Getting on the good side of the Prophet of Smoked Meat

NPR;

It's not even noon yet but every table out front of the Pecan Lodge in downtown Dallas is filled with veterans with barbecue heaped on their plates, smirking at the gobsmacked newbies. First timers are easily discernible by the stunned looks on their faces when they walk in and see the line.

Half the people standing in line are not even going to get barbecue; it's going to run out before they can order. A little after noon, owner and pit master Justin Fourton comes out, gauges the line and then tapes a sign warning that barbecue supplies are dwindling.

When Fourton and his wife, Diane, first opened Pecan Lodge three years ago, it was nothing like this.

"In the beginning, you know, it was just the two of us and a couple employees," says Diane Fourton. "On Sundays, we'd roll the TV out and watch the Cowboy game back here in the kitchen and we had a sign that we'd set up on the counter that said, 'Ring the bell for service.' So in case a customer came up, we wouldn't miss them."

But that was before the sage of Texas barbecue, Daniel Vaughn, discovered them. Vaughn is barbecue editor at Texas Monthly  and he rated the Fourtons' restaurant as the fourth best barbecue joint in Texas in the magazine and in his book, The Prophets of Smoked Meat, published in May.
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There is much more.

It is a big deal in Texas where the barbecue leans more toward beef brisket than the pulled pork of other southern states.  The best is cooked low and slow.  I have had friends who work shifts through the night to keep the mesquite fire going.