Last stop on the Gods of Brisket tour. We have just one last temple to worship in. one last pitmaster to pay obeisance to, one last mighty fallen bovine to honor with our ritualistic consumption. To bring the tour full circle, in a touching nod towards sentimentality, our entire little band has reassembled. The supposedly Zen-like but often meat-crazed Arnie, the calm, thoughtful Jen (always there to save us from ourselves); the resigned and bemused scribe Kim (who has agreed to this final challenge despite vociferous protests from her digestive system) and the beautifully mad gastronaut Steve, from whose fevered imagination this whole terrifying, glorious, girth-expanding escapade sprang.
After a detour into deep rural Texas thanks to some wrong GPS directions, we arrive at the New Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church. From the moment we added this stop to the itinerary, we have all been wondering about what exactly a church-run BBQ joint would be like. This one turns out to be a tumbled down house next to a reasonably large brick church. And to our delight, it’s a real BBQ joint, complete with a BBQ pit out front belching fragrant hardwood smoke and a battered old easy chair for the pitmaster.
We head in, and find an interior about the size of a standard urban one bedroom apartment, and decorated somewhat as such; lamps, a TV playing soaps, a boombox belting out electric blues (at the same time as the TV), and that wonderful mix of BBQ habitués: local white collars, blue collars, rednecks, sharecroppers, et. al.
As we begin, Steven admits that when he awoke this morning his first thought was “no more BBQ.” Luckily for us all, that momentary flash of insanity passed and he is now rarin’ to go one last time.
The meal is our standard: brisket, sausage, ribs and potato salad. As we dig in, it quickly becomes clear that this offbeat church shack is fun, but not a world-class BBQ destination. To begin with, everything is served family style on platters with actual hard plates, and cutlery--and, well, you know how we feel about that.
The brisket is pot roasty and uncrusted, though tender. The pork ribs are not the crusty marvels of beef we’ve encountered out in the Hill Country. The sausage is a perfectly serviceable kielbasa-style version, but nowhere near the glorious symphony of fat and meat we worshipped in Luling. The potato salad is a bizarre whipped concoction, like
mashed potatoes with potato salad spices. It’s weird, but not altogether unpleasant. Nice tame cowboy-style beans, and the usual condiments of sliced onion, pickled jalapenos, and Wonder bread round out the meal.
Even with its limitations, it was still a great BBQ meal. In fact it was either good enough (or we were panicked that our tour was coming to an end) that we ordered a second round of all the meats. We left only a few pieces, and really that was just so we had room to try the buttermilk pie.
In the end, no, one last joint wasn’t one too many. We ate, laughed and then ate some more. Then Kim and Steve headed to the airport, and Jen and Arnie returned to their real (and much healthier) lives. But plans were already being made for another tour, this time of healthy food joints in L.A.
The rating: We rate New Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church BBQ as a wonderful Huntsville institution, full of nice people, and a fun stop if you’re passing through, but not worth a special journey.
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