A few weeks ago, Southern Living magazine released its list of the top 50 barbecue joints in the South.
The number one spot on this year’s list is in South Carolina. But Texas is well represented with seventeen barbecue joints from the Lone Star State making this list.
Texas Monthly barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn spoke to Texas Standard about how he believes that’s seventeen too many. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
The transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
So, wait a minute. You think there shouldn’t be any Texas barbecue spot on Southern Living’s top 50 list? What, you don’t think they should have made the cut?
Daniel Vaughn: Well, this isn’t a commentary on whether Texas is part of the South or not. It’s just that I really think that the South, the rest of the barbecue outside of Texas could really benefit from getting a little bit more, you know, just a little more shine, a little more attention.
And, I just know how hard it is to cover Texas alone. So, to think of one man, the barbecue editor over at Southern Living, covering the entire South plus Texas, and doing it every year — it just seems like a little much to ask.
It’s interesting, because when I first heard about this and this brouhaha has been, as you probably are aware, making some of the news wires here and there, I thought that what you were saying was something like, “well, wait a minute, leave us out of this, Southern Living. You guys don’t have the chops. You don’t have what it takes to declare who’s got a good barbecue place or not.”
Was that a little bit of a dig right there?
Well, when you’re saying they don’t have what it takes, I think if you compare what Texas…
In terms of measurement, right? I mean, in terms of like, you don’t know what a good barbecue place is.
Well, I mean, they know what a good barbecue place is, but they certainly don’t have the ability to put together a team the size of [what] we can put together [at] Texas Monthly. We really know what it takes to cover the state, and it takes a dedicated effort.
It takes, you know, we do it every four years because we just think every year is just too often. And, you know, I just don’t think Southern Living has it in them to provide the resources to be able to cover Texas nearly as well as we do.
Let me ask you about a little bit of the backside dirt on how these lists come together. It’s my sense that a lot of times these lists are put together based on the buzz that you hear from people who are sending you messages, or maybe they’ve posted something on social media.
These are the places that you hear about. And then, you put them all together in terms of the relative enthusiasm for these different spots, and that’s how you end up with a lot of these top 10 or top 25 lists. But what you guys at Texas Monthly do is much more scientific, I suppose we could say.
Yes, it is. And, you know, we really make an effort to cover all of the state. I think the last time around we went to over 300 barbecue joints, and I know that’s just not possible for Southern Living to do.
I really also feel like Texas barbecue has so much attention on it, and so many of the places that are well-known here are well-known across the country. I just think there are so many places in the South that could really use that sort of attention, and use that boost.
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Didn’t you try to do something a few years back where you were going outside of the confines of Texas, and trying to come up with the best barbecue that you could find? It almost seemed like a nationwide search. I must be getting some of those facts wrong.
No, it was a nationwide search, but it was more focused. It was the best Texas-style barbecue outside of Texas, so we called it the “United States of Texas Barbecue” list.
And, you know, that is the firsthand knowledge that I had on just how overwhelming it can be to cover such a massive territory and knowing that I did that while focusing just on Texas-style barbecue. And I found a lot of it in the rest of the South and really all over the country.
I want to ask you, have you heard back from Southern Living about this? Maybe they have some defense of their methodology?
There was no defense of the methodology. I did get a snarky comment back from Robert Moss, which I expected, and that’s fine.
Robert Moss is the barbecue editor for Southern Living.
Robert Moss is the barbecue editor at Southern Living, who, yeah, Southern Living hired a barbecue editor a few months after I came on as the first barbecue editor in the country, and they decided to borrow the title.
And so, yeah, this has been going on for over 12 years now, this little bit of back and forth between Robert and I, but this is the first time I actually put it down.
So what did he say? You said, sort of, he gave you a little bit of stick?
Oh, he was eating at a barbecue joint, I think in South Carolina, and said that he wasn’t sure if he needed to get permission from Texas Monthly to write about it. I didn’t respond, but I think it’s obvious. He certainly does.
Please, eat in North and South Carolina, and Georgia, and Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi. I guess they considered Delaware a part of the South over at Southern Living, too, so get on up there, too. Just stay out of Texas.
How good-natured is this beef, actually, when you get right down to it?
I mean, we’ve shared meals together, you know, both in Texas and in South Carolina.
I mean, I like to consider it a good-natured beef, back-and-forth. I haven’t had the pleasure to dine with Robert Moss since this article came out, but I’m hoping to again.
