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Pork ribs, left, and sliced pork steak at City Meat Market, Giddings, Texas.

Slicing a pork steak at City Meat Market in Giddings, Texas.

Pork steak is occasionally on the menu at Brett's Barbecue Shop in Katy.

Pork steak is occasionally on the menu at Brett's Barbecue Shop in Katy.

Many of the seemingly innovative developments in the current craft barbecue boom are in fact new twists on old traditions.

Take tacos, for example. The recent Tex-Mex barbecue trend showcases smoky meats swaddled in fragrant corn or flour tortillas — a match made in barbecue heaven.

The reality, of course, is that smoked meat tacos have long been a staple of South Texas culinary traditions. Other recent menu items that have been resurrected from Texas barbecue history include smoked oxtails, beef cheeks, and prime rib.

The latest “what’s old is new again” trend is the pork steak. If you’ve never seen or tasted a pork steak, think of a rib-eye steak made out of pork, not beef.

Pork steaks are rarely found on barbecue menus nowadays mainly due to the physical structure of this cut. For background, here’s a brief overview of pork steak anatomy: Pork steaks are cut from the pork shoulder, specifically the area around the shoulder blades at the front of the animal. This cut is traditionally called the Boston butt. It’s a big chunk of pork meat, marbled fat, and blade bone that is usually cooked whole and then shredded into pulled pork.

But another way to prepare it is to slice it into steaks before cooking, much like a prime rib roast can be cut into individual ribeye steaks. The problem is the blade bone. It’s so thick there’s no way to cut it with the standard assortment of knives at a typical barbecue joint. Pork steaks are usually cut with a band saw that is standard equipment at a meat market.

Call ahead for availability of pork steak

In order to acquire pork steaks, a barbecue joint must get them from a meat market. But not all meat markets still carry pork steak, and when they do, they are often cut too thin, usually no more than one-half inch. This is because pork steaks are still popular among backyard grillers, and if they are too thick, they take too long to cook. Pork steaks that can stand up to the heavy smoke or direct heat of a commercial smoker need to be more substantial, usually about two inches thick.

Not surprisingly, the best pork steaks in Texas barbecue are associated with meat markets. Perhaps the most famous pork steak is at City Meat Market in Giddings. This is still a working meat market and barbecue joint, well-known for thick, salty, smoky pork steaks. Southside Market & BBQ in Elgin has also been cooking pork steak for decades.

Arguably the best pork steak in Texas can be found every Saturday at Snow’s BBQ in Lexington. Pitmasters Kerry Bexley and Tootsie Tomanetz cook them over direct heat in a big rectangular pit near their traditional offset smokers. Though not a meat market, Snow’s is just down the road from Giddings, and that area of Central Texas is known for its meat market legacy.

In Houston, raw pork steaks can still be found at old-school meat markets like Bud’s House of Meat and B&W Meat Company, though they are often of the thinner variety (you can always ask them to cut thicker versions).

While pork steaks are still few-and-far-between on Houston barbecue joint menus, one barbecue joint that has started offering them as an occasional special is Brett’s Barbecue Shop in Katy. Pitmaster Brett Jackson custom orders his two-inch-thick steaks from Bryan-based Ruffino Meats and then smokes them in his offset smoker for six hours.

“It’s been a little challenge to figure out how to get the fat to fully break down and not dry out the meat,” says Jackson, “but the last two smokes I have solidified my method and couldn’t be more happy with the outcome.”

It’s always good to see a new generation of pitmasters revisiting the oldest traditions of Texas barbecue.

A native of Beaumont, J.C. Reid graduated from the University of Southern California after studying architecture and spent his early career as an architect in New York City. He returned to Texas in 1995, retiring from architecture but creating his own Internet business in Houston. As his business became self-sustaining, he began traveling Houston and the world to pursue his passion: eating barbecue.

He began blogging about food and barbecue for the Houston Chronicle in 2010 and founded the Houston Barbecue Project in 2011 to document barbecue eateries throughout the area. Just last year, Reid and others founded the Houston Barbecue Festival to showcase mom-and-pop barbecue joints in the city. The 2014 event drew 2,000 guests to sample meats from 20 restaurants.

You can view more of J.C.'s work at jcreidtx.com.

“It’s serious,” Payne said Saturday afternoon. "People are dying. People have died. We just want ... the environmental injustice to stop in our community."