Salt and pepper
The simplest seasoning there is, and the one Central Texas barbecue is known for. Coarse salt and coarse black pepper, and nothing whose sugar can burn over a long cook — which is why it survives twelve hours in a way a sweet rub does not.
What it is
- Kind
- Dry rub
- Flavour direction
- Salt-forward, Pepper-forward
- When it goes on
- Applied before the cook. BBQHQ has retrieved no source establishing how long before, so it does not say.
Where it comes from
A documented association, qualified. BBQHQ records which source documents the link and does not make claims about authenticity.
- Texas barbecue — commonly associated with
What it goes with
Grouped by how the pairing is known rather than by how good it is. The first group is somebody else’s statement; the last is ours, and says so.
Documented in the same tradition
A source documents both this and the food within one tradition, without pairing them in a single sentence. The tradition is the link, and it is named.
- Brisket — The meat and the seasoning are documented together in the Central Texas tradition rather than paired in one sentence by a source, which is what it means for a pairing to derive from a tradition.
- Beef short ribs — Beef ribs are named among the meats the Central Texas markets smoked and sold.
Structurally compatible
A structural fact rather than a cultural one: what the sauce is made of against what the cook does to it. Sugar burns over a long direct cook whoever is doing the cooking.
- Pork shoulder — Nothing in this seasoning can burn. Salt and coarse pepper carry no sugar, so unlike a sweet rub they survive a twelve-hour cook unchanged — which is a fact about the seasoning rather than about Texas, and is why it suits any long cook.
What this rests on
- Central Texas barbecue is documented as growing out of German and Czech meat markets from the 1830s, which smoked unsold meat and sold it on butcher paper, with sanitation regulation pushing the trade towards enclosed smokers in the early 1900s.