I won’t argue if you should claim that the smell of summer is the grassy scent of a freshly mowed lawn. I also won’t argue if you say a whiff of swimming pool chlorine best expresses the season.

For me, though, the smell of summer is the smoky fragrance wafting at this moment heavenward from the chimney of my closed --
55--gallon drum.

That’s right, I maintain — not argue, mind you — that the fragrance of summer is Barbecue Perfume.
The reason I won’t argue the point is, well, why argue when you know you’re right?

Heh-heh. A little joke there. See, a lot of people have the wrong idea about us barbecue hounds. They seem to think we’re a bunch of hotheads who constantly argue about petty little things such as, for example, the definition of barbecue.

First of all, we don’t debate it because we know what it is: It’s not grilling. You grill hot dogs. You barbecue pulled pork. The difference is measured scientifically by the number of beers you drink before the meat is done. It isn’t barbecue if it doesn’t take at least three beers, which is the approximate minimum cooking time for ribs. For whole hog or brisket, you’re looking at a case. With hot dogs, you’re talking half a beer.

Another thing they say we argue about is what part of the country makes the best barbecue.

No argument. Texas does. Central Texas, to be precise. More specifically, an area I call The Barbecue Triangle. It extends from Louie Mueller’s in Taylor, just northeast of Austin; to Smitty’s and Kruez’s in Lockhart, a little south of Austin; to Cooper’s in Llano, about an hour’s drive or so west of Austin. That is your geographical barbecue epicenter. Anybody who says different just don’t know.

Now, there are those who would call me an idiot, and not necessarily because of the poor grammar I used in the previous sentence, though they may point to it as further proof. Those people would say I am an idiot for the simple reason that they prefer barbecue from somewhere else, such as North Carolina or Memphis or Kansas City. Politicians have a nice phrase for such people. They call their critics “well-meaning but misguided.”

And so it is with those who might dispute my contention that central Texas is the geographical barbecue epicenter.

But that’s okay. As I say, I am not one to argue.

Nor am I one to dwell on, as mentioned above, petty little things. For example, a lot of folks, even well-meaning but misguided Texans, may take issue with my Texas Barbecue Triangle. They may say that a different portion of the state, or even the entire state, is actually the nation’s geographical barbecue epicenter. That’s fine. I’ve got no beef with that. (Get it? Beef? Kind of a barbecue hound’s inside joke. Unlike most other places, which think of barbecue as pork, the citizens of Texas regard beef as the slow-smoking meat of choice. Funnier now that you’re in on it, huh?) Identifying barbecue geography is a science, not an art. As with any science, some people use flawed methodology. In other words, people make mistakes. It’s nothing to get worked up about.

Now, just because Texas barbecue is the best doesn’t mean a person can’t also enjoy pulled pork from North Carolina and dry or wet ribs from Memphis. True, there is nothing quite so sublime as a meltingly tender hunk of slow-smoked Texas brisket. But just because the Louvre is the world’s finest museum doesn’t mean you can’t also enjoy a stroll through your local elementary school art show and marvel at how well the kids can draw.

Folks also stereotype us as arguing about arcane matters such as which wood should be used to smoke which meat. Hickory, oak, mesquite, apple wood, cherry, pecan — they’re all good. Of course, the finest is a little-known variety indigenous to, well, as it happens, the Texas Barbecue Triangle. It’s called post oak. It burns slow and smoky and massages the meat with ghost fingers of wood
smoke, resulting in meat ambrosia.

Now, I suppose that in these post-Jayson Blair journalistic times, I should probably note in the interest of full disclosure that I lived a good part of my life in Texas. (’Course, any part of your life that is lived in Texas is good, so that’s kind of redundant.) Plus, my wife is a native Texan. So is my son. A person given to quibbling might, therefore, accuse me of bias.

But that person wouldn’t be a barbecue hound. Because, as I say,
barbecue hounds are not the arguing type.

Heck, I’ll bet I don’t even get a single letter.