Take Me to Church | Meat Church with Matt Pittman

This is Americana Podcast, the 51st state. Welcome back Americana Podcast listeners, where every story has a rhythm and every tradition carries a tune. Today we're switching instruments. We're tuning into fire, smoke, and the slow, steady pulse of barbecue and one of the clearest voices speaking its praises, Matt Pittman of Meat Church. Born and raised in Texas, Pittman's story starts simply, a backyard, a smoker, and a few early cooks that didn't quite hit the mark. But like any craft, it builds one attempt at a time. What starts as a noise becomes a rhythm, and what feels uncertain becomes instinct. With Meat Church, Pittman hasn't just built a brand, he's built a chorus. His seasonings, his classes, his videos, they just don't teach, they invite. They make space for people in every step, every try, just so they can find their own sound. Because barbecue, at its core, is music. The low hum of a smoker is a baseline, the crackle of a fire is a percussion. Time, slow, and steady keeps the beat, and when it all comes together, the final plate lands like a resolved chord. There's something so much deeper there too. Barbecue, like all food, is a language. It's regional, it's personal, and it's passed down. A collection of voices with each of its own phrases and style, blending it into something bigger. And like any great songwriter, Pittman knows how to honor tradition without getting stuck in it. In a world that moves fast, this craft asks us to slow down, to listen and to pay attention. Because the best things, song, stories, meals, they all take time, and they build and they linger, and there's something we can all share in together. So join us as our host, Robert Earl Keane, sits down with Matt Pittman to talk about the rhythm of barbecue and the balance of tradition and change in the ways of food, like music, and how it brings people together. And don't forget to tune in to the Meat Church YouTube channel where you can find an exclusive Matt Pittman and Robert Earl Keane collaboration, where they go into the finer details of fried venison, life, and storytelling. I'm your producer, Clara Rose, and this is Americana Podcast, The 51st State. Hello everyone, my name is Robert Earl Keane, and you're listening to Americana Podcast, The 51st State. And today's guest is Matt Pittman. I'm going to tell you about him a little bit, and then I'm going to introduce him more professionally, I guess. And so anyway, Matt Pittman is the founder and owner, operator of Meat Church, a world-famous family-operated barbecue cooking empire. Matt began his foray into the barbecue world in 2014. Today, he continues to perfect and expand this lifelong love for barbecue by offering a large variety of handcrafted barbecue rubs, while at the same time sculpting his company Meat Church into a comprehensive barbecue bonanza. The Meat Church enterprise takes barbecue cooking from the backyard, grill and pit to a family-oriented collective lifestyle. So we're talking about a lifestyle of barbecue. Pittman offers live, fire cooking lessons for amateurs to an unparalleled group-size corporate retreats. Meat Church also offers barbecue supplies, apparel recipes, and classes live on his YouTube channel and his videos. His craft seasoning is number one in the Ace Hardware Seasoning section, and number one in the Bucky Seasoning section. So check that out. Matt's original handmade rubs and recipes are the cornerstone for Meat Church. However, according to Matt, there is no end to his humble beginnings. Here he is. Americana Podcast is proud to have you on our show. Welcome, Matt. That was a glowing introduction. Thank you. I do that all the time. Well, you know, I enjoyed like, you know, working up stuff and digging into things that I really like. And, you know, I'm a barbecue fan forever. I'm a fan of your effort for sure. So I did want to start out however, Matt, with, could you tell us about the infamous 1989 or 1990 Palo Pinto fire? Wow. Yeah. Well, so I had moved to Texas with my dad and we moved to Mineral Wells. And, you know, I had this, I guess, love of firework. So I've got a little, little country in me and I decided I'd shoot some baller rockets at my brother, Josh. Well, I didn't realize we were in the middle of a drought and I shot a baller rocket at my brother and it set ablaze and spread faster than anything I've ever seen. In fact, I remember thinking, how am I going to put this out, turn around, ran up to our barn to grow a shovel and the barn wasn't far away. I feel like it was 30 yards. By the time I got back with the shovel, the fire was completely out of sight. So it was estimated, I think around 600 acres at Burn Down. Several county volunteer fire departments made the front page of the Mineral Wells newspaper, kind of look like a very World War II type photo. But yeah, so I tell people that, you know, the only thing I ever really wanted to be was a fireman and I think that ended my firefighting career right then. But definitely, you know, my love of fire, live fire cooking is very organic. Yeah. Let me ask you to jump in right into something. When you call it live fire cooking, we're talking about a grill or a pet, any of those kind of things, is that right? As opposed to just another thing. Exactly. So, you know, I tell people that I think everything tastes better cooked outside. I mean, I have another and I have a stove. I, you know, claim I don't cook on a much, which I really don't unless I'm in a hurry. But there's just something about going outside and cooking. I'm an outdoorsman. But, you know, when you're outside, especially when the weather is not terrible, you just kind of feel better about being out there. And I tell people that if you will go cook your breakfast outside, it's going to make you have a better day. It's kind of like going to church on Sunday. Everything's just going to be better after that. And, you know, if you could get in, get your kids involved in it, it's enjoyable to me. So I prefer to cook outside. And, you know, I was in Boy Scouts and things like learning about live fire and a campfire. There's really nothing better than cooking over a fire. Now, some people are, you know, in 2026, are going to use a pellet grill or something like that. Completely fine. Those are just smoky ovens. But I just enjoy cooking outside and, you know, I just say, tastes better, more fun experience. And so if you've never done it, get out and do it. You'll know I'm right. Yeah, I understand. I'd certainly relate to the whole idea of just being outside. I just almost can't not be outside. I mean, this reason cold snap that we had, I was still getting out there and covered up and things like