Regional differences are myriad. Even within central Mexico, goat is occasionally used instead of lamb, especially in the state of Morelos and in northern Guerrero. Ingredients for the consommé, the salsas, the side dishes, and the antojitos (appetizers) change from town to town.

In Oaxaca, you can get goat or lamb cooked with or without red chile sauce. In Córdoba, Veracruz, they have barbacoa de pollo, a whole chicken marinated in red chile sauce and wrapped in hoja santa, avocado, and banana leaves. Ximbó (pronounced “cheembo,” with the stress on the last syllable) from Hidalgo and the Estado de México can feature chicken or pork or a combination of cuts of both meats. The proteins are slathered in a chile-based marinade and cooked wrapped in maguey leaves until hot and easily shredded. The herbaceous fragrance that erupts from the unwrapped maguey is due partially to the plant matter but also to the spices and seasonings. If you’re lucky, you will find someone serving jackrabbit barbacoa in Sonora, venison barbacoa in Sinaloa, langoustine barbacoa along the coast of Veracruz, or iguana barbacoa at Christmastime in Morelos. Beef is a common ingredient for barbacoa throughout Mexico, but especially in northern Mexico and the former part of Mexico that is Texas.

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The terms “vaquero,” “barbacoa,” and “barbecue” are intimately linked. The word “barbecue” is the English rendering of the Spanish word “barbacoa.” What we know as barbecue in the United States was originally encountered by Europeans in the Caribbean Basin and on what is the modern Latin American mainland. As Spanish explorers and missionaries noted at the time, “barbacoa” (derived from the native Taíno word “barabicu”) was used to describe a grain store or a stick framework upon which meat or fish was roasted or grilled. In a letter to the Spanish king dated 1520, Hernán Cortés described it as meat cooked under the ground and sold by vendors in the main market of Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City).

Although evidence of earth-oven cooking in Texas goes back several thousand years, South Texas barbacoa de cabeza practitioners trace the practice back to the the nineteenth century, when Americans began immigrating to Texas. When Anglo ranchers butchered beef, they would pass on the unwanted heads—brains and all—to their Mexican ranch hands and vaqueros. These workers did what they could with the scraps. They cleaned each discarded head, wrapped it in maguey leaves and/or burlap, and placed it into a pit heated by mesquite coals. The pit was covered with maguey and soil, and the heads would be left to cook overnight or longer. It was an example of human ingenuity and survival.

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Pit-cooking barbacoa isn’t extinct—it’s just not officially sanctioned. Vera’s Backyard Bar-B-Que’s special status allows it to showcase South Texas–style barbacoa in all its shimmering, smoke-anointed fattiness. It is the template for Texas barbacoa far removed from pressure-cooked, offset-smoked, or braised preparations that have become standard across the state and country. Barbacoa is often one of the fillings in the omnipresent pork-beef-chicken taco category. It’s on the menus of taquerias, food trucks, and barbecue joints alike. It’s served by the pound, in tacos, and with other elements….

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While Stixs & Stone offers a modern interpretation, barbacoa and barbecue tacos aren’t new. Barbecue joints across Texas—including now-closed Wilson’s Barbecue in El Paso and the former Bar-B-Que Pit in Brownsville—peddled the dishes throughout the twentieth century, with more joining with each passing year. Newspapers disseminated recipes nationwide—even in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where it was written that “[t]he Mexican ‘barbacoa’ has been adapted and taken over North of the Border, becoming the favorite for family cookouts and casual entertaining in the summer months.” According to a 1966 recipe printed in several newspapers across the country, the meat of choice for “Barbacoa Mexicana” was chicken, which was marinated in dry vermouth, cinnamon, honey, lime juice, garlic, and salt.

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Perhaps barbacoa’s biggest nationwide exposure was in the 1956 film Giant, starring James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor. There is a scene in which Hudson’s character, rancher Bick Benedict, throws a party to introduce neighbors and friends to his new bride, Leslie (played by Taylor). The culinary centerpiece of the shindig is barbacoa. The camera focuses on men removing the meat from a pozo. Later, Bick describes barbacoa as “the best food you ever ate, honey” and “where we get the word ‘barbecue.’ ” Bick explains the cooking process to Leslie, the camera homes in on barbacoyeros unwrapping and separating the meat from the cow’s head, and the genteel rancher’s wife faints. While barbacoa and barbecue are familiar to all Americans, the Lone Star State is the beefy heart of the classic Mexican preparation.