Look
If you had
One week
Or seven days
To eat barbecue
Every day
Would you eat it
Or just let it sit?
–Anonymous
The mission: Every day for one week, eat the food of the Gods.
Texas Barbecue
A project like this is born of privilege. A confluence of events brought it together. For some reason (probably divine), everyone at my company was forced to work from home last week. This has never happened to me before and might never hence. I knew I had to take advantage of it.
The answer was clear: Go eat lunch at places normally not on the docket. And if you’re going to have a meal in Austin, it might as well be barbecue. So there it was, a gluttonous charge, surely, but one worthy of exploration and reflection. A week’s worth of barbecue, come hell or high water.
What would it be like to partake of the greatest food tradition Central Texas has to offer? Would it be amazing, or would it kill me? What lessons would I learn, and would I even remember them after the inevitable food coma? These types of immersion exercises quickly go south when it becomes too much of a good thing.
So what is this? Part Man vs. Food. (Though overeating is not at all on the agenda.) Part road trip. Part culinary investigation. All fun. All ridiculousness. Seven days of smoked meat, with words and pictures to boot.
Now, let’s go eat.
Day 1: City Market, Luling
Day 2: Franklin Barbecue
Day 3: Louis Mueller
Day 4: La Barbecue
Day 5: Smitty’s Market
Day 6: Ruby’s BBQ
Day 7: Lamberts
Epilogue
