of Preservation in Print magazine and director of communications and marketing for the Preservation Resource Center in New Orleans. Prior to that she was a news editor, reporter and feature columnist for The Times-Picayune and NOLA.com. PABLEAUX JOHNSON Pableaux Johnson is a New Orleans-based photographer, journalist and author of three books on Louisiana food culture. He was named to the Epicurious “100 Greatest Home Cooks of All Time” list, and has been waiting for his grandmother to haunt him ever since. ZELLA PALMER Zella Palmer is an author, professor, filmmaker, curator, scholar, and the Chair and Director of the Dillard University Ray Charles Program in African-American Material Culture in New Orleans, Louisiana. Palmer’s latest publications, Recipes and Remembrances of Fair Dillard: 1869-2019 (University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press) and Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque (Harper Collins, June 2023), showcase some of her rich research. She also directed the documentary The Story of New Orleans Creole Cooking: The Black Hand in the Pot . SUSAN LANGENHENNIG GRANGER

Creative Director & Editor Marcy Nathan

Art Director & Design Eliza Schulze

Illustrator Kacie Galtier

Marketing Coordinator Harley Breaux

Copy Editor Patti Stallard

Advertising & Marketing ron bonacci Tim Acosta Amanda Kennedy Stephanie Hopkins

Nancy Besson Taryn Clement

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In Every Issue

Plates, Sides & Sauces 6 Hwy. 1 Barbecue Baked Beans 29 Ed’s Eastern North Carolina Vinegar BBQ Sauce

1 Grilling, Smoking & Barbecuing by Donny Rouse

4 Letter from the Editor by Marcy Nathan 7 Cookin’ on Hwy. 1 with Tim Acosta 11 Chillin’ & Grillin’ by Ali Rouse Royster

32 Barbecue Spaghetti Golden Slaw Memphis BBQ Rub

49 BBQ Sauce East Carolina Mop Sauce South Carolina Gold Mustard Sauce

Where There’s Smoke 15 What’s the Word by Susan Langenhennig Granger

51 Hwy. 1 Ribs Boston Baked Beans

52 Classic Potato Salad

16 Texas Crutch by Pableaux Johnson 19 Take Me To Church by David W. Brown

Cajun Slaw Pickle Slaw

55 Esquites Corn Pudding Cornbread

21 He Risked It for the Brisket by David W. Brown

56 Banana Pudding

25 Char-B-Que by Poppy Tooker 27 Sweet Carolina by Zella Palmer

29 Hungry Like a Wolf by David W. Brown 35 Pork with a Purpose by David W. Brown 38 Jack of All Trades by David W. Brown 44 Meat Me at Rouses by David W. Brown

59 Ale Yeah!

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Letter from the Editor by Marcy Nathan

Heavy is the head that wears the shopping cart crown.

As anyone who has ever ridden in one of the big Mardi Gras parades will tell you, it feels like the closest you will ever get to being famous. But riding on a float surrounded by a sea of people holding signs and screaming your name is nothing compared to walking the floor of a grocery store convention wearing a shopping cart crown and sash. Earlier this year, I was honored as the 2024 Woman of the Year in Grocery by the Women Grocers of America (WGA) organization at the National Grocers Association Show (NGA) in Las Vegas. NGA represents the retail and wholesale grocers that comprise the indepen dent sector of the food distribution industry. It is the only trade association exclusively focused on representing the independent sector of the food industry. The Woman of the Year award has been given annually since 1996 to a female working in the grocery industry who displays strong leadership, a passion for the industry, and a commitment to her community. I am honored to have my name added to the list.

The NGA show doesn’t seem at first like the place to laissez les bons temps Rouses , but my team made these elaborate shopping cart crowns for us to wear. (The sash and stickers with my face on them were a complete surprise.) And artist Sandi deMeo hand painted @MarcyMakesGroceries shoes for me. Sandi customizes several players’ cleats for CONGRATS! marcy nathan CREATIVE DIRECTOR ROUSES MARKETS 4 ROUSES SUMMER 2024

the Saints’ #mycausemycleats game every year, and my grocery shoes had me feeling like Taysom Hill. #mygrocerymyshoes. I wrote a speech thanking the Rouse family, the company, and all the people who have been so instru mental to my career. But the night before the award, Stephanie Reid, president of The Shelby Report and an executive at WGA — and a friend and mentor — told me that WGA unfortunately didn’t have time for me to make my speech. I can be a touch verbose, so it occurred to me that someone might have warned Stephanie that once I started talking, I would never get off the stage. But she assured me it was just a jam-packed schedule, and I wouldn’t even have a microphone. Honestly, I’d been more worried about remembering my Spanx than my speech. Stephanie graciously introduced me at the ceremony, detailing my career milestones and the impact I’ve made in my field. It was very heartfelt. She also included some personal accomplishments that have shaped who I am today. When Stephanie finished, I strode onstage, took a photo, did my best beauty queen wave, and walked off. I didn’t even say thank you. Afterwards, Kacie, Amanda, Mary Ann and I walked the floor in our whimsical shopping cart crowns. We were greeted with warm smiles and applause. At one point, we joked that we had taken so many pictures, we might even find ourselves featured on the packaging for new products. I shared snippets of my speech with everyone I met, so I got to tell my story after all. I wasn’t the only one winning an award at the NGA. Rouses Markets was also honored as an Exceptional Independent by The Shelby Report during the ceremony. This marked our second consecutive win in as

