Video: What the Posse looks for in great Texas BBQ

A diner eats his lunch at City Meat Market in Giddings. (Photo ©Guy Reynolds)

Here's the third video from our Best of Texas BBQ Tour multimedia package on dallasnews.com. In this piece, Gary Jacobson, Jim Rossman, Bruce Tomaso and me talk about what we look for in great Texas barbecue.

When we sit down to a plate of brisket, ribs and sausage, here are the basic criteria used to judge what we're eating: Taste, tenderness, appearance, texture and smokiness.

Click the video below to see more of our tips on judging great Texas BBQ.

Checking in with Fatboy's BBQ in Cooper

A customer waits for his order at Fatboy's BBQ in Cooper. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

You meet some great folks as you travel the blue highways of Texas BBQ. Shannon Bankston and Heather Hoff of Fatboy's BBQ in Cooper are those kind of people.

A year ago, Marshall Cooper and I met Shannon and Heather at Fatboy's, then located in the tiny town of Ladonia in northeast Texas. It was a slow day in the town of 613 residents, so we talked BBQ for half of the afternoon, which of course is one of our favorite things to do. Fatboy's had been open for two and a half years at that point.

In April 2012, they moved their entire BBQ operation to Cooper, population 1,961, located 18 miles east of Ladonia. The location on a busier road in a bigger community would eventually allow them to triple their weekly food sales. Cooper is located 80 miles northeast of Dallas, near Commerce.

Here's the best comment we've ever seen about wood and Texas BBQ

Over the past four years, we've gotten a lot of comments from readers about our observations on Texas barbecue. Good or bad, we post them all, with the exception of those with extreme profanity. Texas BBQ is an emotional issue.

However, a comment on Gary Jacobson's Monday post "Memo to Gov. Perry: Texas needs a truth in BBQ law" set a new bar for comments on our blog. A reader tagged as "Anonymous" left a pronouncement that summed it all up better than we could ever do.