Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Vaughn, Barbecue editor at Texas Monthly, and this
his fire and Smoke, the Texas Monthly Barbecue podcasst brought
to you by Yetti.
Speaker 2: I hadn't really even planned to go to Mama Jean's.
Speaker 1: I was just headed the long way down into Austin,
headed over to two to eighty one and came through
Lamb Passas and saw barbecue on the sign and thought
I'd stop. Little did I know that Mamma Jeans not
only would turn out to have really good barbecue, but
its owner, Johnny Walker, would have quite a story as well.
Let's head on down to Lamp Passas and visit with
Mamma Jean's and Johnny Walker. Johnny Walker, although he learned
how to barbecue from his uncle's, it was his mom
who taught him how to cook. He did, after all,
name his Lamb Passis restaurant, Mama Jean's Barbecue after her.
Speaker 3: We named the restaurant after my mother, just because it
would just be a shame for people not to know
what kind of influence so she was on myself and
my siblings. Serves five of us, and all of us
are really good cooks because of.
Speaker 2: Her and Mama Jean taught him well.
Speaker 1: He learned about spices and how to marry them into
the perfect crust around a pork rib. She taught him
how to be patient with a pot of greens and
how to achieve the perfect balance of tartan sweet in
a blueberry cobbler. But most importantly, she taught him how
to cook with soul. Growing up in South Dallas in
the nineteen sixties, Johnny didn't see a whole lot of
white people back then, the city was strictly segregated.
Speaker 2: The first white person.
Speaker 1: He remembers seeing up close was a customer at Carter's Barbecue.
To him, this was evidence of the magic of barbecue.
It brought people together and not in that romanticized version
of the notion. Barbecue caused him to interact with people
he never would have otherwise. That experience stayed with him
as he got older. Johnny worked a lot of different
jobs growing up. His first job was selling ladies shoes.
He went on to be a private investigator, a singer,
and although this was hard to admit to us.
Speaker 3: You're gonna make me say I was a male model,
and I was. I was. I'll say it, Hey, can
you imagine it.
Speaker 1: It was around that time that his uncles taught him
the proper barbecue technique. That resulted in some trial and
error on his part.
Speaker 3: What about the first time we almost got a fight
doing it? Oh yeah, first time we fired up a
barbecue pit. Oh yeah, and we grabbed whatever would we
could find, Dude. So it wasn't even like sweet fruit
with I mean, it was just like whatever tumble we ate.
Speaker 1: Dude.
Speaker 3: It might have been, yeah, I mean, like that mosquit
I think, yeah they had. I mean, it wasn't right.
The first thing we cooked was big turkey thighs, so
the meat came out tasting lack of land a turkey
charcoal and throw in a hint of starter fluid. It
was terrible.
Speaker 1: Man, The knowledge passed on from the older generation eventually
took hold. Johnny learned how to cook barbecue in an
open pit in the ground and how to gauge the
temperature with just his hands. They cooked whole animals over
the coals. It represented a purest form of cooking barbecue.
It is all but gone today.
Speaker 3: I love it when I hear the word purest as
it refers to barbecue coming from someone who's maybe been
cooking barbecue for ten years. Maybe they like to say
this purest thing, and there's no such thing. Really. All
the barbecue purists, in my mind, they've all left the earth. Man,
They're all gone. Man. You know, there's no one that
I know of that's digging a hole in the ground
and cooking meat over a spit on top over the ground,
or cooking it underground, that's purest. And unless you're doing that,
in my opinion, I don't know what purest is if
that's not pure.
Speaker 1: When Johnny talks about purest technique disappearing, he's not just
talking about cooking over a trench. Johnny is keenly aware
of the history and influence of black pit masters, and
in Texas that history is largely ignored. I wrote a
review on Texas Monthly's website about Mama Jean's and mentioned
this faded history to Johnny.
Speaker 3: This was long overdue, but I was online and I
saw that story that Daniel Vaughan did about not being
neglectful and not mentioning African Americans early input into barbecue
in Texas, and I saw that not just why its dagment. Really, finally,
you know, somebody's talking about the elephant in the room, man,
because we've disappeared from it. And there reasons far that
while we've disappeared from, you know, the barbecue culture in Texas.
But it's wonderful someone for someone to mention, man, you know,
to be up front about. Look, man, I know this
isn't what it was twenty twenty five years ago.
Speaker 1: That influential history was much more than a rub recipe,
and it was the most important ingredient that Johnny learned
from Mama Jean.
