Frankie, Junior speaketh the truth.
Back in the day, there were certain ways to do things. Big productions, if you will.
Dining at a Tex-Mex restaurant used to be like this. They'd bring you chips and salsa and you'd order tea. Or maybe a beer or margarita if you were an adult without kids.
Then they'd bring you the first plate, the cold plate. On it you would find a puffy crispy open-faced taco, a scoop of guacamole on a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce and a chile con queso.
Then when you finished your last bite, they'd bring you your second plate, the hot plate. On it you would find enchiladas, a tamale, rice and beans. They'd bring about ten steamy soft corn tortillas per person in a separate, closed container with a hole on top.
When you finished that you got a choice of either a single pecan praline in little cellophane envelop or a single scoop of rainbow sherbet in a chilled bowl with a chilled spoon.
And so it was...
Barbecue was a clear cut process too.
Four or five slices of beef brisket and two links of sliced up sausage on a plate with brown beans, coleslaw and tater salad. Unlimited amounts of sliced white bread, sliced white onions and pickles available to supplement your meal.
Now here's where things diverge.
Some folks liked lean brisket slathered in barbecue sauce washed down with sweet tea, while other folks liked fattier barbecue washed down with Big Red.
The lean brisket/sweet tea types got nanner puddin for dessert while the fatty brisket/Big Red types got yeller cake.
I've walked in both worlds and I prefer the fatty brisket, Big Red and yeller cake, though it's hard to criticize the lean brisket slathered in barbecue sauce with sweet tea and nanner puddin.
Actually if I had my druthers I'd go back to 1978 and buy about six chopped beef on the bun selling 3 for a dollar.
They don't make chopped beef like they used to. I think they throw away a lot of trimmings nowadays and chop up lean slice brisket into sauce. But back in the day, it was as greasy or greasier than chorizo. Probably 40% fat or more.
They'd wrap those bad boys in butcher paper and the grease would turn the paper transparent. You'd have to roll up your sleeves because once you bit into one, you'd have a stream of orange grease dripping down your elbows.
That was good eating. Probably knocked several years off the back-end of my life but sometimes you have to look out for the you in the here and now.
