The Great Barbecue Debate

There's trouble brewing at Instapundit this morning over a derogatory comment that Glenn Reynolds made about Texas barbecue. The backlash from his Texas readers has been immense.

As a Louisiana native who grew up eating barbecued chicken and boudin (that's what us poor Louisiana folk eat), I only really learned about this great debate when I moved to College Station for my undergraduate years at Texas A&M. Joel and Tim made sure to let me know how Texans felt about barbecue. Many an evening was spent at the now defunct Tom's Bar-B-Q enjoying the Aggie Special.

My barbecue education was furthered when I moved east to Atlanta for graduate school at Georgia Tech. After my time in Texas, I found it very odd that you couldn't get beef brisket in that part of the country. In Atlanta, barbecue was all about the pork ribs. Dreamland and Fat Matt's sure know how to cook 'em!

When I moved back Texas to live in Austin, I was re-introduced to Texas barbecue with the help of Stubb's, County Line, Rudy's, and Salt Lick. Heck I even made some long drives out of town to visit Cooper's in Llano and Black's in Lockhart.

Of course now I live in Nashville and am back in a place where pork is the meat of choice for barbecuing. Joel of course hasn't let up in telling me that pork is not barbecue so some things never change. And although I can't say that I have been enamored with the pulled pork style of barbecue, I don't think it is all bad. I've had some good experiences at Bar-B-Cutie and Neely's, but whenever I feel the need for some Texas style beef brisket, I head over to Judge Bean's.

So I suppose the debate will rage on and of course everyone will think that their idea of barbecue is right but I can say that as long as I am a carnivore, I will not pass up the chance of any type of barbecue, be it pork, chicken, beef or sausage no matter how it is cooked or what kind of sauce is served.