that. But I understand that. And especially like, you know, I guess I've done, you know, some barbecue and pit stuff, but I agree with you. It always tastes better. Even when, you know, even when it's cold, you know, I don't cook every meal out there, but you know, it's like super cold snap that we had here in Texas where everything was frozen for several days. I actually like going out and cooking a steak and my Santa Maria grill like that. I don't be out there all day, but I don't know. There's just something about it. I say cooking outside tastes better. I get you. So I tell you what, well, I'd like to also kind of jump in here with this. We have a lightning round that we actually have resurrected. We've left it alone for, I don't know, maybe even a couple of years. So we're going to try it out on you. They're not scary stuff, but we'll just say it's just kind of either or okay, okay, it could start off. So the first, the first half of the lightning round is going to be just general things. The second half is going to talk a little bit, going to ask more about what you did. Okay. So number one, hunting or fishing? Hunting. Okay. Living the city or living the country? Living the country. That's not even a question. I know. Books or movies? Movies. Movies. First song you loved hearing or maybe first song you loved singing as a child? I don't know if this is love, definitely not love singing. My mom bought me a Pat Benatar 45 when I was a kid and I think that was the first piece of physical music I ever had. And there was a song from there. That hit me with your best shot, which I'm pretty sure you did come in here thinking I was going to give you that answer. I didn't, but that's it. You know, that's a pretty good. It's a lightning round. Yeah, and it's a lightning round. Favorite subject in school? Math and I can't believe I just said that. It's okay. I love math. Math. I always used to tell my girls, listen, whatever it's going on out there in the world, math doesn't lie. So you can just, I mean, maybe you need to tell my 13 year old that. He's currently telling me that he's never going to use it. I have found out that like in the highest levels of math, math can lie. It gets really weird up there. You know, it gets real thin. It gets real thin. So Texas or Tennessee? Texas. Favorite clean joke? I don't know if I get bigger one. Favorite clean joke? I'll give you my, my, that even has to do with Waukes-Hatchey, right? I made this enough. So I use this sometimes on my show. I said, I'm a friend, Tom here, lived in Waukes-Hatchey for a while. Waukes-Hatchey, of course, is an old Indian word meaning super Wal-Mart. Funny you say that. When I tell him where I'm from, I say, Waukes-Hatchey, and he said, what's happening? I said, it's Indian for really good barbecue. Okay. There we go. We got it. We got it covered in a lot of different ways. Horses or dogs? Oh, dogs. Yeah. Chess or checkers? Checkers. Checkers. Rule or saying you live by? Work really hard, play even harder. Good. I like that. All right. We're at round two. I mean, we're at the series two of the Lightning Round right here. And this one has just kind of food or other. All right. Number one, your go-to for fast food. Wow. McDonald's. Okay. If meat church had a walk-up song, what would that hit me with you by Sean? Walk-up song. Man, that's hard. You got to give the right Texas-C kind of answer to that. You can work on it if you want to. You know, one of my favorites, there's this kid that was like my daughter, David from Lowell in high school. And he's like really thin, but he's pretty good player and stuff. And he uses that Johnny Cash when the man comes around. And I was kind of funny because it's like, wait, about 115 pounds. You know, I would say, I'm not going to call him, it's been a hell of a year, but that's just kind of, it's been a hell of a ride, but that one seems a resume. Yeah, that's a good one. You're the most underrated backyard cut of me. Man. It just made me just what you would say was most underrated cut of me. You know, I would say lesser cuts of steak. Like steak that's not expensive, that people don't know how to cook. Like a round steak, even. Yeah, something that's not considered, you know, like a flank or something that people don't know how to cook and they think it's tough. There's no big deal, but I'm big in and telling people how to teach people how to keep cook cheaper stuff. They can actually do really good. Right. Yeah. All right. If brisket price doubles again, what cut do you think would be king? Ah, man. That's a really good question. If brisket price doubles again, you're going to have to go away and probably say, I'd say pork ribs. Pork ribs. Okay. Yeah. They stayed down there for a little bit. Yeah, they're not crazy like because. Yeah, and I'm kidding. Because, you know, we don't live in a pork state, so that's a problem there. Right. Well, yeah. It's a problem of me because I never learned how to cook it very well. Most overrated barbecue trend now. People take chuck roast and they make them into what's known as brisket burn-ins and they call them poor man's burn-ins. And I'm really outspoken against that because it's not that it's great, but it's honestly usually more expensive than brisket. So really big trend for years, people to make poor man's burn-ins, but they're not poor man's anymore. They're expensive brisket. And do they work as burn-ins? They do work. They're good, but, you know, if you're going to spend a little money, why not do the real thing? Yeah, I got you there. Musician alive or dead that you would like to cook for? Dead Chris Cornell. Oh, wow. I love Chris Cornell. I actually have a playlist on my phone. Musicians that have passed away. Like, you know, because I was definitely in 90s, alternative rock. Yeah. So, you know, like way too many people gone from that era. Well, he went way too soon. He's like 54 or something. Yeah. Love him. Huge fan. I mean, mind listened to him. I won't say every day, but more days than not. Yeah. You know, I wasn't even, I wasn't even like, had any knowledge at all, Sound Garden, really. I mean, it's embarrassing, but I didn't. I ran into Chris Cornell because of the Bond movie theme song for Casino Royale. Really? Yeah. And I thought, who the hell is this singing? Because he just had this great way of being able to like almost sing like a crooner. And then just like when he did the chorus, he's just like rocking it out with his voice. And then I thought, this guy's got some amazing control. Super talented. I mean, he covered patience and my wife plays that all the time too. So, yeah, talented. I think the name of that song is called, you know, my name. It was written with another guy, something Arnold that writes, that co-writes a lot of the song on themes, you know, but it was the Casino Royale. The first, the first Daniel Craig Bond, that was it. I really got those when he fronted Audio Slaving. Some bands that came together later that, you know, I don't know, I really got into that. I went to a lot of those shows. So, yeah, I had a super disappointing with that. Yeah. So, I mean, when you go to those, when you say you go to their shows, were they a band that played much in Texas? I mean, working with them. They played in Dallas. Kind of West Coast band. Yeah. But they played shows in Dallas, you know, not huge venues. