IT’S THE SMELL OF TEXAS HOME COOKIN’ — and I don’t mean that beef stuff they pass off as barbecue.

UPDATE: The barbecue-related hatemail pours in: “The culinary delight that is Texas barbecue obviously exceeds your otherwise good taste. May your in-box overflow until you take those hateful words back.”

Actually, that beef stuff is pretty good. It’s just not, you know, actual barbecue.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Josh Wills emails:

You and I disagree on many things (though we were all on the same page with the Coburn amendment), but your affront against Texas barbecue cannot stand. I’m assuming you (mistakenly) believe that ham soaked in vinegar qualifies as “real” barbecue? I’ll be keeping an eye on you from my new blog, pulledporkbusters.blogspot.com.

No, that would be those North Carolina apostates. Real barbecue is pork (as reader David Ruddell writes: “If it ain’t pork, it ain’t barbecue. ‘Nuff said.”), but in a tomato-based sauce. Other approaches are amusing, and sometimes tasty, diversions, but they’re not barbecue.

MORE: Boy, the Texans are hopping mad. John Kluge emails:

Just because you hillbillies in Tennessee don’t have the money to raise cattle the way we do here in Texas, doesn’t mean you know how to barbeque. I grew up in Kansas City and have my share of time in Memphis and Chicago and used to be an apostate about barbeque until I moved to central Texas and saw the light. There is no piece of meat of any kind made in the world that can exceed a piece of brisket from the Kretz Market in Lockhart, Texas. They were making barbeque there when people in Tennessee were still living in trees and eating pig guts.

Ahem. First, there’s nothing wrong with chitterlings. Second, there wouldn’t be a Texas if it weren’t for Tennesseans, something all literate Texans realize, and give thanks for, every day.

Meanwhile, reader Brian Erst is advocating a big-tent approach:

Barbecue is a big tent, open to good people of all persuasions. Don’t you remember the 11th Commandment “Thou shalt not speak ill of barbecue”?

I should think that everyone in this great nation of ours can agree on the Holy Trinity of Barbecue – Smoke, Meat and Fat. Everything else is just the lovely melange of spice and tradition that makes regional America great. Claiming there is only one true ‘cue leads us further down the path of the strip malling of America. While I like the option of getting a consistent cup of joe at Starbucks, I’d be sad if the funky coffeehouse with Jazz on Saturday afternoons down the street closed shop because Starbucks was the only “true” coffee.

I come from a town that is sadly deficient in true barbecue (Chicago – they boil ribs!), so I own my own smoker and have made pork butt, ribs, brisket, chicken and more. I’ve made gallons of sauce, from tangy tomato-based ones, sharp vinegary ones, Asian-inspired sauces with blood orange and ginger and a dozen more. While I will always have a special place in my heart for slow smoked pork, covered in my secret rub and brushed with my favorite homemade sauce, I love all barbecue – because barbecue is what makes America great.

Perhaps I should make an across-the-nation barbecue tour, just out of fairness.

MORE: The Blogger Formerly Known As SKBubba emails:

There are three things you don’t discuss in casual conversation: politics, religion, and barbcue. But you are correct. Barbcue is pork. Pulled. With red sauce. That stuff in Texas is “roast beef.”

Indeed. Mike Hendrix is living proof!