many years, a testament to our dedication and excellence in the industry. That night, we all went to dinner at the most fabulous restaurant in Vegas, Papi Steak, where Golden Era Hollywood swagger meets modern day Miami energy. The ambiance was electric, and the food was unfor gettable. Afterward, we hit the dance floor, ready to keep the celebration going. Now, there is no set closing time in Nevada for bars. But The Piano Bar at Harrah’s closed at 2am, and Harrah’s Carnaval Court closed at 3am – you should have seen our faces when they each announced last call! It was probably a good thing, though. The next morning, I was sure I was going to wake up to find a tiger in my bathroom — or worse, missing a tooth. Then, the next weekend, my friends in New Orleans threw me a big party to celebrate. One of my best friends from Atlanta even who rides in Muses and makes the best shoes, using images from our ads and magazine. Luckily, they must have ordered the hat a little big; after my Las Vegas adventure, and with my head all swelled from the excitement and accolades, I needed that extra room! A huge thank you to Donny Rouse, Scott Miller, Tim Acosta, Lee Veillon, Amanda Kennedy, Kacie Galtier, Mary Ann Florey, Jason Martin olich, James Breuhl and Brian Bosworth for making the trip to Vegas with me. You are the best entourage ever. To Kristin Popp (president of the WGA), Heidi Huff, Stephanie Reid, Tess Hohman, Lesia Stahl, Shellie Wood and all the members of the WGA. And to Greg Ferrara, the President and CEO of the National Grocers Association. flew in for the occasion. To my delight, they surprised me with a custom-made MarcyMakesGroceries cowboy hat, beautifully decorated by my friend Mollye,

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Photo by Romney Caruso

HWY. 1 BARBECUE BAKED BEANS Serves 8-10 The smoky, meaty flavor in these beans comes from the bacon. I take canned beans and heat them through in a sweet and tangy sauce, enriched with the flavors of onion, bell pepper, jalapeños, cilantro, green onions and garlic. I also like to incorporate some pulled pork, ground beef or skirt steak into my beans. Brisket works beautifully too. WHAT YOU WILL NEED: 8 slices thick-cut bacon, cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces 1 large red onion, peeled and diced into ¼-inch pieces 1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and diced into ¼-inch pieces 2 jalapeños, stemmed, seeded and diced 3 tablespoons minced garlic 1 can (15-ounce) black beans with can juice 1 can (15-ounce) cannellini beans with can juice 1 can (15-ounce) red kidney beans with can juice 1 can (15-ounce) lima beans with can juice

to prevent burning; if the beans start to dry out, add a little water and cover the pot tightly with aluminum foil. Adjust seasoning by adding salt, pepper or sugar to taste. Barbecue Baked Beans can be stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator for at least 3 days.

¼ cup Cajun Power Garlic Sauce 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 2 cups pulled pork (about 1 pound) or 1 pound ground beef or skirt steak Kosher salt, to taste Freshly ground black pepper

HOW TO PREP: In a large cast-iron Dutch oven or

heavy-bottomed pot, cook the bacon over medium-high heat until sizzling and crispy, about 3 minutes. Remove the bacon from the pot and set aside. Add the diced onion, bell pepper, jalapeños, garlic, cilantro and green onions to the pot. Cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, for 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in the beans and their liquids, barbecue sauce, Cajun Power Garlic Sauce brown sugar, apple cider vinegar and pulled pork. Set up your smoker according to the manufacturer’s instructions and preheat to 275°F. Place cast iron pot on grill or smoker and smoke the smoke the beans, uncovered, for 1½ to 2 hours until thick, concentrated and richly flavored. Stir every 30 minutes

CAJUN POWER ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT The original Cajun Power Garlic Sauce is what made Cajun Power famous. Chef Caro’s original recipe garlic

sauce is not hot, but perfectly seasoned. Every 8-ounce bottle has two ounces of squeezed garlic in it. This original recipe is the foundation of every great Cajun Power product.

½ cup chopped fresh cilantro ½ cup chopped green onions ¹⁄₃ cup Rouses Carolina Style Barbecue Sauce