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good show. So, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I like a lot of types of music. I'm definitely country now, first and foremost, but I would say I grew up rock. And so, I still love both. And you know, if you're working out or something, it's kind of hard to listen to a George Drake song and trying to get pumped to, you know, I did a full Iron Man once and, you know, it was really hard to figure out what music would there I run with. And so, I still, you know, I love rock music. Yeah. Sometimes you just kind of need, if you want to crank it up, that's what you're going to. So, did that include Nirvana? I mean, yeah. Well, Nirvana would be like my, I graduated high school in 93. So, like Nirvana when I was in high school, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, huge. Yeah. Huge. So, when I met Dave Grohl, I was like, this is, you met Dave Grohl? He's a big barbecue guy. Really? Huge barbecue guy. Actually, I went him at the World Championship in Memphis in May, but he has a smoker and he's been known to do stuff for communities, but he loves to cook. Yeah. He's seen him quite a bit. Just even outside of music. Yeah. Some television things and a lot of stuff. Yeah. He was, that was a pretty big deal for me. He's the food fighter's guy, right? Sorry. Yes. Yeah. I'm real. He was the drummer for Nirvana. Okay. Because I don't, oh, well, I know how I got connected. I did a podcast with Chris Schifflett, who is the one of the guitar players for the food fighters. Okay. Who lives in Santa Barbara. Really cool guy. He doesn't hold everything. He doesn't have any notes, right? He doesn't carry any notes at all with him and he just jumps in and starts talking if it works out. But it's a pretty good podcast. And he does, he also does some cool things on the side. He does some country, he's made several country records over the years. Pretty interesting guy. Anyway, so I got the inside dope on the whole food fighters thing. That's pretty, pretty crazy. And then I just threw away the rest of them. But you know what? We could just move on into this. We can back up a little bit and just give us your story as far as like it says somewhere and something I looked up that you started really in 2014. Can we start there? Shouldn't we move a little bit? I'll back up a hair. So, you know, I grew up in the South. I had a grandmother in Tennessee and grandmother in Alabama, Southern cooks. So, I was always the kid in the kitchen. So, I loved cooking and loved being around my grandmothers. And it's funny come to present day and I often tell people and I look back, they weren't necessarily just teaching me to cook. They were teaching me to take care of people because we come home from church and either grandmother, my granny or my mam, all would have this massive meal for everybody. Spend a lot of times with families after you've done eating, would go in the living room to watch baseball or mass car and then grandma and others are cleaning up dishes. And then by the time they were done, they'd come to the living room and say, you guys want something to eat? I'm like, we should stay. But that's just kind of hit me within the last few years that it's the reason we want to entertain or have people over for dinner. It's not something like Pat's meal on the back and says, that's the best, you know, casserole or steak or barbecue I've ever had. It's, you know, you just, it's just that for us, meat is about the good times and the memories you make around food, those moments in life. So they set that in me early, but I never even considered going to culinary school. In fact, I never, I didn't know what that was. So that wasn't in my mind. Nobody in my family gone to college and I mean, a couple of people had gone to junior college for a bit, but nobody had gone and graduated from college that I should say. So I had in my mind that, well, I was a good student. And so I thought I'm going to go to college, get a degree and make what I thought was real money. It was always an entrepreneur from junior high, high school. I've all these random stories about whether I was making like bracelets or necklaces to sell at high school or in college. I started making shirts for my fraternity, other organizations known as I started making for them. So I was always a hustler, but I got a degree in finance and, you know, jumped into my corporate life. And then once you do that, it kind of sucks the entrepreneurial spirit out of you, because you're, you know, you're in a real job and you're doing your boss tell you and trying to get promoted and trying to make more money and trying to be a girl and start a family. And, you know, so it was big time in my mind that I wanted to do something, but I didn't know, I was totally lost. I wasn't actively trying to create my own company and just was way back in my head. But I've always been an outdoor cook. And back to my college days, we had a huge smoker at our fraternity house and, you know, I'm a big football fan. So I, funny side story, big Cowboys fan, so drove to the old stadium after college, applied for a job as a nutisher, got it. The second year I went in to start my job and they asked me if I wanted to do water. I said, what do you mean water? And they said for the, for the cheerleaders. And I said, no, yeah, I want to be a waterboy for the Al Scoundrel. So I did that for four years. So after five years working for the stadium, me and a couple buddies, my brother and two buddies decided to buy one season ticket each of Cowboys. And so we did. And we just finished our 25th season. Well, when we went to a game, the very first time we were on a tailgate, none of us ever tailgated. And some of us, I put some of us got to cook, you know, we got to cook in the parking lot. I said, well, I'll do it. And so I started grilling in the parking lot. I did like a shrimp boil one year. Cowboys have a Thanksgiving game. So I had never fried a turkey, but I was really enamored with that. So I fried my first turkey in the parking lot of the