Busting Texas barbecue myths is an unenviable task. Last week I discussed the fading tradition of using only salt and pepper to season meats such as brisket and turkey. I described the use of a “spritz” — a small spray bottle of liquid that pitmasters use to moisten and flavor meat on the smoker.

To say that this — using an adulterant like apple cider vinegar or Worcestershire sauce — caused much consternation among purists would be an understatement.

However, as is often the case in the long history of Texas barbecue, what’s old is new again. Though the delivery mechanism may be different, spritzing meat is simply a continuation of a long tradition in barbecue cooking known as the “mop.”

Anyone who grew up watching their dad cook barbecue in the backyard knows about the mop. If you were like me, Father’s Day gifts rotated yearly among socks and ties and some type of grilling tool kit. The tool kits invariably included tongs, a spatula, various skewers, an apron with a nominally clever logo (“Daddio of the patio”) and a long-handled basting brush.

Because most backyard cooks feel the need to actually do something while cooking rather than sitting back and patiently waiting for the meat to cook, the basting brush got a lot of action. A typical grill session featured a rack of ribs that was occasionally flipped using the tongs and constantly mopped with a sweet, Kansas City-style sauce.

Millheim Harmonie Verein’s Dance Hall 3384 FM 949, Sealy Community barbecue on Father’s Day, June 16

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By the end of the cook, the sauce was laminated to the ribs like chrome on a bumper, and the ribs essentially became a delivery mechanism for the sweet sauce.

Basting or mopping meat to add flavor and moisture is one of the oldest traditions in American barbecue. Cooking whole hogs over coal-filled trenches always included mopping the meat with a sauce made of vinegar and peppers.

For leaner meats, the mop included a certain amount of fat to add flavor. In the 1913 cookbook “Dishes & Beverages of the South,” author Martha McCulloch-Williams describes “dipney,” or the sauce that was mopped on the meat at the end of the cooking process that “savored the meat when it was crisply tender, brown all over, but free from the least scorching.”

McCulloch-Williams described how her father made dipney: “Two pounds sweet lard, melted in a brass kettle, with one pound beaten, not ground, black pepper, a pint of small fiery red peppers, nubbed and stewed soft in water to barely cover, a spoonful of herbs in powder — he would never tell what they were — and a quart and pint of the strongest apple vinegar, with a little salt.”

In contemporary commercial barbecue, mopping and basting are mainly associated with Carolina-style whole-hog barbecue. Other than the occasional spritz, Texas barbecue avoids heavy mopping and basting of meats.

Fortunately, the traditions of cooking barbecue in Texas are alive and well in community barbecues that occur throughout the state, usually on various holidays.

Every Father’s Day in Millheim, a small town near Sealy, a community barbecue is held to raise funds for the historical German dance hall there known as the Millheim Harmonie Verein.

A long, concrete-lined trench is filled with wood that is burned down to coals, over which traditional meats — perhaps beef shoulder, pork shoulder and various cuts of mutton (sheep) — are grilled and smoked.

Throughout the process, volunteer cooks holding long mops baste the meat with a thin liquid made up of vinegar, salt and onions. Historically, this recipe wasn’t developed as much for flavor as it was for necessity — in the earliest days of the Texas republic, more flavorful ingredients would have been few and far between.

Texas barbecue has come a long way from coal-filled trenches and tart-and-tangy mops used to impart flavor to leaner meats such as beef shoulder clod. Still, you will occasionally see a contemporary pitmaster spray a flavored liquid onto a too-dry brisket or paint a sweet sauce onto a rack or pork ribs.

Fear not, barbecue purist — such techniques are long established in the history and traditions of Texas barbecue.

jcreid@jcreidtx.com

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