The past few weeks have granted very little fishing time and required a fair amount of time on the road. It’s a more or less cyclical sort of thing a business I’m a partner in requires; it leads to exploring quite a bit of less-traveled territory, often driving backroads through little towns and burgs off the interstates, pouring over road and plat maps like a treasure hunter tracking Coronado’s lost gold.
While any given minute of any day we’d rather be traipsing home country in Wyoming and Montana, there’s a feature of the South, and Texas in particular, that eases the sting of the inevitable roadburn a bit – the roadside barbeque shack. (Some days rustling your own grub just doesn’t fit in the schedule…).
Yesterday She Who Must Be Obeyed and I took what ended up being a 500+ mile spin through parts of the region that Texans call the Prairies and Lakes and on down into Central Texas. It was damned productive in terms of the work aspect, and just about everything one might expect for a high summer’s drive in the South otherwise – hot, dusty, not too busy on the backroads with a collection of evening thunderstorms thrown in just to make things interesting and color up the sunset nicely.
In any town yesterday big enough to support at least one gas station there was at least one local barbeque shack with hot coals in the pit and a big vat of sweet tea on the counter; often there’d be more than one to choose from.
Our Deep South friends’ predilection for pig duly noted, in Texas brisket rules though just about every place we’ve ever set foot in offers several different smoked sausages, chicken and or turkey, pulled pork and occasionally even chops and steaks as well. The best places serve their fare on sheets of butcher paper or cheap-ass plastic plates (see image above).
SWMBO hit the ‘it’s time to eat now button’ yesterday as we rolled into Lampasas so we pulled up under the huge old oaks at Hart’s Firehouse BBQ near the river and savored some very well done brisket and jalapeno sausage, along with the requisite sides. And damn, it was good.
Next time you’re coming off the river half starved and cranky, skip the roadkill burger and track down some genuine barbeque, there ain’t nothing like it.
Back to regularly scheduled Friday Feast programming next week.
