Texans Make Cabrito Barbecue of Choice as Goats Drive Exports

By Amy Strahan

Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Every part of Texas has its barbecue tradition. In McCulloch County, it's goat.

Fifteen thousand people gathered in the county seat of Brady last weekend for its 34th annual goat cook-off. More than 150 barbecuers vied for the champion's trophy and $1,000 prize.

Texans aren't the only ones eating goat. Ranches across the state can't keep up with the U.S. appetite for goat meat, fueled by a wave of immigrants from Mexico, the Middle East and Caribbean nations. The ranchers were in trouble 12 years ago, when federal subsidies dried up. Now, goats outnumber people in McCulloch County.

``Consumer demand has gone up,'' said Robert Swize, executive director of the American Boer Association in San Angelo. ``You have ethnic communities within most major metropolitan cities and they desire to return to the foods of their cultures.''

Texas produces more goat meat than any other state, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. Most of it is shipped east. Immigrants in New York and along the East Coast caused U.S. goat-meat consumption to almost double to 51 million pounds (23 million kilograms) between 1997 and 2003, the latest figures available from the Agriculture Department.

Swize said goat meat sells for about $3 to $10 a pound retail, depending on location and season. Auction prices for goats rose 81 percent from 1996 to 2005, according to the Agriculture Department. For McCulloch County, that's almost $2 million in goat sales a year, said Jerry Kidd, agricultural extension agent with Texas A&M University.

Live Goat Prices

``When I was just a kid, the best goat would bring $5,'' said Barry Sutton, 53, a fourth-generation rancher, whose B&G Farms provided about 125 goats for the cook-off. A 60-pound live goat can fetch as much as $90 at auction today.

The turnaround began when ranchers lost their subsidies for the mohair of Angora goats in 1995. They switched to raising goats for meat, mixing Boer goats from South Africa with domestic Spanish herds. The crossbreeds are bigger and typically bear twins rather than single kids.

``You can imagine what that does to your profit,'' said Rhetta McAlister, who has 2,000 nannies on 5,000 acres in Rock Spring, Texas, that produce about 4,000 kids a year. She began adding Boer goats more than a decade ago.

Ranchers particularly appreciate goats' willingness to eat thorny vines and thistles that are spurned by animals with softer mouths.

``If you have brush, you can run them alongside horses and cows, and they're not taking grass away from your other livestock,'' McAlister said. The goats also offer cheap maintenance, she said.

Goat Manicures

``People come out to our place and say `I can't believe you're landscaping 200 acres,''' McAlister said. ``We're not landscaping an inch of it: It's our goats. The place looks manicured.''

Goat meat, also called cabrito or chevon, tastes similar to pork when barbecued. It's less tender and more gamy, akin to the differences in flavor and texture between venison and beef.

Hamed Nabawy, a manager at the Fertile Crescent, a halal market in Brooklyn, New York, said goat is particularly popular among Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants. The animals are plentiful in arid, rocky mountain regions of North Africa, the Middle East and southwest Asia, according to the Department of Zoology at the University of Karachi in Pakistan.

Many Muslim families buy whole goat carcasses for gatherings during the religious observances of Ramadan, Eid al- Fitr and Eid al-Adha, Nabawy said.

Curries, Pit Cooking

``Their most favored meat is goat,'' he said. ``On the regular days, they buy it by the pound or a leg or shoulder, but on holidays they buy the entire goat.''

In Pakistani and Caribbean cuisine, the meat is used as a main ingredient in curries, simmered with coconut milk or cream and peppers. Mexicans traditionally cook goat in an earthen pit, similar to a clambake.

Demand is so strong that the U.S. is also the world's largest importer of goat meat, mostly from Australia and New Zealand.

``We don't see anytime soon that we're going to come anywhere close to saturating'' the market, said Frank Craddock, an animal-science professor and sheep and goat specialist at Texas A&M's Cooperative Extension in San Angelo.

In Brady, barbecue competitor Steve Smart cooked with a 250-gallon smoker, using a marinade of vinegar, mustard, beer and butter to ``take the `whang' out of the goat.''

``It's just kind of a wild taste, and it all depends on the cook, too,'' Smart said. ``I'm going to put some stuff on there that's going to take the goat taste out of it.''

No Brisket

This year's cook-off winner was the Smokin Pit Crew, led by head chef Richard Ledezma of Brady. Last year, Ben Brooks of San Angelo won on his first attempt.

``My family ranches goats, so through the years we've eaten a lot of goat meat and tried it a lot of different ways,'' said Brooks, 29.

Wendy Ellis, president of the Brady Chamber of Commerce, said cook-off judges aren't fooled by substitutes.

``We always have someone try to sneak in brisket or pork,'' she said. ``But our judges are experts. They don't want it to taste like anything but goat.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Amy Strahan in Houston at astrahan@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: September 7, 2007 01:01 EDT

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