Burnt Ends

Though I was born in Phoenix and I learned to walk during a snowy winter day in Pittsburgh, my first and fondest memories take place in my parent’s first house in San Antonio, Texas.

Texans are notorious for our assertion that our state has the first and final word when it comes to barbeque. And I’ll challenge anyone who’s tried a 12-hour Texan Mesquite pit smoked brisket to deny it: the barbeque capital of the U.S. has been declared, and it’s not in Kansas City anymore.

Don’t worry, I’m not writing to boast the quality of Texas barbeque, nor will I compile a list of all my favorite barbeque joints in the state. (I’ll save those rants for a later time.) I just mean to express the importance that the art of slow-cooking meat over a smoldering pile of wood holds for me. I love barbeque. The pounds upon pounds of charred meat that I’ve ingested over the years have left me with my own little smoke ring beneath my skin.

There are several good barbeque joints littered around San Antonio, but most true carniphiles agree that the best barbeque in town can be found at the local Rudy’s. I fondly remember when I was a child, accompanying my dad on his bi-weekly pilgrimages to this barbeque Mecca. I’d sit outside and watch the pit-master tend to the fire, pulling one log at a time from the never-ending pile of mesquite and placing them strategically onto the white-hot beds of ash. The two glowing fires were the heart of the entire operation. The smoke from the fires vented into four huge chest-style barbeque pits.

Every cut of meat on the menu, from gigantic briskets to whole chickens, was lowered into one of the pits to be smoked for several hours before the restaurant opened. The meat would stay in the pits for an indeterminate amount of time, until one-by-one each cut was pulled out of the smoker and carved-to-order for droves of hungry customers. The food would progressively grow tenderer throughout the day and by the time my dad and I would stop by (in the few hours before closing time), the meat would be at its prime. You could shake the rib-meat right off the bone. The turkey breast had soaked up the flavors of the smoke and the dry-rub like a sponge, until the taste of the bird itself was almost unrecognizable. But paramount to everything else at Rudy’s was the beef brisket.

 The Full Spread

Source: Jonathan Pillow

It was unlike any cut of meat I’d encountered before.  Thin cut slices of tender, unctuous beef that melted at the slightest touch. Of course, I know now that the preparation of a beef brisket, a large cut that sits just outside of the cow’s ribs, is a slow and delicate process.

Generally, the most sought-after cuts of beef can be found in the cattle’s midsection (just above the ribs) and in its loins. The tenderest cuts, such as the rib-eye and the tenderloin, are found nearest the center of the cattle, where the muscles endure the least amount of stress, and then the meat becomes gradually tougher and more muscular as you reach the cattle’s lower quarters, which support the cattle’s movement.

Beef Primal Cuts

Source: Wikimedia Commons

The brisket is the outermost portion of the cow’s chest and it is made up of muscles which are responsible for supporting a very large amount of the cow’s movement, so the cut contains very tough muscle tissue (including the pectorals) as well as lots of fat and connective tissues, which makes it very difficult to cook with. As it is one of the most difficult cuts of beef to make edible, the brisket is one of the most inexpensive cuts, per pound. The fat and connective tissues must be slowly rendered into a gelatinous film. The process of preparing brisket requires artful patience, as the brisket should be cooked “low and slow” over indirect heat to avoid drying out the lean part of the brisket while giving the fatty tissues plenty of time to break down. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that brisket must either be cooked in a stew or barbequed to make it tender. In Texas, we do the latter.

At the end of the brisket you’ll find a big fat cap, which is usually left on the brisket during barbequing to keep the meat from becoming dry. Most restaurants (Rudy’s included) trim the edges of the brisket before serving it, and throw the majority of that fat straight into the trashcan. And why wouldn’t they? Who would want to bite into a giant slice of gristle? Well… this guy would.

One day during a summer-time Rudy’s adventure, my friend Andrew surprised me when he asked the man behind the counter for burnt ends. My mystification increased when the carver went to the pit and pulled out a new untrimmed brisket, from which he cut and wrapped up the gooey, charred bits of fat for us (the parts that they normally throw in the trash), free of charge. I was extremely skeptical of Drew’s desire to eat those pieces of the brisket which the carvers casually chop off and throw into the garbage all day long. But I was always an adventurous eater, and when he offered the burnt ends to me, I picked the blackest, fattiest piece of brisket, applied a dash of salt, and took the bite of barbeque that would forever change the way I’d think about eating.

This was what they considered trash? This culinary delight? This strange, succulent, charred, decadent little morsel of absolute flavor—Garbage?  Preposterous! Blasphemy!  I would that my own mouth was that Rudy’s garbage can so I could end the travesty of this delicacy going un-savored daily.

Allow me to explain. When you submerge a full brisket into a smoker for ten+ hours (wrapped loosely in tin foil with a little bit of water as the catalyst to encourage all those collagen-based connective tissues and layers of fat to render completely), the result is that the fat absorbs so much smoke as it renders that by the time it’s done the char has penetrated so deeply that the burnt ends are transformed into big pieces of pink, crispy, smoky fat fused to unctuous bits of rendered, sinful, succulent goodness. And people have the audacity to throw it away without any consideration. Many will pass on an offering of burnt ends based on looks alone, saying that it’s too oily. When Jeffery Steingarten, on a momentous bluefin tuna fishing trip, realized that none of his ship-mates could stomach the parts of the tuna which he considered a delicacy, he expresses a similar sentiment: “…but the fattiest part of the belly, five pounds of priceless kama, two thick triangles joined along one edge, is—strap yourself in for this one—thrown in the trash! They used to toss it to the dogs that prowl by the marina, but the wooden deck got stained by the fat—defaced by o-toro!” (Steingarten, 2002)  But as people say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Unctuous Burnt Ends

Source: Jonathan Pillow

To this day I ask for the burnt ends every time I order brisket, and I’m met with a different reaction each time. Usually I’m served with a sneer or a look of distaste, but occasionally the guy behind the counter gives me a knowing smile and a nod as he proceeds to slice the layers of blackened fat. Either way, I smile to myself when I see the rich gastronomic delicacy laid in front of me, proud that I’ve found the hidden treasure within the feast at hand.

It seems to me that every time we dine, there is always some hidden delight present at the table. It may come in the form of a memorable conversation or an unforgettable flavor, a profound observation or a delectable little scrap of food, but it’s usually there. It’s up to us to pay close attention to the epic events that take place as we take part in the primordial ritual of feeding, and it’s up to us to decide which morsels we’ll set aside to savor and which ones we’ll leave to be cleared with the table.