Slumping Across Texas

Photo by Leann Mueller

There is satiated, there is full, there is stuffed, and then there is a kind of overfed that you imagine could hurt you, where you question your capacity to eat again. It passes.

March 2009

By Adam Platt

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The day started normally enough—a tour bus, a Sheraton, and Jane and Michael Stern. OK, not exactly normal. But once-a-year normal.

Before there was Guy Fieri, pre-Andrew Zimmern, when Anthony Bourdain’s culinary explorations were just a fantasy of a cranky chef on the line, Jane and Michael Stern were piling into their car and searching America for authentic local foods along its blue highways. The Sterns’ countless editions of their Roadfood guides, monthly Gourmet magazine columns, and weekly appearances on public radio’s The Splendid Table have endeared them to multiple generations of American eaters. But they remained a distant presence. You had about as much of a chance of running into them at a loose-meat sandwich place in Iowa as you did Mario Batali at an IHOP in Seattle. Then came the Internet.

A fan and foodie named Stephen Rushmore encouraged the Sterns to set up roadfood.com and made it happen for them. With the barbecue freaks and pie pedants on the message boards demanding face time, the Roadfood Annual Eating Trip was born. Which is why I was standing outside an aging motor coach hard by I-35 in downtown Austin, Texas.

Things had started with an unmemorable group meal (about 100 of us) at an Austin chicken-fried-steak and bluegrass joint the night before. But now about half that group was geared up for the main event: a sold-out day trip through legendary Texas barbecue country. These were not the handful of spots to the west in the pretty Texas Hill Country. No. These were the rough-and-ready joints east of I-35 in dusty, fading ag towns such as Lockhart, Taylor, and Elgin.

It was not exactly a fashionable assembly, but it was not as motley as I had feared—a gathering of the profoundly obese, morbidly obese, and supermorbidly obese-plus. In fact, Michael Stern, narrating in his nasal Chicago accent on the bus’s PA, was not the only ectomorph in the venture.

The group was broadly distributed geographically (with an oddly disproportionate number of folks from the Twin Cities region), generally middle to upper-middle class, and middle-aged. Some were regulars on the roadfood.com site, others complete strangers to it.

We pulled out just past 9 am, not an auspicious barbecue-eating time of day, but that very premise reveals me to be of weak character. The first stop was Round Rock Donuts, in suburban Austin. Lines of people and cars poured from the newly built edifice. I was vexed. To me, even half a doughnut can mean instant indigestion. But early-in-liners were emerging with whole boxes of yeast doughnuts, dripping with hot glaze. I think this place put half the Krispy Kremes in Texas out of business. My will ebbed. My kid ate four in five minutes. They melted in your mouth. I passed, barely, on the sweet-dough rolls with sausage inside.

Photo by Leann Mueller

Back in the bus, we rolled across the Texas prairie to the decrepit burg of Taylor. There, at 10:30 in the morning, sat the legendary Louie Mueller Barbecue, in an old gym with walls blackened by decades of wood smoke. You line up to order; behind the counter stands a pitman slicing brisket and lopping off links of sausage. Texas barbecue is beef, by and large, and there aren’t a lot of frills. The barbecue is served on butcher paper lining a plastic tray. Sides included pinto beans, a great peppery slaw, white bread, pickles, and raw onion slices. There’s a thin vinegary sauce, but it’s superfluous. The brisket was sensational, offered fat or lean, both with a marvelous spice crust. Sausages were on the dry side, with a thick casing, redolent of pepper, beef, and wood smoke.

By noon, we were in Elgin, home to Southside Market, long the city’s butchery, but now expanded into airy, modern quarters by the highway, where troops from the nearby military base line up for great beef sausage links, soft juicy brisket, and even decent pork ribs. The commercial mess hall atmosphere lacked charm, but there was a silver lining. Awaiting us inside was Bud Royer, the pie man of Round Top, Texas, whose legendary crusts and fillings were too far off our route, so the Sterns convinced him to meet us along the way.

Looking something like Texas’s version of Paul Prudhomme, Royer sliced à la mode pieces of incredible cherry and pecan pies (and several others I didn’t taste; yes, he ships). It was 1 pm, and we were not even halfway done.