Cowboys game. So that kind of started a fire in me. And so cooking was just a really big hobby for me. And at one point I started competing in barbecue because I weren't Texas, you know, I want to, I want to do that. And I didn't know anything about in barbecue. I really didn't do social media because I saw I have finance degree, but I ran IT in a financial services company. And I was not a fan. I tell this story a lot. I was not a fan of Facebook, which everybody was big on Facebook. And, and I just felt like there's so much drama around it, you know, every time I'd open it, I don't, I don't want to hear your political rants. And I don't want to, you know, I just want to see pictures of my niece or well, that caused me to just like not use Facebook. So Instagram came along. And at the time, Instagram was just photos. And I thought, well, that's a creative true story. That's a creative outfit for me. I could put a picture of my food on there, but I could tell you how I made it. That's, that's just what I did. Well, I created a trial video to go on a TV show of Articube Pit Masters in, um, let's see, December of 2013 shot it in front of the feed store in Moxachi. And I purposely made it kind of funny looking back now. It's totally cringy, but it went viral on social media and they picked me to go on the show. And they, they said, you got three weeks notice. Now at this point, I'm a vice president of IT. I do barbecue competitions six, eight times a year with my brother. Uh, if you're having a cookout, you probably asked me to bring barbecue or crawfish because I love to do that. That's just kind of where we were. Well, the producer said, if you had three weeks notice to be in the show, she said to me, if you make your own barbecue product, we will show it on the show. I said, what do you mean? And she said, well, if you go buy stuff off a shelf, I'm just telling you, but we have to tape over the name. So that was in my mind. Well, I made two seasons and I, um, one of the ingredients, one of them is unique. You can't buy at the grocery store. So I was at a small place buying that ingredient. And while the guy was in the back getting it, I made a, I noticed he had some labels on his countertop, like a lookbook kind of thing. And I said, you make these and he said, yeah, I'm their copacker. I said, what's that? And he said, you give me your recipe and I'll bottle it, uh, sign an NTA and I'll bottle it. And I said, how much? And he said, you got to make 36 pounds. I said, that sounds like a lot. So I'm driving back to word 20 minute drive, called my brother, told him, he said, we'll do it. So I called the guy right back and I said, make my beef rub and call it meat church Holy cow. And I'll call you tomorrow with a name for the other seasoning, which is now known as hunting all. So we go compete on the show. I get a solid third place out of three contestants, but they all said I had the best taste. So I left them in the seasoning. I come back to Texas. We shot the show in Tampa, Florida and I got iced in Crestview, Florida stuck in a hotel for three days to lick my wings over losing on the show. But when I got back, I trademarked me church and I launched me church.com. The show aired the week of Easter. And on the website, I listed my Holy Cow and the Honey Hog, the shirt and hat I wore on the show, a sticker and a Cousy. And we sold six things that day. And then I quickly noticed anytime I would post on Instagram, here's a steak seasoned with meat church Holy cow, cook door charcoal for XMI minutes. I'd get four more orders on the website. And so I just kept doing that. And people were really into the instruction. They were, they're like, thank you for telling me how you made that steak. And I immediately felt like I was a teacher. And I thought, well, I'm an act for cooking. How can I get people to, you know, come to watch that she texts for me to teach them how to cook? And that kind of started the beginning of my classes. But that was the beginning. It was a complete accident. You know, it was a really cool hobby for a few years. And, you know, second, third year was a pretty good paying hobby. And somewhere approaching year six, I finally convinced my wife to let me leave my fancy corporate job. It was a good job to go do this full time, which is easily the hardest thing I've done in my life convincing her not leaving. I was ready to leave. But, you know, we have four kids to her in college at the time. So she, you know, didn't want to lose that stability. But that's, that's kind of the backstory. And then from then to now has done a complete whirling. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be back with our interview shortly. And American podcast, we're always looking for the old, the new, the borrow, the blue, everything in between. And we would not be able to do that without our good friend and contributor, Will Vote. Will has been a contributor from the very beginning. And we would not be able to have this show without him or his incredible insight, which brings us to our next segment, Will's Pick. Sturgill Simpson, AKA Johnny Blue Skies. Will was in Nashville for American in the fall of 2013 when he first heard the name Sturgill Simpson. Killing time in a hotel room, he was scrolling his phone when he came across the review of High Top Mountain, which had been released earlier that year. After listening to a couple of songs, he knew that change was coming. Not since 1986, when Steve Earle's Guitar Town and Dwight Yocum's guitar's Cadillacs, et cetera, et cetera, turned the country music scene on its head, had there been anything that cut this much against the grain of what was playing on country radio. His first thought was that Sturgill might be the second coming of Whalen Jennings, which was a reasonable conclusion based on the sound of High Top Mountain. Little did he, or the rest of the music world know, what was coming next. Over the course of the next two albums, Sturgill rewrote the book on what could live on a country record. First came Meta-Modern Sounds and Country Music in 2014, a record that blended traditional country sounds with the themes of psychedelia, alienation, and a search for meaning. It was a heady mix that pushed country radio into a new territory without losing its footing. Then came 2015's A Sailor's Guide to Earth, which pushed even further, adding stacked style horns, touches of southern rock, and even a surprising cover of Nirvana's In Bloom to the mix. In 2018, Will saw Sturgill at Newport Folk Festival and came away with a different comparison than Whalen Jennings. After watching him torch the stage with his power trio, he started to think he might actually be the second coming of Jimi