I used to visit my aunt and uncle in Santa Maria, now famous mostly for the Michael Jackson trial. It had a prior claim to fame, however -- Santa Maria barbecue.
First, a little history. Santa Maria barbecue is a throwback to California's rancho days. Traditionally, it was made by threading 3-inch-thick blocks of top sirloin on willow poles and then cooking them over long pits filled with smoldering coals of local red oak.Although most barbecue is cooked slowly to let it absorb the most smoke and tenderize tough cuts such as ribs and brisket, Santa Maria barbecue is much more like grilling, though there is a smoky aspect because of the 30 minutes or so it takes to cook that much meat. But this is barbecue you can serve rare.
These days, rather than those monstrous top sirloin blocks, the meat is more likely to be tri-tip, which has the main advantage of coming in family-sized pieces of 2 to 3 pounds. The tri-tip began to gain popularity in the late 1950s when, according to Santa Maria legend, a local butcher named Bob Schutz started setting aside meat he had previously ground into hamburger.
This was a handy bit of timing, because that is just when Santa Maria barbecue was beginning to boom.
Though it had always been appreciated locally, during the 1950s its reputation was spread by the hordes of hungry pilots and other Air Force personnel who had trained at Vandenberg Air Force Base during and after World War II.
Click the link to find the recipe and technique.
I was pretty young when we visited them, so I have no real memory of him grilling tri-tip like this. I'm willing to bet he did, though; he was the same guy who tried to teach me how to drive (at nine years old in his old pickup) and how to shoot a shotgun. He was that kind of guy.
Posted by Linkmeister at July 8, 2005 03:34 PM | TrackBack