Gerardo's will shake the barbacoa blues
October 7, 2013
Eric Kayne
Manuel Martinez carves barbacoa from a cow's head at the shop on Patton
where his boss, Jose Luis Lopez, has been cooking for 36 years. By Tony
Freemantle October 7, 2013
I went down Nogalitos, looking for some barbacoa and Big Red.
I went down Nogalitos, looking for some barbacoa and Big Red.
I coulda had menudo, but I got some cabeza instead.
- "Barbacoa Blues"
Nogalitos may be where Texas bluesman Randy Garibay went looking for
barbacoa in San Antonio, but if he'd had the hankering for the real thing in
Houston, he likely would have headed (if you'll permit me the pun) for Gerardo's
Drive-In on the city's near north side.
If he did so on a Thursday, he would have found Jose Luis Lopez, his son
Gerardo and their staff gearing up to serve thousands of pounds of the succulent
meat to throngs of customers who crowd his humble Patton Street spot on
weekends.
They'd be unloading hundreds of whole fresh cow heads, called cabezas in
Spanish, into the cramped kitchen, washing them, minimally seasoning them with
salt and placing them into three large steam kettles.
The gas burner on the first kettle fires up about 6 p.m., and will not shut
down until six or seven Friday morning, just in time for breakfast. The process
will be repeated on Friday and again on Saturday, until Lopez has cooked 150
heads and the last morsel of meat, topped with a little onion, cilantro and
salsa, has been folded into a warm tortilla on Sunday.
Cow's whole head
Eric Kayne
Manuel Martinez carves barbacoa. His boss, Jose Luis Lopez, is one of the
few people cooking the dish the tradtional way - with the whole head of the cow.
Beginning on Friday, he will cook 140-150 cow heads, and it'll all be gone by
Sunday.
Give or take a few weekends when illness or family issues have kept him
from the task, Lopez has been doing this in the same place at the same time for
36 years. He is one of the few who still do it the traditional way - using the
whole head of the cow, complete with eyes, tongue and brains, not just the cheek
meat or tongues.
"That's what gives it the real flavor," Gerardo tells me. "People from
Mexico are used to it so that's what they want. Mexican Americans don't like
eating the eyes or the brains, so that's why they just eat the cachete (cheek
meat)."
Jose Lopez understands and caters to that. He separates the meat so that
those who want the authentic barbacoa experience can get it, and those who want
just the drier cheeks or tongue are happy, too.
He's from Michoacan and came to Houston in 1965. At first he worked as a
butcher in the kitchens of a couple of large hotel chains, but got tired of
moving from job to job, he tells me, and went into business for himself on
Patton Street in 1977.
'Sometimes we lose'
He's 72 now. Says he's tired and wants to rest. But he doesn't look tired
reaching into a tub of water and lifting out a heavy head with the ease of a
much younger man.
Each weekend barbacoa extravaganza costs him about $10,000, just for the
ingredients - the meat, the tortillas, the vegetable - and he doesn't always
reap a return on that investment.
"Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose," he says. "Sometimes we make money,
and sometimes we have to take out the money from that pocket and put it in this
one."
When he's not selling barbacoa, Lopez caters the usual taqueria fare -
fajitas, carne asada, carnitas, pollo, chile relleno - and has a small selection
of fresh vegetables and meat for sale, in addition to fridges full of Mexican
soft drinks.
On the wall he has a large photo of President John F. Kennedy, and also one
of Marilyn Monroe, for some reason, which adds to the impression the place is
frozen in time.
Barbacoa is devine
It's certainly not for the ambience that people line up by the hundreds on
Saturdays and Sundays. They come for the barbacoa, which is nothing short of
sublime.
There's no secret recipe he tells me. It's all in the preparation. The
heads are soaked for hours, then carefully washed, rinsed and salted before
being stacked on a rack in the steamers, which can hold up to 50 at a time. Bay
leaves are added to the water in the kettle. The rest is left to the magic of
moist heat and time.
So, if you get a dose of the barbacoa blues and you don't feel like menudo,
go down Patton to Gerardo's instead.
Who knows, you might also find a Big Red.
