Notes from the Barbecue Trail: From Lockhart, Texas to Lexington, North Carolina

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  05.23.07 | 11:20 AM ET

imageOn the spectrum of barbecue love, I fall between someone satisfied with a McRib and the kind of crazed person who would shell out $12,500 for this gold-plated grill. Essentially, I like barbecue enough that I’ll travel to eat the good stuff. Some days I brave the traffic on I-95 south of Washington D.C. for smoked pork shoulders and muddy spuds at Dixie Bones in Woodbridge, Virginia, and not too long ago, inspired by an outstanding series by David Plotz in Slate, my dad and I made the pilgrimage to Lockhart, Texas.

Lockhart, Plotz writes, is “in the heart of the Texas Barbecue Belt,” and we ate more than we should have. It’s easy to do, even without forks—there seem to be no forks in Texas barbecue, just plastic knives, white bread and meat on butcher paper. We visited two of the the most renown barbecue joints in Lockhart—Kreuz Market and Smitty’s Market—and sampled brisket, sausage and ribs during a two-stage, two-hour lunch. I still remember the smell of the smoky air. Plotz described it at Smitty’s as “smoke that you want to eat.” 

I’d like to sample more Texas barbecue, but next on my wish list: The North Carolina Barbecue Trail. Gadling recently pointed to this story in the Columbus Dispatch by Steve Stephens, who for three days sampled the goods on the 500-mile, 25-restaurant trail, which is sponsored by the non-profit North Carolina Barbecue Society.

Stephens writes:

I had planned to take just a taste of barbecue from each restaurant I visited. But the ‘cue I found was like the crack cocaine of pork: succulent, tender, savory and almost impossible to leave unconsumed.

Add in the traditional eastern North Carolina “red” slaw—with a sweet-and-sour sauce that’s light on the mayonnaise and heavy on the vinegar and unlike anything found up north—and hush puppies fresh from the fryer—or maybe heaven—and you have a recipe for dietary disaster. But what a glorious disaster it was.

The Dispatch has posted some video of Stephens’s glorious disaster.

Related on World Hum:
* American Travelers Embracing (Gasp!) Food Tourism
* On the ‘Red Sauce Trail’ in Italy
* The Rise of the Trader Joe’s Pilgrimage

Related on Travel Channel
* World’s Best Barbecue Contests
* 1000 Places to See Before You Die: Brazil’s Marius Restaurant (video)

Photo of Kreuz Market by Kent Wang, via Flickr (Creative Commons)

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1 Comment for Notes from the Barbecue Trail: From Lockhart, Texas to Lexington, North Carolina

Jerry Haines 05.23.07 | 10:53 PM ET

Four words:  Country Tavern, Kilgore, Texas.  OK, one more:  Ribs!

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