1. Gregory Carter’s Bar-B-Que Done Right trailer was parked under a tree on the side of Laura Koppe Road in the verdant outer reaches of Houston’s Fifth Ward. There was a huge cloud of smoke billowing out of the vehicle, so I pulled over and got in line. When it was my turn, I asked for some brisket. Carter scowled at me from behind the window and said, “No brisket.”

“You don’t cook brisket?” I asked.

“Oh, I cook brisket all right,” he said. “But I don’t sell it until it’s done. Come back around two.” I settled for some African American–style beef links. These are made with finely ground beef, lots of tallow, and spices. In the old days, when beef links were made with more fat, you would squeeze the bright orange sausage stuffing out onto a slice of Wonder bread, decorate the spicy goo with raw onion slices and pickles, and eat it like a sandwich. Carter’s sides were sensational. The homemade pinto beans had pork and chile peppers in them. The creamy mashed potato salad was seasoned with yellow mustard and pickle relish.

The shade-tree barbecue stand is an old tradition in the South. Some freed slaves found employment cooking barbecue on the side of the road after the Civil War. The tradition seems to be enjoying a revival lately. In the past five years, I’ve seen shade-tree barbecue stands popping up all over Texas. Look for them along country roads on holiday weekends.

The barbecue ranges in quality from dismal to stellar, but the batting average is surprisingly high. The charm of shade-tree barbecue is the combination of enthusiastic proprietors and old-fashioned methodology. While more and more Texas barbecue restaurants have replaced their wood-burning pits with automatic, gas-assisted ovens, shade-tree barbecue is invariably cooked in wood-burning contraptions manned by barbecue zealots.

“I have a passion for barbecue,” Gregory Carter told me. “I started competing in barbecue cook-offs about ten years ago. Everybody on the team had a specialty; one guy did beans, one guy did chicken. I was the brisket specialist. I took a third place in brisket at the Fort Bend barbecue cook-off in 2004.”

Carter licensed his mobile kitchen trailer in 2006. He now sells two hundred plates a day at an average of $8 a plate three days a week. He recently quit his job of twenty-four years as a route salesman for Blue Bell Ice Cream to pursue his passion.