BARBACOA BLUES AND SPECIFIED RISK MATERIALS SRMs BSE TSE PRION aka MAD COW
DISEASE
Saturday, December 15, 2012
*** Bovine spongiform encephalopathy: the effect of oral exposure dose on
attack rate and incubation period in cattle -- an update 5 December 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Wisconsin Firm Recalls Beef Tongues That May Contain Specified Risk
Materials Nov 9, 2012 WI Firm Recalls Beef Tongues
Saturday, July 23, 2011
CATTLE HEADS WITH TONSILS, BEEF TONGUES, SPINAL CORD, SPECIFIED RISK
MATERIALS (SRM's) AND PRIONS, AKA MAD COW DISEASE
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Wisconsin Firm Recalls Beef Tongues That Contain Prohibited Materials SRM
WASHINGTON, October 17, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Nebraska Firm Recalls Beef Tongues That Contain Prohibited Materials SRM
WASHINGTON, Oct 15, 2009
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Texas Firm Recalls Cattle Heads That Contain Prohibited Materials
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Missouri Firm Recalls Cattle Heads That Contain Prohibited Materials SRMs
Friday, August 8, 2008
Texas Firm Recalls Cattle Heads That Contain Prohibited Materials SRMs
941,271 pounds with tonsils not completely removed
Saturday, April 5, 2008
SRM MAD COW RECALL 406 THOUSAND POUNDS CATTLE HEADS WITH TONSILS KANSAS
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Consumption of beef tongue: Human BSE risk associated with exposure to
lymphoid tissue in bovine tongue in consideration of new research findings
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Consumption of beef tongue: Human BSE risk associated with exposure to
lymphoid tissue in bovine tongue in consideration of new research findings
Friday, October 15, 2010
BSE infectivity in the absence of detectable PrPSc accumulation in the
tongue and nasal mucosa of terminally diseased cattle
SPECIFIED RISK MATERIALS SRMs
2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Minnesota Firm Recalls Bone-In Ribeye That May Contain Specified Risk
Materials Recall Release CLASS II RECALL FSIS-RC-024-2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
***The Presence of Disease-Associated Prion Protein in Skeletal Muscle of
Cattle Infected with Classical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
Monday, September 02, 2013
Atypical BSE: role of the E211K prion polymorphism
Research Project: TRANSMISSION, DIFFERENTIATION, AND PATHOBIOLOGY OF
TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES
Location: Virus and Prion Research Unit
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Evaluation of the Zoonotic Potential of Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy
We previously described the biochemical similarities between PrPres derived
from L-BSE infected macaque and cortical MM2 sporadic CJD: those observations
suggest a link between these two uncommon prion phenotypes in a primate model
(it is to note that such a link has not been observed in other models less
relevant from the human situation as hamsters or transgenic mice overexpressing
ovine PrP [28]). We speculate that a group of related animal prion strains
(L-BSE, c-BSE and TME) would have a zoonotic potential and lead to prion
diseases in humans with a type 2 PrPres molecular signature (and more
specifically type 2B for vCJD)
snip...
Together with previous experiments performed in ovinized and bovinized
transgenic mice and hamsters [8,9] indicating similarities between TME and
L-BSE, the data support the hypothesis that L-BSE could be the origin of the TME
outbreaks in North America and Europe during the mid-1900s.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
NORDION (US), INC., AND BIOAXONE BIOSCIENCES, INC., Settles $90M Mad Cow
TSE prion Contamination Suit Cethrin(R)
Case 0:12-cv-60739-RNS Document 1 Entered on FLSD Docket 04/26/2012 Page 1
of 15
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Inspections, Compliance, Enforcement, and Criminal Investigations BSE TSE
PRION 2013
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
APHIS USDA Administrator Message to Stakeholders: Agency Vision and Goals
Eliminating ALL remaining BSE barriers to export market
Friday, August 16, 2013
*** Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) biannual update August 2013 U.K. and
Contaminated blood products induce a highly atypical prion disease devoid of
PrPres in primates
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease CJD cases rising North America updated report
August 2013
*** Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease CJD cases rising North America with Canada
seeing an extreme increase of 48% between 2008 and 2010
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Minimise transmission risk of CJD and vCJD in healthcare settings Guidance
kind regards, terry
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