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Barbecue Belt. Alabama is known for its distinctive white sauce. And Mississippi boasts more competi tion-winning pitmasters than any other state. At the 46th Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest recently, teams from around the world gathered to compete for the title of Best Barbecue. The Shed BBQ & Blues Joint out of Ocean Springs, Missis sippi, was named Grand Champion for their Whole Hog entry. This marks their third Grand Champion win at the event, standing out among 129 top competition teams. My wife and I stop at The Shed every time we drive back and forth to the beach — I guess that makes us Shedheads. smoked turkey or pulled pork at Big Mike’s BBQ Smokehouse in Thibodaux, the pit plate always includes a few slices of white bread, which I eagerly eat. White bread comes standard at most barbecue places, a barbecue tradition that likely goes back to the meat markets of the 19th century. The butchers would throw in white bread to sop up the sauce. We sell Big Mike’s sauces in our stores, and I always get extra sauce at the restaurant. But when I barbecue at home, I don’t like to use barbecue sauce or anything like that. For my 3-2-1 ribs (see page…) I use our Rouses Honey in that last hour of cooking; the honey forms a glaze on top of the ribs. There’s no sauce, just glaze, so there’s nothing to sop up. So instead of white bread, I serve them with garlic bread. Honestly, I prefer the taste of garlic bread with barbecue. And, clearly, I’m not alone. Texas toast, barbecue’s version of garlic bread, is OTHER LOCAL BARBECUE TRADITIONS W hen I order baby back ribs,

one of the most popular frozen food items we sell. Texas toast has its origins at the Pig Stand in Beaumont, Texas (no relation to the Pig Stand in Ville Platte, Louisiana; see page …). The owner of the chain wanted heartier bread slices, which didn’t fit in the toaster, so the cooks impro vised by brushing thicks slices of bread with butter and grilling them. Garlic bread with barbecue is a long-standing tradition here on the Gulf Coast — about as much as white bread is. At Rouses Markets, our garlic bread — made from our French bread — comes pre-wrapped in an aluminum package perfect for throwing on the grill. The garlic spread melts through the bread as it cooks, creating a crispy exterior with a buttery, garlicky inside. This gives it a fantastic crust while keeping the inside soft. Garlic bread is one of the top five breads sold from our Bakery depart ment during barbecue and grilling season. We also offer the same garlic spread on our garlic bread in tubs, so you can make your own garlic bread with ciabatta, artisan bread or our French bread. You can find the bread and the spread in both the Bakery and the Meat departments, right by our barbecue meats.

Cookin’ on Hwy. 1 by Tim Acosta, Rouses Markets Advertising & Marketing Director

The area of the United States known as the “Barbecue Belt” features five distinct barbecue styles: Texas, Memphis, Carolina, Kansas City and Kentucky. At Rouses Markets, we have our own line of gourmet barbecue sauces named after and developed with flavors from each of these regions. I use the Carolina version in my baked beans. Here on the Gulf Coast, we have a unique barbecue tradition that focuses not on beef, pork or chicken, but on shrimp, using butter instead of barbecue sauce. The “barbecue” refers to the rich and flavorful sauce the shrimp are cooked in; the spike of Worcester shire sauce in the recipe gives them a brown, “barbecued” appearance. We have several recipes for barbecue shrimp on our website, including a version based on the dish served at Pascal’s Manale in New Orleans; that’s where most people agree barbecued shrimp was invented. If you don’t like fooling with the shrimp heads and tails, I make an easy-to-peel barbecue shrimp; that recipe is also on our website. And maybe it’s time that the Gulf Coast gets added to the

LOUISIANA BBQ ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT If you can’t make it to Big Mike’s BBQ Smokehouse in Houma or Thibodaux for their prime brisket, pulled pork, smoked turkey and sausage, you can still enjoy the flavors at home. Mike Lewis’s barbecue sauces and sausages are available for purchase at Rouses Markets.

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PORK SHOULDER TIPS: ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Wood Pairing: Apple or pecan wood.

BRISKET TIPS: ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Wood Pairing: Hickory wood for robust flavor. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Preparation: Use a well-marbled brisket, like our Chairman’s Reserve USDA Angus Choice Beef brisket. I like a bold flavored brisket. I do a very light coat of our spicy ground mustard mixed with a bit of Cajun Power Garlic Sauce, just to get the rub to stick to the meat. I make my own rub with kosher salt, our Butcher Blend Black Pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and a tablespoon each of ground coffee and turbinado sugar. The sugar is not so much so it will burn; it just crisps to a nice brown crust. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Cooking: Smoke at 225°F. I place the meat fat cap up for self-basting, but competitors may place it fat side down for appearance. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Duration: Smoke for 14-16 hours, or until internal temperature reaches 195-205°F. I usually put it on the night before and let it smoke overnight. When the brisket is done, wrap it in foil; it will hold the heat for hours before you slice it. You can also hold it in a warming drawer. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Short Ribs (Brisket on the Bone): Cook for 6-8 hours at 225°F, targeting a 205°F internal temperature. Let rest before serving.

ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Rub: Use a blend of paprika, brown sugar and spices. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Cooking: Smoke at 250°F with hickory or apple wood for 8-10 hours, or until internal temperature hits 195°F. Once I hit 160°F, I wrap the pork shoulder in foil, put it back on my smoker, and let it go until it hits 195°F. Some people get nervous when they reach about 160-165°F and it stays at that temperature a few hours; that’s what’s called a “stall.” But once it gets beyond that, the temperature will continue rising. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Moisture: Place a pan of apple juice mixed with a bit of apple cider vinegar beneath the pork. I also like to add some cut-up yellow onions and a cut-up head of garlic to enhance the flavor. SMOKED CHICKEN (SPATCHCOCKED) TIPS: ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Preparation: Cut along the entire length of the chicken, tail to neck, on both the left and right sides of the chicken’s backbone. (Kitchen scissors work great for this.) Pull the backbone out. Press down on both halves until you hear a crack. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Seasoning: Use your favorite rub. Lately I’ve been using We Dat’s Creole Seasoning. I also like to use We Dat’s Garlic Parmesan Seasoning on wings. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Cooking: Smoke at 350°F for about 2 hours, or until internal temperature reaches 160°F. Crank up the heat at the end for a nice crispy skin. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Wood Pairing: Pecan wood for a sweet, nutty flavor. LAMB TIPS: ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Wood Pairing: Cherry wood. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Preparation: I like the semi-boneless or boneless leg of lamb we sell at Rouses. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Marinade: Olive oil, garlic, rosemary, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and any herbs from the garden. Marinate for at least 4-6 hours, or up to overnight. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Cooking: Preheat grill to high. Sear all sides, then reduce heat to medium-low and cook until meat reaches desired degree of doneness. Use a meat thermometer: 145°F for medium-rare, 160°F for medium, 170°F for well done. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Resting: Let rest for 10 minutes before slicing. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Serving: Slice it thin and serve it with tzatziki sauce like they do in Greece. Tzatziki is a creamy dip that’s made of strained yogurt, shredded cucumber, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, salt and herbs — usually mint and dill.

FOR RIBS: ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Method: Use the 3-2-1 method (details on page 50).

Photo by Romney Caruso

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HUMANELY RAISED CHICKEN FROM FAMILY FARMS

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bbq chicken drumsticks

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THAT’s THE

10 ROUSES SUMMER 2024

Chillin’ & Grillin’ By Ali Rouse Royster, 3 rd Generation I love summertime, especially the slower pace it brings for my very active 7-, 8- and 9-year-old children. One thing I do not love about summertime is having to figure out not just breakfast and dinner every day, but also lunch for all five of us. If you’re anything like me and my husband, Billy, the question of “What’s for dinner?” is usually met with an eye roll and a sigh. Luckily for me, every now and again Billy will see some kind of recipe on YouTube or Instagram and just have to try it. And you can bet it’s going to be BBQ about 90% of the time (100% of the time in summer!). Sometimes we’re going on a culinary adventure that only the adults will try; other times it’s a slightly different take or method on an old classic; a lot of the time, it’s somewhere in the middle. Sometimes we have a hit on our hands that we’ll add to our regular rotation; many times the result is good but not good enough to make again; sometimes we just have a big ol’ flop…. Summer 2024 is shaping up to be full of such exciting BBQ experiments. So far, Billy has made ribs with a method that promised to be “better than 3-2-1” but unfortunately did not live up to the hype — we will stay true to Uncle Tim’s method over here! Billy also woke me up one Saturday morning with an ingredient list he’d scribbled down, telling me he was headed to Rouses — then for lunch we had our very first Flying Dutchman burgers (think: smashburger with special sauce on grilled onion slices instead of buns), which was very good but very messy. Billy made fun of me using a knife and fork to eat the burger, but I am fairly certain he wished he had followed suit with the mess he made trying to free-hand his!

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What’s the Word By Susan Langenhennig Granger

So, what about barbeque rather than barbecue? Several sources point to the French. “Many people believe that barbeque actually derives from the French barbe à queue , that is, ‘from beard to tail,’ signifying the whole of the pig being roasted,” Quinion writes. “Leaving aside the question that pigs don’t have beards (though the allusion would work for goats), the true origin is well authenticated, and the story is just another example of folk etymology.” The Oxford English Dictionary, too, throws shade on the French origins of “barbeque.” “ Barbe a queue ‘beard to tail’ is an absurd conjecture suggested merely by the sound of the word,” it declares. And, if you didn’t think these variations were enough, the Oxford English Dictionary also lists borbecu , barbicue and babracot as (obsolete) spellings. Whatever way it was originally written, the term barbecue, by the mid-19th century, was appearing with some frequency in New Orleans area newspapers. The Daily Picayune , for example, reported on July 1, 1837 about a feast that sounds like a 19th-century Hogs for the Cause: “Not less than 20 sheep, 25 calves, 30 shoats, 60 bacon hams and several heifers… were consumed by the assembled multitude, at the barbecue lately given. (A shoat, according to Merriam-Webster, is a young hog.) In modern times, at least, the spelling variations do not seem bound by geographic borders. You’re equally likely to find a BBQ as a barbecue or a barbeque in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Kansas, Tennessee or the Carolinas. Even in London, there’s a chain of restaurants called “Big Easy Bar.B.Q & Crabshack,” which curiously claims to feature “traditional Louisiana BBQ and fresh lobster Liz Williams, food writer, historian and founder, president and CEO of the National Food & Beverage Foundation and the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans, believes the spellings are less about regional variation and more likely signals of a serious ness for the pitmaster’s skills. “I know there are some pitmasters and others who are offended by barbeque or BBQ, as they really feel that it is belittling or that it makes it seem less important or serious (than spelling it with a C).” The Southern Food & Beverage Museum doesn’t have a barbecue section per se. Instead, it offers a Trail of Smoke and Fire, which discusses the regional differences in how people cook over fire. That encompasses much more than just barbecue, Williams said. “In some places like Florida, there isn’t a serious barbecue tradition, but they do smoke fish, so we included that,” she said. (Just for the record, Williams uses the C spelling of the word, as does the museum. “But I’m not making a statement about it,” she said. “Whenever I write it for a publication, I’m going to spelling it with a C because an editor is going to change it to that.” As for BBQ, Williams thinks there’s a logical reason why the three letter variation is popular. “If you have to buy a sign, and you have to pay by the letter, BBQ is just cheaper,” she said.

