Texas Bar-B-Q Al-Hajj Continued: After Mecca, Try Medina (aka Hamilton, TX)

The real true believers in Islam don't stop with counterclockwise circling seven times of the black rock at Mecca. The true believers also make a stop at Medina, second only to Mecca as a holy place. I made the pilgrimage to the holy places of Texas Bar-B-Q last month and earlier this week, the bird-and-bunny writer for the Austin Fishwrap touted a different variety of Texas meat: pulled pork butt in Hamilton, Texas. Devout Bar-B-Q pilgrim that I am, I moved 'em up and headed 'em out in time to make the 10:30 AM opening of the Wenzel LoneStar Meat Company in Hamilton. Slightly more than 100 miles north and west of Austin, Hamilton recorded just over 2,200 souls in the 2000 Census. By driving north on U.S. 183 and staying north on U.S. 291, I was the third customer in Wenzel's this morning and I made off with two (one for lunch and one to take home) Pork Butt sandwiches. After all, it was (Pork Butt) Friday morning in the seat of Hamilton County. Pulled pork, as opposed to traditional Texas pork ribs or chops, is a shoulder cut that is slow cooked over low heat so that it can be shredded easily (not chopped) by hand. Wenzel's Pork Butt sandwich is closer to Memphis, TN than it is to Lockhart. Pulled pork is the Bar-B-Q haute cuisine from NC to GA and west to AL and TN. Serving only pulled pork sandwiches on Fridays certainly gives Wenzel's a cachet that rivals Snow's Saturday-only Bar-B-Q in Lexington. In any event, I have been there and done that (on both Friday in Hamilton and Saturday in Lexington). Like its Lone Star Bar-B-Q brethren: Lexington, Lockhart, and Luling, Wenzel's doesn't like plastic: tableware or credit cards. I've discovered what must be the Texas Bar-B-Q mantra: "In God we trust, all others pay cash." Exception (common to Texas): Louis Mueller Barbecue in Taylor (my #1 in 2008) defies conventional wisdom and provides plastic tableware and accepts credit cards. If this is (air & balanced) carnitas Americanas, so be it.

[x Austin Fishwrap]
Do Mess With Pork Butt Fridays
By Mike Leggett

(Summary: The small-town sandwiches in Hamilton, Texas are big and drippy and delicious.)

If you're ever in this small town on U.S 281 late in the week, stop just off the square at Wenzel's and celebrate Pork Butt Friday with the folks working there.

What you'll get is a great big old juicy dripping loose meat sandwich that I would advise you eat at one of the little tables out front. Try to eat it in the car like I did the first time and you'll either have to pull over and stuff it in before your clothes get soaked or risk getting the truck seat ruined by the juice that runs out.

Take along your sweetheart to eat half the thing because it's definitely a hungry man kind of sandwich. You'll see signs along the highway going into Hamilton (about halfway between Marble Falls and Fort Worth) directing you a block off the square to the market. Buy a glass of tea and some chips, and ask for the spicy sauce poured over the top. You won't regret the $6.

Wenzel LoneStar Meat Co. is a meat market, sausage maker, deer processor and mini-restaurant. It is an old-fashioned kind of place, though their operation is upscale and modern. They take deer in the back door during deer season and churn out great jalapeño and cheese summer sausage, along with several other recipes for German and Polish-style deer sausage. They'll even let you taste some of the different mixes so you'll know you're getting what you want before you order it.

But people come from all over for the pork butt sandwiches, served on what Wenzel's calls Pork Butt Fridays. Pork butt isn't any kind of butt, you understand. It's actually the shoulder of the hog, prized for its tender, juicy qualities as either a roast or carnitas or barbecue or, in this case, roasted and pulled apart to make pork butt sandwiches.

My wife and I stopped there on a Friday afternoon this spring. We parked out front and walked into the storefront and up to the counter. Half a dozen guys, local ranching types I figured, were finishing up their lunches, half hosing down after knocking back pork butt sandwiches.

I noticed that one of the daily specials was a Reuben sandwich, which Rana loves. This was Pork Butt Friday, but a Reuben trumps pork for her most of the time. "Maybe you'd like to get the Reuben and I'll have the pork sandwich," I said.

But the lady behind the counter cut me off. "No Reubens," she said. "Pork butt. It's Pork Butt Friday." Oookay. We'll have one sandwich cut in half, chips and two teas. I knew how big they were and that one would do us both for lunch.

A second woman in back of the old counter dipped up a big ladle of pork and was squeezing some of the juice back into the electric roaster it came from, just to make it presentable, while we sat and sort of smirked about the soup-Nazi approach to customer relations. It's so typically small-town Texas and it's one of those things husbands and wives just know, after 30 years of marriage, is going to make the other laugh.

While we were waiting on our sandwich, another customer came to the counter. "I'd like two baked potatoes to go," he said. "Pork butt," the counter lady said. "Huh?" he asked. "It's Pork Butt Friday. We only have pork butt today," she said.

"Well, I guess I'll have two pork butt sandwiches," he said, but I could tell he and his wife wouldn't be able to finish them. He didn't have the right look about him and he obviously didn't know the pork butt protocol.

Rana and I were enjoying the pork butt pronouncements when our sandwich came. Before we could get started, another guy walked through the front door and stopped to scan the lighted menu behind the counter. "Pork butt today," the lady said, a pre-emptive strike before he could waste his time and hers asking for something else.

He ordered the pork butt.

"I love this place," Rana said after we were in the truck. "Pork butt. It's Pork Butt Friday. I can't wait to come back."


Wenzel LoneStar Meat Co.
209 North Bell St.
Hamilton, TX
(254) 386-8242

Pork butt sandwiches are served beginning at 10:30 a.m. Fridays and are sold until the market runs out.

[Mike Leggett has covered hunting, fishing, and wildlife matters for the Austin American-Statesman since 1985. Prior to that he was a news editor at the Houston Post. He has also been managing editor at the Huntsville Item and Marshall News Messenger and has received numerous awards including Associated Press Managing Editors and Sports Editors awards for column writing, environmental stories on endangered species and canned hunting, and Dallas Press Club awards for stories on Texas Parks and Wildlife.]

Copyright © 2008 Austin American-Statesman

Get an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Reader at no cost from Google. Another free Reader is available at RSS Reader.