Winner, Barbara Sudler Award, Colorado Historical Society, 2010

It's no overstatement to say that the state of Texas is a republic of barbecue. Whether it's brisket, sausage, ribs, or chicken, barbecue feeds friends while they catch up, soothes tensions at political events, fuels community festivals, sustains workers of all classes, celebrates brides and grooms, and even supports churches. Recognizing just how central barbecue is to Texas's cultural life, Elizabeth Engelhardt and a team of eleven graduate students from the University of Texas at Austin set out to discover and describe what barbecue has meant to Texans ever since they first smoked a beef brisket.

Republic of Barbecue presents a fascinating, multifaceted portrait of the world of barbecue in Central Texas. The authors look at everything from legendary barbecue joints in places such as Taylor and Lockhart to feedlots, ultra-modern sausage factories, and sustainable forests growing hardwoods for barbecue pits. They talk to pit masters and proprietors, who share the secrets of barbecue in their own words. Like side dishes to the first-person stories, short essays by the authors explore a myriad of barbecue's themes—food history, manliness and meat, technology, nostalgia, civil rights, small-town Texas identity, barbecue's connection to music, favorite drinks such as Big Red, Dr. Pepper, Shiner Bock, and Lone Star beer—to mention only a few. An ode to Texas barbecue in films, a celebration of sports and barbecue, and a pie chart of the desserts that accompany brisket all find homes in the sidebars of the book, while photographic portraits of people and places bring readers face-to-face with the culture of barbecue.

Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt, formerly Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and now John Shelton Reed Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, writes and studies food, gender, race, and class in the southern United States. She and eleven of her graduate students at UT-Austin set out to study the life and culture of barbecue in central Texas. They're a diverse group that includes native Texans, people from other barbecue strongholds of the U.S. South, a Chicagoan, and even a couple of northeasterners. They all share a passion for listening to stories, debating and trying to understand American cultures, and eating lots of barbecue.

• Foreword: Plotting the Barbecue Republic, by John T. Edge
• Acknowledgments: We Raise Our Glasses
• Sidebar: Twenty-four Hours of Barbecue
• Introduction: The Life and Times of Central Texas Barbecue
• Section 1: Food and Foodways
  • Stories from Joe Sullivan, House Park Bar-B-Que, Austin, Texas
  • The Central Texas Plate
  • A Pie Chart of Desserts Sidebar
  • Miles of Hanging Meat: Legacies and Linkages of Sausage
  • Things You Could Make A Smoker Out of If Your Name Is MacGyver Sidebar
  • Drinking Texas History
  • In Homage to Big Red Sidebar
  • Stories from the Archie Family, Church of the Holy Smoke, New Zion Missionary Baptist Church Barbecue, Huntsville, Texas
  • Stories from Marvin Dziuk, Dziuk's Meat Market, Castroville, Texas
• Section 2: Ideas of Place
  • Stories from Ben Wash, Ben's Long Branch Barbecue, Austin, Texas
  • Stories from the Inman Family, Inman's Ranch House, Marble Falls, Texas
  • The Bridge to Ben's: Connecting City Politics to Neighborhood Barbecue
  • Planes, Trains, and . . . Kayaks? Sidebar
  • Red Dust, White Bread, Blue Collar at the Edges of Small-Town Texas
  • Barbecue on Screen Sidebar
  • Stories from the Meyer Family, Meyer's Sausage Company and Meyer's Elgin Smokehouse, Elgin, Texas
  • Stories from Terry Wootan, Cooper's Old Time Pit Barbecue, Llano, Texas
• Section 3: Dreaming of Old Texas and Original Barbecue
  • Stories from Vencil Mares, Taylor Cafe, Taylor, Texas
  • Stories from Rick Schmidt, Kreuz Market, Lockhart, Texas
  • Keep Your Eye on the Boll
  • Timeline of Political Barbecues Sidebar
  • Barbacoa? The Curious Case of a Word
  • Authenticity: The Search for the Real Thing
  • Stories from Aurelio Torres, Mi Madre's, Austin, Texas
  • Stories from the Bracewell Family, Southside Market, Elgin, Texas
• Section 4: Ways of Life
  • Stories from Nicole Dugas, Barbecuties, Austin, Texas
  • Stories from Richard Lopez, Gonzales Food Market, Gonzales, Texas
  • Cavemen and Fire Builders: Manliness and Meat
  • The Feminine Mesquite
  • Brides and Brisket Sidebar
  • "No Son Sandías": Girlhood on the Ranch
  • Stories from Bobby Mueller, Louie Mueller Barbecue, Taylor, Texas
  • Stories from Joe Capello, City Market, Luling, Texas
• Section 5: Bright Lights, Barbecue Cities
  • Stories from Pat Mares, Ruby's Barbecue, Austin, Texas
  • Stories from Waunda Mays, Sam's Barbecue, Austin, Texas
  • Eating Meat to the Beat: Music and Texas Barbecue
  • Barbecue Melodies: Post Oak Smoke Gets in Their Eyes? Sidebar
  • Thinking Locally, Barbecuing . . . Globally?
  • Foreign Barbecue Sidebar
  • Placeless Barbecues: The Strange but True Story of Chains, Stands, and Interstates
  • Barbecue Haute Cuisine: Brisket Gets Fancy Sidebar
  • Stories from Danny Haberman, Pok-e-Jo's Smokehouse, Inc., Austin, Texas
  • Stories from Art Blondin, Artz Rib House, Austin, Texas
• Section 6: Modern Barbecue, Changing Barbecue
  • Stories from Jim McMurtry, Smokey Denmark Sausage Company, Austin, Texas
  • Stories from Ronnie Vinikoff, Forestry Management, Rockdale, Texas
  • It Ain't Easy Being Green When You're Smoked (But Barbecue Is Trying!)
  • Fun With Numbers, or How Much in a Year? Sidebar
  • Techno-cue? Barbecue in the Postindustrial Age
  • Stories from Don Wiley, D. Wiley, Inc., Buda, Texas
  • Stories from Tyler Graham, Graham Enterprises, Gonzales and Elgin, Texas
• Daring to Go There: Sports and Barbecue Sidebar
• Personal Barbecue Histories: Who We Are and How We Got Here
• Methodology Appendix: Fancy Words for How We Did What We Did Sidebar
• As You Digest: Recommended Reading
• Beginnings, Not Endings Sidebar
• Index