Hendrix. This set was so powerful that he couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the guy following right behind him as a headliner. By 2020, Sturgill had come full circle with Cut and Grass, revisiting his old catalog and cutting those songs again with a bluegrass band. It was a look back that felt appropriate for the muted days of the pandemic. Not long after, he stepped away from his own name altogether, releasing new music under the banner Johnny Blue Skies, a move that felt less like a reinvention and more like a continuation of a career that has never followed a straight line. You could argue that only Bob Dylan has reinvented himself more than Sturgill Simpson or David Bowie if you're really looking into it. If you really believe that, it puts Sturgill in a pretty rare company. True to form, the new record Mutiny After Midnight appeared briefly online then disappeared except for only on CD Air Vinyl, which makes it a tough job to land a pick, but maybe that's fitting. Sturgill's music has never followed a straight line or an easy path. This is Matt Pittman here telling us a story on Americano Podcasts of 51st day. I'm Robert Jovokeen. That's what you're listening to right now. Let's go ahead and move with that teaching as opposed to selling approach to what you do, what you do. Well, I enjoy sharing what I do. At first, it was like, you know, is anybody care? And times have evolved. We're technically 12 years old at this point. And when I started doing what I told you, I started making social media posts and explaining what I did. Now you would say, that's a content creator. Well, back then that's all I was trying to do was just a place for me to have an audience. And if you look at, like right now in 2026, the traditional cooking shows are almost completely dead and everyone looks at their phone and they got to be entertained within three seconds before they swipe onto something else. So the art of a real conversation like this and slowing down and sharing is almost kind of lost. But one thing that remains key is you have to provide value to someone. So, you know, what we do is authentic and real with us sharing how to do something as like, as my craft or my art. And so I'm, you know, I'm not just showing you the six steps to make a brisket or the six steps to make this wonderful soup. I'm telling you why you're good. I'm trying to impart knowledge and create a connection with the person. And I'm trying to give like, you know, fast forward to now, I could quit working, but I'm working, I'm honestly working harder now and more hours now than I have in my entire life. And it's, you know, I could say it's a sickness. I could say it's a responsibility, but I'm trying to give back. So, you know, if we work with a brand or we use some sort of commercial product, the problem now is people think I'm selling out or I'm doing it for a dollar, but that's not how I'll make our money. We make our money selling season. So I enjoy it. It's rewarding. Honestly, let me come to that. When I go out and public and we'll be at dinner, there'll be at least one person that comes up, you know, I'm sure you get inundated. So the people would come up and say, Hey, I made your turkey at Thanksgiving. My family said, you know, I'm the king. That's the coolest thing because you're really helping someone. And if I walk through the airport and see somebody wearing a meat church hat, that's super cool. So that part is why we do what we do. And then, you know, the benefits that come from it certainly are really cool and unexpected, but it's provided my family a life I never thought we would have. And it's honestly the coolest thing ever. The fact that somebody wants to be associated with what you do and want to thank you for, you know, showing them what you do, that's why we do it. So I love to teach one. I never actually try to sell anything. Obviously, you know, me need to sell something to provide for my family. But, you know, when I teach cooking, I say, Hey, today we're using meat church holy cow, but use your favorite seasoning. Now hopefully, you know, enough people want to try ours and you got to have a really good product, but I'd rather just be real and authentic and make that connection with you, provide you something. And if you want to try it cool, if not, that's fine too, because I don't, I don't make, I don't make seasoning for everybody. There's, I don't make a blackened seasoning. If you want to have a blackened top, you're tonight, I don't have a seasoning for you and taste this personal also. You might not like what I make and that's okay. I don't, I don't take offense. So yeah, Eddie, does this go back to even your childhood, this sort of altruistic way, philosophy that you have? I mean, did you share your toys and see, yeah, when you're with your family, was it something that you would, you would give when somebody needed that kind of? I don't know. My brother, my younger brother would say, no, I was up, you know, I had a great life until he was born four years later and certainly I had to share my time, you know, with my parents, with this little bald kid, but I don't know. I think, I mean, you know, I, having southern families, you know, where manners are important, taking care of your neighbor and all that, I mean, I take it back to how I was raised, my mom and dad and my grandparents and I think the art of, you know, Sunday when you'd go visit with families, sit on the couch and talk, I don't know if people do that anymore, but being raised that way is definitely, is definitely got to be at the core. But you did bring it forward to your Pittman Family Foundation, right? I mean, that, you brought that into the world recently, correct? Recently, yeah, last year, I have friends that have foundations and, you know, there's a few things that influence me. You know, you want to leave a legacy, you know, I've said that after your grand, your grandkids are really going to remember you if you're at the right age, but after that, you're almost forgotten as a person. So, be nice out of legacy, but also nice to make a difference. And, you know, we have a lot of customers and they're very loyal. So, we have a big platform and the ability to make a difference is a lot easier that single person. So, I'm sure you go to a lot of charitable dinners and things. And when you, if I go to a dinner with a, you know, headlining type, I don't know whether it be a musician or an athlete, they're able to raise money real easily. Now, I'm not on that level, but we have a big audience. And so, the really, the thing that really pushed us over the edge was the Hill Country Floods. Seeing so many of my musician friends, I know you did stuff, Pat Green did