Topics up for debate: smoke or gas; charcoal or wood; pork or beef; rub or sauce; C or Q? Hyphens? Wait, hyphens? Barbecue — or is it barbeque, or BBQ, or Bar-B-Q, or just Que? — has few, if any, agreed-upon standards. Used as a verb, it refers to the process of cooking over fire or smoke. As a noun, it refers to the output from that cooking: slow-and-low cooked meat. If you add an “ed” to the noun, it can be an adjective. And the spelling seems to be up for plenty of creative interpretation. B arbecue with a C is preferred, according to pretty much any dictionary you pick up, as well as the Associated Press Stylebook, the guide that calls all balls and strikes on colloquialisms in the journalism world. But the team that spells it with a Q is far from an outlier. The Alabama Barbecue Hall of Fame (and, yes, you should try every restaurant in it) includes restaurants about evenly divided on the spelling front. Many honorees, including Dick Russell’s Famous Bar-B-Q in Mobile, Alabama, lean heavily toward the BBQ and Bar-B-Q variations. The Shed, the self-described “BBQ & Blues Joint” in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, is also on team Q. Hogs for the Cause, the food and music fest that raised $4.3 million for pediatric brain cancer in April, swings between “barbecue” and “BBQ” throughout its website. (An aside: There’s just something about cooking over smoke that inspires groan-worthy puns. Take, for example, these Hogs for the Cause barbecue team names: Smokey and the Bacon, Pass a Good Swine, 2nd Hand Smokers, Swinel Richie; Silence of Da Hams; and FamousOnInstaHAM.) So, how did a method of cooking — described in a 2023 New York Times headline as a “singular cuisine” — beget such a plurality of spellings and usages? To find out, you have to go way back to the beginning — which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary and other sources, was in the late 17th century. “The local Arawakan Indians [of Hispaniola] had a method of erecting a frame of wooden sticks over a fire in order to dry meat. In their language, Taino, they called it a barbacòa , which Spanish explorers borrowed,” writes Michael Quinion on the authoritative website World Wide Words, which is dedicated to the noble cause of “Investigating the English Language across the globe.” The Oxford English Dictionary cites the 1697 writings of William Dampier, amiably described as a “buccaneer and explorer,” as the “earliest evidence for barbecue ” in English. Quinion attributes the first verb usage to “a work by Aphra Behn of 1690: ‘Let’s barbicu this fat rogue,’ showing that it was known well enough by then to be used figuratively.”

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Photo by Romney Caruso

as a practitioner of the barbecue arts, I’m more of a realist. When I cook pork shoulders, I don’t obses sively check my meat temperature or fiddle with airflow during a nine-hour smoking session. Instead, I lean pretty heavily on something called the Texas Crutch. And my life is much better for it. THE BASICS: IN COMPETITION The Texas Crutch is a smoking technique that involves wrapping a partially smoked cut of meat (usually a brisket, pork shoulder or other roast-like hunk) in thick aluminum foil to concentrate heat, accelerate cooking and minimize evaporation. Add a little liquid to the mix (beer always works) and let it sit for a spell. In basic kitchen terms, the simple crutch technique turns a dry-cooking method (smoking) into a wet-cooking method (essen tially, a braise). It’s also a great way to turn an economical cut of pig (the notoriously tough pork shoulder) into fall-apart shreds of delicious piggy barbecue. The “wrap and rest” technique was developed on the national barbecue competition circuit, where control of internal temperature and meat moisture is critical. Competition pitmasters assess the “doneness” (and the final texture) of

barbecue by tracking its internal tempera ture. For big cuts of meat (brisket, shoulders), there’s a “plateau” in the process — where cooking seems to stop as the heat penetrates deep into the center of the meat. Over time, slow heat gradually transforms the connective tissue and muscle of the traditionally tough meat into silky, flavorful collagen — the rich “X factor” of your favorite stews and gravies. The Texas Crutch was developed as a way for competition teams to hasten past the plateau, giving the cooks more control over the cooking clock. But it was also considered kind of a cheat by the purists — there they go again — since it varied from the straight-up meat+smoke=barbecue equation. But in the real world (or at last my part of it) “crutching” works amazingly well for cooking my favorite big chunks o’ meat. And what’s more, it makes for some of the Best Breakfasts of All Time. When it comes to slow-smoked meats, I’ve embraced the concept of barbecue being an indoor/outdoor sport. (Purists, you may want to skip this section, or risk bruising your delicate sensibilities.) They gone? Great. EMBRACING HYBRID HEAT: ONE MAN’S STORY

