Mama's Boys Talkin' Cookin'

I somehow went straight to reading and missed the OP. I hope Pruitt wins because the man is a treasure with zero effort.

 

While you're absolutely correct, when it comes to smoked meats, there is no wrong answer

 

Not unless you know of any displaced Texans.

 

Lol it's good but it only reigns supreme because of the talent serving you.

 

I've only had it via Uber Eats tbh, so I can't vouch for what you are saying.

 

They exclusively hire hot college age co-eds

 

I had brisket at Pecan Lodge in Dallas and Haim in Fort Worth.

A pork shoulder is superior in every way.

And yes, you can do pork badly, because Haim’s was embarrassing

 

There's this fella named Tenny that seems to know what the hell he's doing.

 

If you haven’t simultaneously eaten fried chicken and drank a 40oz served to you by an attractive college aged co-ed then have definitely not gotten the full experience.

 

Sweet P’s is excellent and is too easily acquired to worry with making your own, unless you just enjoy it. I enjoy it, and would gladly make Norris a brisket. But, again, a pound of brisket at Sweet P’s will more easily and quickly tell the tale, as to whether or not he likes it. If he didn’t like theirs, mine wouldn’t be any improvement.

But, Norris is in a particularly sad state of affairs, given that he lives in the same small town as Archer’s Market, and who I believe to have the best quality meats in the Knoxville area.

I’m studying up on multi-day hog smokes right now - 300-500lb hogs - but brisket remains to be my constant fascination.

 

A brisket sammich and Lonestar from Freedman’s in Austin is worth a visit.

I’ve also made sure the times I’ve been to stop at the Chili Parlor (thanks to Guy Clark for the idea). A mad dog margarita with a venison enchilada topped with Texas red is a damn fine meal.

The politics and traffic would wear on me but Austin is a helluva town.

 

Have fun with the the multi day smoke. Thats an area only few master.

 

It’s crazy-shit, and either requires you to basically stay continuously attentive and awake for 2+ days or to involve multiple others in shifts. There is so much fat in a hog of that size, that it’d be calamitous if it were to boil out too fast, start a fire and not be immediately extinguished. I’ve read some accounts of people getting beyond the 3/4 mark (so, on a multi-day cook, think 36 hours into a 48 hour process), have the hog flash for 20-30 minutes and just char the whole hog. It doesn’t burn the meat to the point of becoming a lump of uningestible coal, but even a small amount of burnt char quickly permeates the meat, and basically makes it inedible. Think about how badly it smells to burn even a small amount of anything, how thoroughly it permeates the air around it, and how long that smell lingers. It’d be like burning a bag of microwave popcorn, and trying to still eat the unburned portion - but on a grander scale - you could if you wanted to, but it’s going to smell / taste like hell, and there’s no saving it from that.

And this is just to account for any flashover, and doesn’t even touch all of the many other considerations involved in actually cooking the hog - food safety, and achieving evenly appropriate doneness for the whole hog, including both thick parts like the hams and thin parts like the ribs, and all while relying on (essentially) one uniform heat source....over the course of 1-3 days.

A hog of that size may be too big for me or any one person to be reasonably expected to do, or even attempt. We’ll see.

Curious side note: This process of controlling the cook in a low and slow manner, so as to prevent the uncontrolled expulsion and ignition of excessive fat is also the exact same method / considerations which crematories must use / consider when cremating the remains of a morbidly obese person. If you ever hear of a crematorium burning down or being damaged by fire, it’s almost always the result of their attempts to cremate a morbidly obese body too quickly, and thereby disallowing the fat to have sufficient time to slowly burn off in a controlled fashion. The too-fast flow of excessive fat, left unchecked, will eventually overwhelm the drainage, pool inside / boil over and risks ignition, just as any other Class B (petroleum based) source would be prone to also do.

Source: Friend’s family owns a mortuary, and he told me.

 

The BBQ place back home I talk about all the time does whole hog. It's part of what makes it so friggin good.

Side note, if you want something simple to add to the mix when cooking, throw some bologna on the smoker the last two hours. Turns into a delicious little appetizer.

 

I ate bologna so much as a child that I physically can't stomach the THOUGHT of it now. No matter how it's served.

 

Bologna with mustard and spam so wet your brown bag busted.

 

Not even gonna comment on this. Just going to take strike one.

 

It's rough going into Archer's and buying ribeyes. It just plain sucks.

Now excuse me while I drool over this steak.

 

I could spend a sizable fortune buying Archer's briskets and 2" ribeyes. I don't know what it is about the meat in that joint, but it is superb, in every respect.

For those that do not know about Archer's, it's a very small and very old school market in Norris, TN, and looks to have endured very little change since the 1940's, except it also has an actual butcher shop and sizable craft beer selection.

 

Is it part of the Aldi family or is one of those pics not like the others?