In a related ‘jewish invention’ myth to the idea that jews were the first to cook and eat brisket as a specific cut of meat which I have recently addressed and debunked; (1) there are two subsidiary myths that I wanted to deal with separately because they don’t roll well into one article and are – in all honesty – separate issues with their claim and evidence.
The source of the myth that jews introduced smoked brisket to the United States appears to be relatively recent and is an article by Daniel Vaughn published on the website ‘Texas Monthly’ in January 2014.
He writes that:
‘I’m not sure what the briskets looked like back in the early twentieth century, but the earliest mention I can find of smoked brisket isn’t from the fifties, and it wasn’t at a barbecue joint. Rather it is from newspaper advertisements from two grocery stores in 1910. Naud Burnett in Greenville and Watson’s Grocery in El Paso were both serving smoked brisket from their deli counter along with other traditionally Jewish food items like smoked white fish and Kosher sausage. I’m not certain of the religion of these grocers, but their menu is geared toward a Jewish clientele.
A few years later in 1916 the Weil Brothers in Corpus Christi advertised their smoked brisket. The store was owned by Alex and Moise Weil. Their father Charles Weil was a Jew who emigrated to Texas from Alsace, France, in 1867. Pastrami (cured and smoked brisket) is a common item on Jewish menus, but in their store they sold pastrami (pastromie in the ad) along with smoked brisket. It probably wasn’t served hot on butcher paper like the Central Texas meat markets, but those meat markets wouldn’t be listing brisket on their menu for another forty years.
If you know the requirements of Kosher food, it makes sense that Jewish immigrants would be the first ones to smoke specifically brisket in the States. The hind quarter of beef isn’t Kosher unless the sciatic nerve is removed, and that is rarely done by butchers. That leaves the forequarter including the brisket, which is revered as the cut of meat to enjoy for Passover. Evidently, it was also popular enough for the smoked version to make it into Jewish grocery stores in Texas long before it became the darling of our barbecue joints.’ (2)
This claim needs to be deconstructed because while Vaughn’s original research is to be praised; his ability to interpret that evidence is shockingly poor.
Let’s begin with the first paragraph, which states:
‘I’m not sure what the briskets looked like back in the early twentieth century, but the earliest mention I can find of smoked brisket isn’t from the fifties, and it wasn’t at a barbecue joint. Rather it is from newspaper advertisements from two grocery stores in 1910. Naud Burnett in Greenville and Watson’s Grocery in El Paso were both serving smoked brisket from their deli counter along with other traditionally Jewish food items like smoked white fish and Kosher sausage. I’m not certain of the religion of these grocers, but their menu is geared toward a Jewish clientele.’
Vaughn is referring to the following two advertisements for Naud Burnett and Watson’s Grocery from 1910:
The problem here is that Vaughn is pretending to know something about jewish foodways (aka kosher food) but he doesn’t, and he is reading these two advertisements as being ‘geared toward a jewish clientele’ when in truth the only evidence of this is Watson’s Grocery’s mention of ‘Kosher Sausage’ while things like ‘smoked white fish’ are just common central, eastern and northern Europe foods – after all even ‘lox’ comes from Eastern European and Scandinavian not jewish cuisine – (3) while everything else on both advertisements is specifically German, Eastern European or Italian not ‘kosher’. Indeed there are even extremely non-kosher items being sold by Watson’s Grocery with ‘ham lox’ and ‘smoked pork sausage’ in evidence.
Indeed, if Vaughn knew anything about this then he’d know the presence of such treif meat on the premises would preclude observant jews from purchasing from Watson’s Grocery in the first place!
So, what Vaughn is trying to interpret as an advertisement/range of goods ‘geared toward a jewish clientele’ is nothing of the kind and what both advertisements suggest is that both Naud Burnett and Watson’s Grocery are simply engaging in broad advertising to multiple different communities all at once and their offerings are not ‘aimed at jews’ at all!
