Tofu or not tofu? That is the question U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has raised in his latest bid to create a cultural wedge issue between himself and U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke in their heated Senate race.

Appearing at a packed campaign event at Schobels Restaurant in Columbus, 90 miles southeast of Austin, on Saturday, Cruz said, "When I got here someone told me that even PETA was protesting and giving out barbecued tofu, so I got to say, they summed up the entire election: If Texas elects a Democrat, they’re going to ban barbecue across the state of Texas."

"You want to talk about an issue to mobilize the people, and I’m talking everybody," Cruz said to appreciative laughter. "So I want to thank PETA and I do want to tell PETA you’re going to have to disclose to the FEC that by coming and protesting and giving away tofu, that you have given an in-kind contribution to my campaign by demonstrating just how bad things can get."

Cruz’s words may have been in jest — the suggestion that O’Rourke, an El Paso Democrat, is an an enemy of barbecue is clearly a straw man made of tofu — but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have the serious purpose of further planting an image in voters’ minds of O’Rourke as a candidate outside the mainstream of Texas values, whether it’s on guns, border security, socialism or Lone Star food ways.

FIRST READING: In claiming Beto would ban BBQ, Ted Cruz battles a straw man made of tofu

As he has demonstrated before in the campaign, just because Cruz is smiling doesn’t mean he’s just kidding around. This, even though O’Rourke, as a well-known Whataburger consumer (whom Cruz spokeswoman Emily Miller famously referred to as a "triple meat Whataburger who is out of touch with Texas values"), is hardly a poster boy for PETA, whose volunteers were not representing the O’Rourke campaign outside the Columbus eatery, and who themselves didn’t utter a word about banning meat.

Cruz returned to the subject Sunday, tweeting, "@peta protested our town hall yesterday, handing out barbecued tofu. We were glad to welcome them, but it illustrates the stakes of the election: if Beto wins, BBQ will be illegal!"

Miller underscored the message, retweeting: "Texas on the brink of #AbolishBBQ if voters don’t #KeepTexasRed."

The PETA protest outside Schobels consisted of four volunteers holding signs. Their demeanor was all smiles and their message was that "Republicans eat tofu too." They offered free samples of barbecued tofu.

‘Tofu’s actually bipartisan’

A week earlier, Cruz had told a crowd of supporters in Katy: "We are seeing tens of millions of dollars flooding into the state of Texas from liberals all over the country who desperately want to turn the state of Texas blue. They want us to be just like California, right down to tofu and silicon and dyed hair."

At the Columbus event, Dani Alexander, a 31-year-old PETA volunteer from Houston and the spokeswoman for the group, told the American-Statesman the group was spurred to show up after Cruz’s "snipe about soy" in Katy.

"He said some things about tofu being liberal, but tofu’s actually bipartisan," Alexander said, before touting the importance of soy beans to Texas agriculture. "Sen. Cruz can joke all he wants, but life for animals on factory farms is no laughing matter."

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Animals could be spared "a terrifying trip to the slaughterhouse and a violent, painful death," she said, if people turned to tofu, which, she noted, "can be baked, fried, scrambled, marinated or sautéed."

Cruz probably already knows that.

"And by the way," Cruz said in Katy. "I married me a California vegetarian. She’s wonderful, but I brought her to the great state of Texas."

Heidi Cruz, who grew up Seventh Day Adventist, maintains the vegetarian diet preferred by church members, even though she now worships with her husband as a Baptist.

Beto’s name

In March, Cruz effectively launched his re-election campaign in the same joke-with-a-purpose style by issuing a jingle mocking the fact that O’Rourke, who is of Irish ancestry and whose given name is Robert Francis O’Rourke, goes by the Hispanic nickname of Beto.

The critical stanza:

"I remember reading stories, liberal Robert wanted to fit in.

"So he changed his name to Beto and hid it with a grin.

"Beto wants those open borders and wants to take our guns.

"Not a chance on Earth he’ll get a vote from millions of Texans."

Challenged about how someone with the given name of Rafael Edward Cruz could make fun of someone who, growing up on the border in El Paso, had, since he was a small child, gone by "Beto," Cruz told CNN’s Chris Cuomo, "You know in terms of the jingle, some of it is just to have a sense of humor. We had some fun with it."

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But, for at least some Cruz supporters, the jingle’s suggestion that O’Rourke’s name reveals him as an opportunist seeking to trick Hispanic Texans into voting for him has stuck.

Asked what he knew about O’Rourke at an earlier Cruz town hall Saturday afternoon at Baker Boys BBQ in Gonzales, George Reese, 68, said, "Very little."

"I know he changed his name to try to appeal to the Latin side," Reese said.

Not everyone took Cruz’s latest effort to paint O’Rourke as un-Texan lightly.

"Tofu is disgusting, BBQ is essential human sustenance, and @tedcruz is an idiotic ass," tweeted Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, a federal political action committee that works to elect Democrats in Texas. "His ‘BBQ will be illegal’ line is another great example why he’s so deeply disliked — even by many hardcore Rs who will hold their nose & vote for him."

And Bunni Pounds, Cruz’s pick to succeed U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Dallas, in Congress (she lost the GOP nomination to state Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Terrell), seemed to be taking the threat to meat seriously, tweeting: "And what is @tedcruz supposed to do to increase the sale of tofu? Ban meat? I don’t think Texans will stand for that! #weloveourBBQ #Texans."