Texas Crutch By Pableaux Johnson

When it comes to traditional foods (and especially barbecue), I can’t help but admire the purists. I tip my hat to folks who become enamored with the transcendent flavor of their favorite ’que, then are driven to perfect it as part of their home repertoire. As students of the craft, they’ll travel the country to sample the legendary pits. Purists take their excitement for barbecue and funnel it into long smoke sessions and copious note-taking. They’ll spend whole holiday weekends tending their backyard cookers with patience and precision. They fixate on the finer points of the seemingly simple craft (rub recipes, meat trimming, pit physics) and spend countless hours tending their meats, controlling every variable in the process. As a barbecue lover, I respect a purist’s dedication, and it’s a joy to gorge on the tasty fruits of their obsessive labor. As a cook, I like their ambition and determination. But

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embers. Disappointed and burnt out from the day, I remembered the crutch and decided to give it a try. The smoker was out of the question — no way was I going to stoke another fire pretty close to midnight — but my kitchen oven seemed like a better bet. The prep took about three minutes in total: Wrap the shoulder in heavy-duty “tin foil,” add a second layer for insurance and add a little beer for the braising liquid. Place in glass baking dish, set oven on WARM (about 180-200ºF), go to bed and hope for the best. The next morning, I woke up to the most magical smell. It was the faint aroma of pork and pepper, like I had fallen asleep in a heavenly smokehouse. I opened up the foil packet, and the shoulder looked the same as the night before — beautiful color, decent smoke ring — but the texture was just…perfect. The solid chunk of shoulder — hard as a clenched fist the night before — had trans formed into a tender pouch of pre-pulled pork, barely holding together. All the rubbery tendons were gone, along with most of the muscle fat, which melted down during the night. From a non-purist’s perspective, it was darned near perfect — after a night in a low oven, the pork practically fell apart under its own weight. Tender, delicious and low-maintenance. While it may not have the street cred of a pig lovingly tended by a dedicated round the-clock purist, it’s a delicious compromise that works every time. These days, I confidently start my shoulder after lunch, knowing that the overnight crutch will give me one of the best morning trifectas ever — a perfect pulled pork omelette, strong coffee and a good night’s sleep. SLOWER THAN SLOW: THE FINAL PRODUCT

Brisket

Photo by Romney Caruso

Let me tell you a story… It all started a few years ago, when I decided to spend a Sunday smoking a pork shoulder for supper. It being a spring weekend, I rose with my alarm, full of ambition and big plans — only to find that it was an hour later than I thought (daylight saving time strikes again). For some reason, my brain had a hard time getting on track, and my plans for an early breakfast, run to Rouses Market and “light the fire by 8am” slipped by one hour, then two, then three. I stumbled through my Sunday — disoriented in time and under caffeinated — and finally struck a match in the early afternoon. I got my little Weber Bullet smoker stoked and loaded (with a 6-pound pork shoulder and two chickens) at about 2pm. Some friends were coming over to eat at about 8pm. (So, we’ll pause here to say that any experienced barbecue person will recognize that four-five hours is plenty of time to smoke mid-sized poultry, but nowhere near enough time to fully cook a decent-sized pork shoulder.) The afternoon wore on, and I kept a watchful eye on my double-level cooker — checking the meat temperatures occasionally, adding more wood chunks when needed, resisting the urge to open the smoker’s dome every 20 minutes or so. At about 6:30, my

neighbors likely heard me yell a series of aggressive encouragements to the nowhere near-done pork shoulder, along the lines of “C’mon. C’MON. COME ON, PIG!” (In other news: My block has a very high tolerance for “neighbor crazy.”) After five hours on the smoker, the chickens looked beyond perfect. They’d been on the grate below the shoulder, so they were consistently slow-basted with spicy pork fat. They couldn’t have been more savory/ beautiful. The pork, on the other hand, seemed barely done. The exterior of the shoulder had a great color, with a burnished brown to-burgundy crust from a spicy rub and outside-in smoke massage. But the thermom eter reading let me know that the core of the roast wasn’t nearly ready. Try to serve this at dinnertime, and my more polite guests could well damage their dental work on thoroughly underdone “not nearly close to barbecue.” Disappointed but glad to have some pig-flavored smoked poultry to serve, I replaced the smoker dome and went to my guests. A few hours and bottles of wine later, my guests headed home and I grabbed a flashlight to check the shoulder. Not much progress temperature-wise, and the fire was just about dead and burning down to faint

