If you've lived around the Central Coast for any amount of time (and you aren't a vegetarian), you've likely tasted the delicacy of Santa Maria Style Barbecue. It's the popular menu item at festivals, parties, fund-raisers and brandings to the north and south. But try to find it in another part of the country and it's not so easy. It's definitely a local tradition. Santa Maria Barbecue always includes certain items, kind of like Thanksgiving meals. In this case, it's usually a 2 to 3 pound cut of meat about three inches thick. It's often tri-tip, dry-rubbed using salt, pepper, and often a little garlic and parsley. It's usually cooked for about 45 minutes, and then sliced up against the grain of the meat to showcase the marbling of the cut. Tri-tip is a cut of meat at the top of a top sirloin. Old-timers and out-of-towners may call it the "butchers cut" as it was often a cut butchers would take home to use for stew or make ground beef out of. Brain Stein is a chef for the Susie Q brand and knows the history of Santa Maria Style well. He says up until the 1950's, top sirloin, or the top block cut of meat, was used for Santa Maria Style Barbecues. Tri-tip made its way into the mix a few decades ago with the help of Santa Marians Bob Shultz and Clarence Minetti. Minetti had a market before he opened the well-known Far Western Tavern. The roots of the Santa Maria Style Barbecue trace back to about 1850 when Rancheros were branding their cattle and would invite their families ...
Keywords: KSBY, KSBY News, KSBY.com, No Place Like Home, Jeanette Trompeter, Santa Maria, Santa Maria Valley, Santa Maria style barbeque, Santa Maria BBQ, Brain Stein, Bob Shultz, Clarence Minetti, Far Western Tavern
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