Before brisket dominated the Texas barbecue scene, the meat market served a variety of beef cuts. Although that doesn’t happen as much anymore, Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor for Texas Monthly, says there’s a lot more than just brisket on Texas menus.
“If you go way back into the ‘50s and ‘60s in Dallas, you would find a lot of restaurants that were just serving chopped beef on bread or on a bun,” Vaughn says. “That was generally going to be a beef plate.”
The beef plate comes from the belly area of a cow, and has a lot more fat in it than a brisket. Vaughn says a couple places in Dallas that have started smoking beef belly.
“The beef plate short ribs are one of the most popular items across Texas,” he says. “Most of the new places that open up serve a beef rib of that sort – [plus] a lot of the places outside of Texas that serve Texas barbecue or Texas-style barbecue.”
Listen to the full interview in the audio player above.