During the longish drive to Lockhart, Michael Stern took questions, discussions ensued about next year’s venture, and Texas barbecue lore was bandied about.

Two lunches down, two more to go.

Photo by Adam Platt

At 2 pm, we arrived in Lockhart, which reminded me of Taylor, dusty and timeworn. And that was before I entered Smitty’s, the epitome of the Texas barbecue experience. Enter through an old screen door into a decrepit main street storefront and traverse a long corridor. Smoke and blackness hits you immediately. Eventually, you enter the “pit room,” dominated by huge metal smokers fueled by white-hot wood fires. The room is blackened, top to bottom, and in the center, a huge, white apparition of a man in an apron carves meat on a tree trunk fashioned into a table. You choose from hauntingly good juicy sausages, fat brisket, or lean beef shoulder, which are deposited onto your wax-papered tray.

Photo by Adam Platt

Then the line snakes into a better-lit room that resembles a 1950s drug store. Soft drinks and condiments (avocado slices, pickles, raw onion, cheddar cheese wedges) are presented, and you pay a second time. (Utensils? What utensils?) An air-conditioned but blackened upstairs dining room is accessed via a smoky staircase. Waiting there is Bud Royer with a tray of apple pies.

Photo by Adam Platt

If Smitty’s is the most evocative spot on the barbecue trail, Kreuz Market is the most legendary. When it moved into more modern digs, Smitty’s took its old home. The new place sits on a huge lot and contains immense dining halls, one of them air-conditioned. The choices are voluminous: pit ham, jalapeno-cheddar sausage, plus all the standards. It’s very good food, but somehow doesn’t taste as good under the high ceilings and fluorescent lights. Or maybe it’s because, at not quite 4 pm, I was eating my fourth lunch, not including the doughnuts.

On the drive back to Austin, the bus’s balky video system relented and showed a German TV documentary about the Sterns, half in German, half in English. (Why doesn’t American TV do a documentary about the Sterns?) The consensus is that we will attempt to reassemble next year in New Orleans, and efforts will be made to create a venture that does not sell out within hours of going on sale.

At 4:50 p.m., we alight from the bus, groggy. My kid asks, “Are we going out for dinner?” Apparently, he took the advice the rest of us offered him but then ignored—he paced himself.

Texas Barbeque Strategies

Eating: Barbecue is available throughout Texas, but the signature palaces are best accessed via a rental car from the state’s charming and manageable capital, Austin. My suggestion would be to make a Saturday circuit that includes Round Rock Donuts (M–Su, 106 W. Liberty, Round Rock, 512-255-3629), Louie Mueller Barbecue (M–Sa, 206 W. 2nd St., Taylor, 512-352-6206), Smitty’s Market (M–Su, 208 S. Commerce St., Lockhart, 512-398-9344), and Snow’s Barbecue (Sa only, 516 Main St., Lexington, 979-773-4640, ), rated last summer by Texas Monthly as the state’s best barbecue. Bud Royer’s Round Top Cafe (Th–Su, 105 Main St., Round Top, 979-249-3611) is a little farther down the road. The full circuit would eat up a day; pace yourself. If you’d like to try a modern, artisanal, locavore spin on barbecue, Lambert’s Downtown Barbecue in Austin (401 W. 2nd St., 512-494-1500) is fun, the BBQ delicious.

When to Go: Avoid summer. Even my May visit to Austin produced some uncomfortably hot temperatures for endurance eating.

Getting There: Northwest Airlines operates daily nonstop flights to Austin, but I flew to Dallas and rented a car—Dallas airfares are often far cheaper and less restrictive.

Where to Stay: Austin has its share of boutique lodging, but I’d stay at the lovely Four Seasons Austin (pictured above) in the heart of downtown (98 San Jacinto Blvd., 512-478-4500), on the city’s charming riverfront. It’s an almost-resortlike property with a very helpful staff and, for a member of this superb chain, rates are surprisingly affordable.

Beyond Barbecue: Texans are friendly and their pride in their state is infectious. Austin and the nearby Hill Country has at least a half-week’s worth of things to do and see. Of particular note in the city are The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, the LBJ Presidential Library, Whole Foods Market’s amazing flagship store downtown, the surprisingly rustic State Capitol, and the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. Austin also has a legendary music and nightlife scene.

Slumping Across Texas

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