We can see this in the similar ‘Weil Brothers’ advertisement which he references in the second paragraph:
‘A few years later in 1916 the Weil Brothers in Corpus Christi advertised their smoked brisket. The store was owned by Alex and Moise Weil. Their father Charles Weil was a Jew who emigrated to Texas from Alsace, France, in 1867. Pastrami (cured and smoked brisket) is a common item on Jewish menus, but in their store they sold pastrami (pastromie in the ad) along with smoked brisket. It probably wasn’t served hot on butcher paper like the Central Texas meat markets, but those meat markets wouldn’t be listing brisket on their menu for another forty years.’
To wit:
The problem – other than the fact that Vaughn is completely unaware that jews didn’t invent pastrami which was actually from Romania ‘Pastrama’ and what is now Turkey as ‘Basturma’ having been a popular dish as early as the fifth century in the Byzantine Empire - (4) is that we once again find outright treif items – ‘pork links’ (aka pork sausage links) – on the Weil Brothers’ advertisement meaning that once again – despite the fact that the Alex and Moise Weil were indeed jewish – the advertisement is not ‘geared towards a jewish clientele’ because observant jews simply wouldn’t buy from a grocers that sold both kosher and treif products next to each due to the issue of potential contamination and the resultant requirement to engage in prolonged ritual religious cleansing.
Ergo my point that Vaughn’s original research is good but he has absolutely no idea how to interpret what he is seeing within a jewish context.
This is made even more clear when Vaughn writes that:
‘If you know the requirements of Kosher food, it makes sense that Jewish immigrants would be the first ones to smoke specifically brisket in the States. The hind quarter of beef isn’t Kosher unless the sciatic nerve is removed, and that is rarely done by butchers. That leaves the forequarter including the brisket, which is revered as the cut of meat to enjoy for Passover. Evidently, it was also popular enough for the smoked version to make it into Jewish grocery stores in Texas long before it became the darling of our barbecue joints.’
This is true as far it goes but it fundamentally ignores that the jews whom Vaughn is referring to simply copied the German use and cooking style of braising brisket – which is incidentally a way of kashering meat (ensuring it is kosher basically by removing any residual blood) – that preceded their usage by at least two centuries. (5)
Further Texas has had a very sizeable German immigrant presence from at least the 1830s – the ‘Texas-Deutsche’ – and it was these immigrants who were the ones who introduced smoked brisket to Texas, which is all that Vaughn is picking up in the advertisements he has found (i.e., a pre-existing custom linked to a long resident immigrant group that was increasing in numbers at the time).
As ‘Third Wave BBQ’ puts it:
‘In the 19th century, German and Central European immigrants introduced the practice of smoking brisket to Texas. The state’s warm climate and ample access to beef made it an ideal place to perfect the technique. Barbecue joints, often run by these immigrants, began popping up across the state and the popularity of smoked brisket began to spread.’ (6)
It doesn’t help that there was only around 25,000 jews in Texas circa 1914 (7) compared to north of a 100,000 German immigrants still primarily speaking German in Texas in the same year (and likely a lot more who were more assimilated)! (8)
Thus, Vaughn is completely wrong in trying to claim that the jews originated both smoked brisket as well as the concept of Texas BBQ which originates from the Texas-Germans in the 1950s! (9)
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-brisket
(2) https://www.texasmonthly.com/bbq/smoked-brisket-history/
(3) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-lox
(4) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-pastrami
(5) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-brisket
(6) https://thirdwavebbq.com.au/the-history-of-smoked-brisket/
(7) https://www.humanitiestexas.org/news/articles/texas-jews-republic-presen and https://www.isjl.org/texas-encyclopedia.html
(8) Mark Sonntag, 1994, ‘Fighting everything German in Texas, 1917-1919’, The Historian, Vol. 56, No. 4, pp. 665-669
(9) https://www.thespruceeats.com/german-barbecue-cooking-335803