stuff and Pat lost, you know, a relative, you know, very deeply affected by it. Now, there's an easier way than me writing a check. We will write checks with my wife and I, Tracy, we will donate, but, you know, we thought we can easily raise money and do even more good because we have this big customer base. And so, we were going to call it the Mechurch Foundation, but my wife said we should call it the Pittman Family Foundation and just started it last year. And we're pretty excited about it. So, we don't have one cause that we support. So, like I said, things like the next Hill Country Floods, it comes along, but we feel moved to support. That's what we will do. And we also, we do provide scholarships to our high school as a culinary program. And you don't have to be a culinary student, but we're also trying to give back to students who want to hop into a workplace and, you know, contribute right away. We want, we provide, we've provided scholarships for the past two years for that. So, this will help us with that as well. So, let's go back to, you know, barbecue and what you're doing. If you can just give me like a short version of what I would say like maybe the top four or five, which be chicken, ribs, brisket, sausage, you know, maybe an outside or like lamb or something like that or turkey, like, some turkey. So, so just give me a real quick version of what you do with the chicken when you go to barbecue. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things when I teach with the, one of the primary things I talk to people about, especially if you're new, is how do you know when it's done? And here's my real easy explanation of that. I pick on my grandmother's who were the most amazing cooks. I feel like Turkey at Thanksgiving was always dry. I mean, not horrible, but it wasn't the most juicy, perfect thing. Well, they didn't use thermometers to cook it. Usually, if they did, you know, it was the turkey with a little plastic white thermometer that would pop up and, you know, I've learned through my professional life. Those things pop in 180 degrees or poultry's way done at 165. So, when I'm going to cook chicken or any type of poultry, any type of cooking with meats, I would instantly get the monitor and that is how you nail the desired final temperature or, or AKA, doneness. And so, key for me, whether you're roasting and baking it, whatever you want to do, if you have an instant read thermometer, I would pull the chicken out at 158, 159 in the deepest part of the breast and you're going to have juicy chicken. I'm telling you, Turkey is the number one comment I get in all of meat church, small brisket. It's, I cooked your, I followed your turkey recipes and nailed Thanksgiving journey. So, I'm big on poultry. Yeah. So, let's just go ahead and talk about brisket. What's just true, you know, like, oh, your elevator pitch on how you, you know, brisket. So, you know, I moved to Texas at 13 and I tell people I am so prideful of Texas and I, so I try to be a traditionalist. Brisket in Texas is, I cook a central Texas style barbecue, which is basically the brisket's essentially seasoned with salt and pepper. It can have a little other stuff, but mostly salt and pepper. It's cooked fat side up in an offset smoker with post oak. That's the very traditional way. And to me, it's kind of a two step process. I cook the brisket around 250 degrees until it gets to be about 175 internal temperature. I wrap it in unlaxed butcher paper, increase the fire a little bit. And then I cook the brisket till it's tender, which is usually about 203, 205 internal temperature and then try to rest it for as long as I cooked it. And that's why we make the best brisket in the world right here in Texas. So, the butcher paper done catch on fire? I've never used butcher paper. And so when I competed, a lot of people wrapped it foil because that will speed up your cook process. Now that makes the bar, you're going to braise them even when you do that. So that will make the bark on the brisket a little wet and that's okay. But if you want that, you go to Tex Barm Cue Joint, you're going to get that black bark. The way you achieve that is you wrap it in butcher paper and it won't catch on fire, but the paper's permeable. So it allows it to breathe. So you'll maintain that bark that you spent all those hours creating. That's good ribs. Ribs, I cook kind of a competition style rib. And when I say that, that is, I'm referring to the flavor profile. Also, there's a beef, there's a beef rib. I was talking pork when I said that. So I will tell you that I think the beef rib is probably probably my favorite bite in barbecue. So we could come back to that. But pork ribs, grown up in the deep south, if you said barbecue to me as a kid, that was pork. It was a whole porker rib. And it was sweet. Whereas here, you know, very different. But I love ribs. So for me, we've got a lot of all-purpose seasonings. They're good on ribs, the gospel honey, all seasoned heavily with that. I'll smoke them for about two and a half hours. And then I will wrap those in foil. But the reason I wrap in foil is I like to put really good stuff in that wrap. So I'll put a pepper jelly, a little bit of honey. And Texas is covered up in these delicious pepper jellies. I have a friend that makes some pre-clipe pears. So the flour, alfacactus, there's things like apple cherry, habanero that come from Texas pepper jelly out of Houston. My friend, Craig Cherry, has brought up delicious. I'll put a bunch of that in the wrap, a little bit of butter, maybe brown sugar. You just kind of slather it on there. Yeah. You just, well, you make a foil pack. You lay off two pieces of heavy duty foil, put the ribs in it, and you kind of just, you know, I put really good butter, handful of brown sugar, heavy beads of that pepper jelly, wrap it back up, put it back in the smoker. So now those ribs are kind of swimming and all that goodness. One, they cook to tender. And then you can eat them like that after they're done, or you could add your favorite barbecue sauce at the end. So what I'm looking for with a rib is I want to take a bite. I don't want to totally fall off the bone. I want it to like leave some teeth marks. And then I'm going to sweet heat. So you're like, oh, that's sweet. And then about two, three seconds later, you feel just like a little tingle, nothing, nothing burning you out or anything. Some, yeah, I'm directly on the ring now. Okay. Well, let's move on to sausage then. That's an easy one, I'd say. Well, sausage is an art here. So I would say 15 years ago, you go to barbecue joint, you're getting brisket ribs, chicken. But one of the early ways for people to differentiate them themselves was