Speaker 3: I would say, there's definitely a thing as black and barbecue,
and I don't know where it is anymore because we're
not really in the game anymore, not in Texas anyway,
and especially in Central Texas, for instance, soul food versus
country cooking. A lot of the foods were very similar
that white people in the South and black people in
the South eight it was mostly the same. How it
was prepared was different. Your black mom, your black grandmother,
She was actually in the kitchen singing that those things
were true. She was actually in the kitchen singing and
putting her heart and soul into what she was doing.
It wasn't something she was made to do. She wasn't
doing it because she had to, you know. And I
think that's where the whole soul food thing came from,
is they put their all into it, you know, And
it was a big source of pride.
Speaker 1: That soul goes into everything that Johnny prepares today at
Mama Jean's. And although he learned to cook barbecue over
a trench in the ground, Johnny understands about consistency. Walker
has chosen to use a thermostat controlled rotisserie for his barbecue.
He said trying to replicate his uncle's methods in a
restaurant would result in quote a lot of meat over
the fence.
Speaker 3: The reason I cook the way I do is because
it's very important. Once you put a flavor in someone's mouth,
the next time they come to your restaurant, they need
to experience that same flavor. Unless you're the one cooking
it every day, there's gonna be deviations. And so if
you've got this thriving business and there's a necessity to
have two or three pit guys, you know you're gonna
have some deviations in your food.
Speaker 2: Is choice of wood, it's pecan.
Speaker 3: In Central Texas, most people either use Oprah mosquito, or
a combination of both. I use pecan wood because it's
what I grew up on, and people tend to like
what they grew up on. All of my grubs and
spices and seasonings in my whole entire life, my entire
cooking life have been geared towards pecan or hickory because
I grew up in a dollar Sarah. Everyone who taught
me how to barbecue. All of my uncles are from Oklahoma, Arkansas,
so I'm a pecan gud.
Speaker 1: He keeps the menu as simple as it comes in
Texas brisket, ribs and sausage, the Texas Trinity, or all
there is to choose from. In the smoke meat category.
The sides are just slaw, beans, potato, salad, and greens.
There's homemade cobbler for dessert, and drinks come in a
can or a bottle from the cooler. There are two
sauces to choose from, one being a spicy hobb and
aarow variety. It's tamed a bit with pureed carrots and
blends nicely with Walker's original sauce. A sweet and salty
rub covers the ribs, which are tender and smoky balance
isn't the right descriptor. It's more like the brown sugar,
salt and smoke, or powerful enough to keep your taste
buds in a battle, but none of them win. The
stout bark on the brisket has an almost candy like chew,
and the meat from the fatty end has a creamy
texture and a flavor reminiscent of care. Cooking with soul
is important to Johnny Walker, and so is family. Be
prepared for a hearty welcome when you walk through the door,
because to him, his customers are family.
Speaker 3: I agree to everyone. I want him to. I want
him to feel good, man. I want the whole experience
to be a plus experience for them. And that's not
just the food.
Speaker 1: Johnny Walker's okay with sharing his methods with people who ask,
but he's not quite ready to share those recipes just yet.
Speaker 2: Notice I said yet.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to be as stingy as the old
timers were with their products, right. I don't mind sharing.
Guys coming here almost daily and want to know what
my cooking temperature is? Do I cook my brisket fat
side up? I'll share all of that information. I don't
have a problem sharing cooking times and cooking styles and
anything that I know about it, anything regarding barbecue, even
if it's not my practice. I've tried a lot over
the years, so I can talk about it. But I
don't share my products. As far as my rugs and
my ingredients, I don't share that, you know. But I will,
I will, I will. I won't take it to the grave.
Speaker 1: Lucky for us, though, that won't come anytime soon. And
wherever you are in Texas, Johnny Walker makes lamb passes
a little closer to home. The Texas Monthly Barbecue Fest
Weekend returns November third and fourth in Austin, serving up
top barbecue from around the state. New to the weekend
lineup is a Saturday evening kickoff party at Franklin Barbecue.
Then the big event is on Sunday, November fourth, at
the Long Center of Performing Arts. Tickets are on sale now,
come y'all and come hungry. See Texas Monthly dot com
slash tmbbq Fest for details.
Speaker 2: Now let's talk about yetti.
Speaker 1: Texas barbecue is built from the ground up, from the
wood to the smoke to the meat. You have to
have the right tools to create a masterpiece on butcher paper.
YETI coolers have you covered? Built to be indestructible, keep
ice for days, and keep a brisket hot for hours.
Yetti is built for Texas barbecue. You've been listening to
Fire and Smoke Texas Monthly's barbecue podcast. I'm Daniel Vaughn,
working with producer Brian Standiford, and I'll see you out
there on the barbecue trail.