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on a hot grill. Trimming it, seasoning it, misting it, wrapping it — it’s a lot, and anyone who has gone through all the effort of smoking one just to have it turn out too salty, or not salty enough, knows what a disappointing experience it can be. Pittman’s videos, though, make you feel almost like there’s a pitmaster with you in the backyard. He offers his guidance with an easy Texas charm and, using his online classes, not only do you get more from your smoker, but you also start to understand why people become so obsessed with barbecue. His rubs and sauces — things like The Gospel BBQ Rub, Holy Cow and Bird Baptism Brine — are well-regarded by professionals and amateurs alike for using fresh ingredients without fillers. Confident in the flavors you’ll get, you can focus on the challenge of getting the meats just right. Pittman is proof that you can have a second act in life. When he got his big break, he had been working in the corporate grind for 21 years. He made Meat Church his full-time job at age 43. Today, in addition to his own products, he is a brand ambassador for YETI and Traeger Pellet Grills. If you go to Waxahachie, however, one thing you won’t find is a Meat Church restaurant. As he told PaperCity magazine, when asked when he might open a barbecue joint, “Why would I want to do that? I’ll see you on my boat instead.” You’ll just have to do the cooking yourself — but the good news is he will show you how. – David W. Brown

TAKE ME TO CHURCH ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Before he was a barbecue tycoon,

Matt Pittman was a technology guy in the finance world. For him, barbecue was a hobby, albeit a hobby for which he

had deep passion. He got his big break in 2014 when he appeared on the show BBQ Pitmasters . It was an episode in which Texas pitmasters competed against one another, and Pittman came in dead last. Before the show aired, however, he had started a website that sold rubs and accessories, and had opened a little storefront in Waxahachie, Texas, to sell supplies. He was determined to make a go of it in barbecue. With a name like Pittman, how could he go wrong? He was taught to cook as a child by his grandmother, June. He found the barbecue “religion” years later, after a life-changing trip to Central Texas. (It was a plate of brisket — the “king of Texas barbecue” — that changed everything.) His TV appearance gave his side hustle, which he called Meat Church, a big boost. Hard work took him the rest of the way. Today, Pittman’s barbecue empire spans a YouTube channel with almost a million subscribers, and an Instagram account with just as many followers. His barbecue seasonings and rubs are bestsellers everywhere they are sold, including at your local Rouses Market. He teaches private classes and attracts students from around the world, and he participates in major cooking events across the country. He’s even been on the The Tonight Show . Meat Church is among the most successful brands in barbecue — and Pittman is just getting started. His fans even call themselves “the Congregation,” and among the most popular items at his store are hats with stained glass “windows” on them and rubs with religious-inspired named. Part of the success of Meat Church is that Texas-style barbecue can be an hours-long, and sometimes days-long, process. You commit to that kind of work, and you want to know that it’s possible. Smoking a pork butt, for example, involves a lot more than slapping meat

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He Risked It for the Brisket

By David W. Brown, photos by Romney Caruso Jason Gonzalez uses a shovel to rake the shimmering coals of his offset smoker. We are at the picnic area just outside the Rouses Corporate Headquarters in Schriever, about 12 miles from Houma. Cloudless blue skies and an easy breeze make this the perfect day for a barbecue, and Rouses found just the pitmaster for the job: the man behind Gonzo’s Smokehouse & BBQ in Luling. He has prepared for us the most popular dishes he serves, and the smoky smell of seasoned meats has a dozen of us inching involuntarily closer around him.

W hile tending the pit, Gonzalez talks proudly about his barbecue shop, five minutes from the Luling Bridge heading toward New Orleans. Gonzo’s is a smokehouse that needs no introduction. Word of mouth is so strong that people gladly wait hours for a table and, on Fridays, Gonzalez keeps an ice chest full of free beer and free water for his loyal — and sometimes a little obsessed — customers. No one would argue that it’s some of the best barbecue in the New Orleans area. Customers drive in from Houston and farther, suggesting that it is probably among the best barbecue joints in the country. For that kind of quality barbecue, you have to come early, but the beer and anticipation give the shop a festival vibe. Gonzalez gestures at the smoker: “The one we have at the shop is a 500-gallon way bigger than this one,” he says, and leans his shovel against it once the coals are just right. “Before we had a shop, I had a smoker in my front

yard for a short time, but people were giving me the eye. It’s 20 feet long.” Gonzalez is a young 46, fit and draped in the modern chef aesthetic: tattoo sleeves, a black T-shirt embla zoned with the single word brisket, a cap turned backwards and Vans on his feet. The “small” smoker is this great beast of a thing, with faded green paint and rusted iron accents so perfect as to appear painted on, and with white walled tires and red rims. It looks like photos I’ve seen of the City Produce truck that J.P. Rouse used to haul around vegetables a hundred years ago. On the platter featured on the cover of this issue, you can see what Gonzalez had in store for us. In addition to his famous brisket, he prepared pork belly burnt ends, smoked turkey breast, beef cheeks, a brisket boudin (made from the smoked-down trimmings of the beef cheeks and his grandmother’s dirty rice), cherry cola brisket burnt ends, pork jowl cracklins topped with Mike’s Hot Honey, which — and you’ll have to trust me on

