Meats and Offal

I have always wanted to go to a Texas barbecue where a whole steer has been cooking all day on a spit over a wood fire, to walk up with a long carving knife and slice a few choice morsels from the sirloin and the shoulder, a bit off the shin, and a slice from between the ribs. I’d take only small pieces of each, because when meats are roasted on a spit over a charcoal or wood fire, one does not need very much to be completely satisfied. And meats are never any better than when cooked whole or in large pieces, then allowed to rest so that the juices are reabsorbed. A whole pig or lamb cooked on a spit bastes itself so that the roasting juices are constantly being rolled around the animal as it turns. If the meat is additionally brushed with herb branches dipped in garlic oil, the flavors and textures have a quality that is very difficult to approximate in small cuts of meat.