sausage. So, you know, we all grew up on beef sausage, pork sausage, some sort of mix, jalapeno cheddar, but now it's become an art. And, you know, there's a couple guys, like a guy named Bill Dumas, friend of mine, that this guy will make like apple cobbler sausage or Frito pie sausage. He made an all-sups burrito sausage. And you'll take a bite of the sausage and you're like, that tastes like an all-sups burrito, which sounds really good right now. We have on our YouTube channel, friend of mine, Dane, who, Dane Weaver, is, he owns Dane's Craft Barbecue in Alito. He's number seven on the current Texas monthly top 50 barbecue joints list. We made jalapeno cheddar sausage with my Holy Voodoo, so he called it Holy Voodoo jalapeno cheddar sausage. That's on our YouTube channel. And it's one of our most popular videos because it's simple, but it's delicious and people love it. So if anyone's wanting to get into the sausage cooking, I always refer him, refer them to that video. But for me, sausage may be my favorite thing to order barbecue joint because now everyone makes it themselves. You can't buy it, but you got to make it. And you put your own little artistic spin on it. So that's a, I always want to try your sausage because I know it's going to be a little different from somebody else. Yeah, some of my favorite sausage is as bass truffle where they've always been there forever so that they always eat beef sausage, so there's no pork in it. And you'd think it would be really dry, but however they do to cook it is just, just probably put a certain amount of fat in it. But I'm with you. I like the beef sausage, I love jalapeno cheddar. Like we know when I process a deer, I'm getting a ton of sausage. That's kind of my go-to. Yeah, right. I understand that. I understand that. I don't think whether it's a snack stick or sausage you're cooking, I get a lot of that because I'll eat that. You kind of get tired of saying, well, I'm not saying I'm tired of brisket, but most briskets at well-owned places are very similar. The sausage is how you can be different. I'm Robert Roqueño, into American of Podcast, the 51st state. I'm with Matt Pittman, the founder, owner, operator of Mechurch, which is an incredible empire about not just barbecue, but the whole barbecue lifestyle. Later on today, we're actually going to kind of go a little bit on the outlier side of the barbecue. I think we're going to fry some, fry some venison. Fry some deer. My wife would tell you that my chicken fried steak is the best thing I make. It's definitely the messiest thing I make, but I love chicken fried steak. There's not more text in a plate of chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and gravy, but we're going to do it with venison, which is my absolute favorite. No, I agree with you as well. And talk about the mess. You can't go into it without just going, I'm going to make a mess. Either I'm going to have to clean it up or I'm going to somebody to clean it. I might as well take this five pound bag of flour and just spread it all over the kitchen. Drop one of your bobberockets in it. I don't think we'll try that today. That's not bad. Yeah. So also, let me just talk about Americana Podcast. Americana Podcast, the 51st state on the 29th of April, we'll be celebrating our seventh year. And we're really glad to come into your studio. You're going to start your podcast soon, right? Maybe after we do this one, we're going to do another one. But this is your studio. It's just beautiful. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really excited. I mentioned earlier, I'm definitely as busy as I've ever been, but we moved into this new office and it had more offices than we needed. And one of the things I know, I'm always selling to myself or I should say I'm marketing to myself because I'm in the heart of my barbecue demographic. And so I think about my behavior. When I open up social media, if I'm scrolling whatever social platform, I consume all of these clips from various podcasts. But what's interesting is I don't generally have the time to listen to a lot of full length podcasts, but I consume 10, 15 different podcasts every day. They're kind of highlight clips. And so I thought, well, let's build this studio out. And that's what we'll start with. And so I'll sit here and give tips and whatnot. I can also do interviews in here. But my team was like, you know, a lot of people, you've got this roll index. And so we've decided to do a guest driven podcast, much like this. And we're actually just about to start. So I like I told you earlier, I thought it was pretty funny that we're about to start ours. And the first one ever done here is going to be yours. This is it. You're going to just dovetail it in there. You know, this beautiful sign. We were actually waiting on a sign that's actually supposed to be ready today. And we might have just replaced it with this one. So yeah. It's a bingo. How about that? All right. All right. This is this is Matt Pittman, owner and founder, operator of Mead Church, the barbecue empire. My name is Robert O'Keane and you listen to Americana podcast at 51st State. You know, before, before we go, we are, our cornerstone has been singer songwriters over the over the last seven years that we've been doing this. And, and, you know, a few, a few other guests, different music industry people and stuff like that. But what we do like to do is talk about how, you know, I know that because you were talking earlier or we were talking earlier about because of our mutual friend, Aaron Lane, he spread a lot, a lot of the word around about Mead Church to a lot of like, particularly Texas Americana artists. So you're, you're a general feeling about like, say, let's just say the difference between mainstream country and Americana. Let's talk about that. That's a, that's a great question. And, you know, so not growing up here initially, country music to me would have been, I guess now what you call an Asheville country. Or I don't know, actually, you know, it could have been Oak Ridge Boys, the Alabama, you know, whatever my, my parents were, were jamming. And so that's in my blood for sure. And then I went to high school in Fort Worth, Texas. And so 90s country is riddled in me. And we have a common friend, Cameron, we, we joke, there's a food land here that when you go in the food land grocery store, they play 90s country. So he and I just go shopping there just to listen to the music. I don't even really eat food. It's hard to leave them like, man, I can't leave right now. Randy Travis. But then being here, I'm really immersed in the, you know, Texas country scene. And so, as you mentioned, Aaron used to be with Turnpike Tributors. And over