this — was something like a barbecue crème brûlée, savory and decadent and alone worth the trip to Luling. (On the Gonzo’s menu it’s called Hot Honey Jowl Cracklin, and as he described it: “It’s super rich, it’s super fatty,” he said, “but it’s got that crunch on the outside with the honey.”) Lunchtime can’t come soon enough. Across the picnic area, Gonzalez’s aunt, sister and father are prepping the service area with stacks of plates and an array of foil containers holding sides and smoked meats, wrapped and awaiting the hungry Rouses team. Gonzalez, a native of the West Bank, talks about life in the barbecue business. Though he has been approached regularly about opening a second location of Gonzo’s in the city of New Orleans, he isn’t interested. “I’m keeping it small,” he said. “One store is enough.” Before he was a pitmaster, Gonzalez had an office job. He grew up in Waggaman, Louisiana, and had been a draftsman his whole life, working at different engineering firms. In 2014, he bought a little box smoker from Acade myand and, as a hobby, started smoking things in the backyard. Right away, he knew he had a knack for it and took the task seriously. He started off with books and videos on YouTube, trying to figure out the magic of smoking meats. Franklin Barbecue — a celebrated Austin, Texas barbecue joint under pitmaster Aaron Franklin, who won the James Beard Award for Best Chef and was inducted into the American Royal Barbecue Hall of Fame in 2020 — had posted some videos at the time demonstrating how to smoke a brisket, how to smoke a pork

Team members eagerly line up to sample Gonzo’s Smokehouse & BBQ during a special company event.

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butt, and how to smoke ribs. Gonzalez did his best to follow their instructions and, after finishing, went back to see if he had missed something. It improved his level of ability, but he wasn’t really comfortable with cooking briskets, which is serious business, involving smoking 12, sometimes 14 hours — and that’s just the cooking. There are still countless hours of preparation beforehand, plus trimming and seasoning it. Depending when you start, it can be an all-night job. Gonzalez was working at Shell at the time in New Orleans, and had been for about six years. Before long, he started catering on the side for plants in St. Charles Parish. “I used to work out with some of those guys that worked at the plants,” he said. “They knew I was just doing this in the backyard, but they’d say, ‘Hey man, can you cater for my office?’ That got my foot in the door before I even did pop-ups or did any of the big festivals in New Orleans. People would just put in an order to do a big ol’ pan of brisket and sides, and I’d deliver it to the plant.” Standing next to the pit outside Rouses, it’s hard to imagine Gonzalez was ever anything other than a seasoned pro, let alone an apprentice with a day job. Like many, if not most, who finally decide to pursue their dreams, it took employment issues to really spur Gonzalez into action. In 2015, the price of oil destabilized and the oil industry generally had a bad year — which meant oil workers had a bad year, too. “Shell ended up pretty much laying off the whole office,” he said. “They consolidated to a few people and moved everybody to Houston, and then they laid off all drafting and design and engineering people, subcontracting all that work out instead.” That is when he started to really focus on his barbecue and see if he could actually take it to the next level. He took his severance check from Shell and bought a good-quality pellet smoker, which allowed greater control over the fire and would allow him to better dial in his recipes. He also took one-on-one classes from Dylan Taylor, a well-known pitmaster in Texas. “We did brisket, ribs and sausage,” Gonzalez said. “I didn’t really understand how important it is to trim the brisket properly to get a

really good end product. Watching Dylan trim a brisket properly really just changed everything — making them all the same size, giving them that nice, even fat cap on top. After taking that class, I went back home and it was on . Between that class and the new smoker, the game changed for me.” He started to think he could make a career out of barbecue. “When I got laid off from Shell, it kind of opened my eyes,” he told me. “I thought I was going to retire there. Once that happened, it was kind of like, alright, we’ve just got to look out for each other.” Before jumping into the barbecue business, however, he found a job at another firm and, for the next several years, continued doing drafting and design during the week. On his days off, he kept his barbecue side business going, building a big customer base in the process, which grew and grew from word of mouth. In 2020, right before the lockdowns, he finally bought the space of today’s Gonzo’s Smokehouse. It was, and remains, a family run shop. They didn’t plan to open to the public for dining. Originally Gonzo’s was all to-go and more a place for him to prep meats, make the family’s own boudin, and smoke things for catering, but the demand got too great. “We did that probably about six or eight months. Then we eventually opened up to the public and started serving them,” he said. It was always going to be a family business. His late grandmother, Mabel, was a major inspiration for Gonzalez; he’s even named one of his smokers in her honor. “I remember sitting in her kitchen cooking with her. She was a really, really great cook, and she’s where I got a passion for cooking. I wish she were here to see where I am now.” Most pivotal during his slow maturity in the barbecue world was a trip to Austin, where Gonzalez had a series of “real eye-opening experiences,” he said. He went to Franklin Barbecue, whose videos he had spent so much time studying. He waited in line for six hours to get barbecue. “It blew my mind,” he said. “From the start, I was like, oh man, we don’t have anything remotely close to this.” He said it expanded his ideas of what barbecue could be. At other places he later visited, however, he learned another lesson: that just packing a smoky, exquisite flavor profile on a

“Jason does such a good job. He’s young, he’s aggressive. And every day there are people lined up at his restaurant. They give beer to people because the lines get so long! And we love that. We’re not only about Rouses. We’re about community. And we love seeing members of our community succeed.” — Donald Rouse

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