A Somber Road Trip, Ruined by a Sandwich

We were driving from a funeral Service in East Texas to a graveside service two hundred miles away in West Texas. A quick pit stop to pee, gas up, and grab some food. Foolproof, right? WRONG.

The bubble gum meat struck again. You could not chew it enough to swallow it. Nobody could.Thank God we grabbed the freshly made potato Chips and a fifteen-dollar bag of pecans. Fifteen dollars! For nuts! That’s not a snack, that’s a car payment. And in retrospect, three inedible $8.99 sandwiches, some drinks, and a bag of luxury pecans is not a meal. It’s a hostage situation with a gift shop attached.

Somewhere, deep in some fluorescent-lit accounting office, there is a person, and I’d bet my last pecan this person is a vegetarian, who issued a decree: “We shall not waste ANY part of the brisket.” Not one molecule. And you can taste that corporate frugality, my friends. Oh, you can taste it.I ordered their sliced beef sandwich. Once before and was disgusted and then again today at a different location. Because I am, apparently, an optimist and a slow learner. Both times, different stores with the same rodent on the sign, into the trash it went.

This meat, and I want to be precise here, tasted like beef-flavored bubble gum. Minus the bubble. Minus the gum. Just the sad, chewy essence of an animal that died for accounting purposes. Not even a demented Rodent would touch this stuff, and demented Rodents, let me tell you, have LOW standards, they eat F*** garbage!

Now Don’t Get Me Wrong

Am I dissing the iconic rodent welcoming all??? Hell no. Credit where credit’s due. They’re good employers. Clean stores. Bathrooms so clean you could perform surgery in them, and they need to be, because that place moves crowds like a rock concert. Fair gas prices. A hundred and eighty pumps for all the geniuses who fill up, then leave their car parked at the pump while they pee, shop, and try to gnaw through a bubble gum sandwich. Move your car, you animals. The Rodent built you a whole parking lot.

The Verdict from the Graveside

Here’s the beautiful part. After the service, when everyone’s gathered and grieving and telling stories about the departed (you know how these reunions go, somber until somebody remembers the good times), you know what came up? The Rodent, yes the tree knawing dam building rodent that many have come to love and celebrate. It would seem we were not the only people on that excursion who stopped there or one of the other rodent themed stores. The whole family had the same experience. Turns out this bubble gum brisket is a nationwide operation. Every store. Same meat. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.So here’s my humble suggestion. Get the accountant OUT of the kitchen. Or buy your meat somewhere that isn’t the Double Bubble Gum Distribution Center.

I’d have shown you photos of the meat too, but alas, it’s decomposing in a trash can somewhere between the funeral and my last bathroom stop. Which, honestly, is exactly where it belonged. So, imagine slices of cooked whale blubber covered in BBQ sauce placed between two hamburger buns. Since I am not an eskimo and have zero intereste in trying to chew that nasty stuff and afraid if I tried, I would choke, I think gas station sushi might be a better gamble, just saying.

The Sacred Art of Not Serving Garbage

Let’s get one thing straight about barbecue: it’s an art. A real, honest-to-God art. “Barbecue is an art that can’t be rushed. It’s about patience and passion” and somewhere out there a pitmaster is nodding solemnly while babysitting a smoker at three in the morning like it’s a newborn. That’s dedication. That’s love. That’s a man who understands that good meat cannot be hurried and bad meat cannot be forgiven.

Rule Number One: You Should Be Able to Chew It

Here’s the first commandment, folks. You have to be able to CHEW it. I know, revolutionary concept. Barbecue should taste like an actual human being stood there and gave a damn about how it was cooked. Not microwaved. Not scraped off some poor animal that starved to death and gave up on life. And here’s the kicker: the experts agree with me. If it’s “pull-hard chewy” it probably wasn’t cooked low and slow for long enough. That’s not my opinion, that’s science. Delicious, smoky science.

The Texas Standard

In Texas, we take pride in our barbecue. And I mean pride. We’re talking smokers that run for days, using flavored wood chips, pellets, or lump charcoal to develop that flavor, a timeless technique that delivers richly-flavored, tender results and is suited for large cuts of meat such as brisket, roasts, and ribs. That is why a sandwhich cost $8.99.

Days, people. DAYS. That’s longer than some marriages, and it produces better results than most of them too.And the cuts of meat? They should look like meat. Not whale blubber. Not something you’d find washed up on a beach with seagulls arguing over it. A brisket is a thing of beauty, a monument to patience. Treat it with respect or don’t touch it at all.

If You Can’t Hang, Grab a Spatula

So here’s my humble advice to the Rodent Icon or the barbecue-impaired. If you cannot do better, if your brisket bounces, if your ribs require a chainsaw, then step away from the smoker. Go make hamburgers. The meat’s already chewed up for you. It’s pre-defeated. Ground beef is the participation trophy of the meat world, and there is no shame in knowing your limits.Because barbecue, real barbecue, can’t be rushed, and it sure as hell can’t be faked. Get it right, or get out of the pit.

A Modest Proposal (With Teeth)

While some rodents can make a meal out of a tree, humans cannot! Call me old-fashioned, but I believe our species climbed down from the branches specifically so we would not have to gnaw our dinner into submission.

So here’s my recommendation, free of charge. Hire yourself a Texan. A real one. Someone who knows barbecue the way a preacher knows scripture. Send him in as a secret shopper, a food critic of the honorable variety, not the kind who blasts his opinions all over some public blog (ahem), but the discreet sort who quietly reports back to the people who actually care where the trouble spots are. A man of tact. A man of taste. A man who can tell the difference between brisket and a bicycle tire.

But that’s just me. A longtime barbecue connoisseur who happens to be an author with impeccable taste, and a functioning set of molars I’d very much like to keep.Best.