the next few years, every time we get, there's a lot of barbecue festivals in Texas have a music component. And we would always end up making a connection with artists from, you know, Co-What's over on Clark Green, Casey Donnie, Josh Abbott, Aaron Watson, Randy Rogers, Wade Bowen, and they all knew me church and half the, more than half the time, it was like, Hey, Aaron Lane told me about you. So, you know, lucky, luckily for me, everybody has to cook or everybody has to eat. So I'm in the right business. But now, you know, I love our music scene in Texas, which my wife would always ask me, what do you want to do for your birthday? I said, I want to go to Fort Worth to see who's playing the Billy Bob's. And that's like my perfect weekend. So I've been very fortunate now to know a lot of the guys that we just mentioned and play whether I get to cook for them, do some stuff for them, ton of fun. So I love them both. And I know, I know, I feel like now people make you pick. Do you like one? Do you like the other? But within the past few years, I've cooked for Lou Brian, Namerist Tons, he's been very good to me, fifth from Miranda, Thomas Red, you know, all sorts of folks. And so to me, it's all their craft. And it's what they do. And I'm not into like this versus that. I'm into all of it. So whatever your heart is, and I like the way it sounds, music, fairs, what we do. So I like it all. And we all eat barbecue? Hopefully. Yeah, right. So I'm just gonna give some idea of what's besides if in conjunction with your podcast, what's your podcast? You got to be called. We're actually going to call it the Mechurch podcast. We've debated all those fancy names and they said, you know, let's just stick with what's not. It's right there. There it is. Yeah. How stupid am I? I wasn't looking at it when I asked you that question. Well, we've got a lot on the fence, but I think you just solidified. Now I can't change it. There you go. And so when, what else is coming up for you, Matt? Well, we've got some really cool projects right now. We're about to launch Mechurch fuels. So we're launching briquette charcoal, lump charcoal, and wood chunks and wood chips. We already have pellets. So now we're going to have a full line of, you know, no matter how you cook, whether you're charcoal guy, pellet guy, we're doing these in partnership with ASARG where they are our largest customer. And as you mentioned, we're their largest customer in this category. So we're just trying to help serve our customers. And that's been a great outlet for people. So launching that is super exciting. I have a barbecue sauce and a pellet with our partners, Traeger. We're rolling out another pellet and another sauce. We have two new seasonings that are closed that hopefully, one will come out for sure this year, maybe two. And then we are actually going to lean into this podcast because we release a weekly cooking show. You're going to come on and do chicken fries, sake with me every Wednesday at 10am central Mechurch YouTube. We put that out. And so our goal is to do two podcasts per month. So every other week, that's kind of our main focus right now. And I've got two young kids that play sports. So that keeps me quite busy. So between everything I mentioned that I'll be pretty oversubscribed, you know, for the next little bit. Stan, are you coaching any of those? No, in fact, my daughter told me that I don't know anything about volleyball. So I just sit in the stands and cheer her on. It's a good choice. I nearly slipped into the whole coaching thing and then the last minute back down, I was just like so glad to just be like a dad, you know. I don't need my daughter and all the other parents. I'll just cheer. Exactly. And ensured son Christian, and I met the working here with you on the whole Mechurch thing. Yeah, I've been really lucky. So Mechurch is a family business. And my right and left hand are Christian and his wife, Kate, which Christian, I mean, Kate's part of the family. She's been around. They started dating in the eighth grade. I tell them, I say that all the time, but she's, you know, people think she's a fifth child. So they help, you know, they oversee all the day to day of Mechurch and really cool to create a business that I'm trying to make a generational business and to have them step in and even want to do that is great. I, you know, tell all my kids, you don't, you don't have to want to do this. So it's been really special and it's good because, you know, not all days at work are good. And we kind of agree if we have a bad day at work, that can't stop you from bringing my grandkids over to my house. So, you know, it's when works over, works over, and we move on, but it's been special. It's been good. Like I said, didn't think I would ever be able to have this sort of thing, especially with family in here that work and work hard and care about it. So, well, Matt, this is Matt Pittman. My name is Robin Nolkean. Matt Pittman is the owner, founder, operator of Mechurch Barbecue Empire. So I just added that empire on my own. Okay. So anyway, I'm delighted at what I'm doing this. I just want to wrap this up, but I want to thank you so much for letting us come into this really great studio and do this. This is a, we have done this over the seven years in all kinds of oddball ways. And it's really nice just to sit down, have a good talk about like this. And we wish y'all the best and look forward to more good food and good times. I hope so. I appreciate you being here. Sort of real hard, like good to do this in here with you and let me learn my room a little bit. So, there you go. I appreciate you being willing to come here. I'll never forget this. All right. These conversations are what keep the spirit of Americana alive. Stories that remind us who we are, where we come from, and the songs that carry us through. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure and follow Americana Podcasts on Instagram and Facebook and share it with a friend to help us grow. If you have questions or comments for the show, please email us at americanapodcastatrobotralkeen.com. And if you would like to make a donation, you can do so by going to our website, AmericanaPodcast.com. You can find more interviews, behind the scenes stories, and full video episodes on our website, as well as the official Robert Rolkeen YouTube channel. At this time, we would like to thank our host Robert Rolkeen and our guest, Matt Pittman. Americana Podcast is brought to you by Keen Productions, edited by Brett Rock, organized by Kelly Thomas, produced by Clara Rose, video edited by Katie Cranbeer, with original music by Kim Warner. Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, let the music play.