The History of the Tri-Tip Steak
Borrowed (stolen really) from Steven Raichlen’s BBQ USA
So just for the record, here’s how 80 yr old Larry Viegas tells it: The year was 1952. The place, an old Safeway store on the corner of Mill and Vine in Santa Maria. Filling in for the regular butcher, who was on vacation, Viegas was busy butchering beef loins, separating the tender loins from the top block sirloins. As was the practice in those days he trimmed off the fibrous, triangular tip of the sirloin and set it aside to be ground into hamburger meat or cut into stew beef.
Only the meat department already had more ground beef and stew meat than they could sell that day, so the meat department manager-- a one-armed butcher named Bob Schutz-- told Viegas to put the tip of the sirloin on the rotisserie. Are you nuts?" replied the latter. "It'll be tough as hell." At Schutz's urging, he seasoned the meat with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and threaded it onto the turnspit. What a surprise when the two men tasted it! Spit roasting kept the meat moist, cutting it into thin slices across the grain kept it tender, and it had the rich, sanguine flavor of costlier sirloin.
The store manager came into the meat department just as the two men were sampling the meat. “What the hell’s that?” he asked, not thrilled that his employees were lunching on Safeway merchandise. “Tri-tip” blurted out Schutz, mindful of the cut’s triangular shape. “What the hell’s a tri-tip?” grumbled the manager. “It’s not in the meat cutter’s handbook.” It was hardly an auspicious start for a regional barbecue classic.
I wish I could say that it was an overnight success. The fact is, if it hadn’t been for the enthusiasm of budget-minded salesmen from a nearby used car dealership, the tri-tip probably would have gone the way of the eight track audio tape. But word gradually spread of this inexpensive cut that tasted like high priced steak. A few years later, Schutz opened his own butcher shop and actively began promoting tri-tip. Airmen from nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base acquired a tasted for it and spread the word further. Today tri-tip is found throughout central California—indeed, when Santa Marians, many Santa Barbarans, and even Los Angelinos speak of barbecue, tri-tip is frequently what they mean.
Actually Santa Maria barbecue predated the tri-tip. The Spanish likely brought cattle here in the late eighteenth century. The first barbecues began in the mid-nineteenth century as communal feasts, where ranchers fed large crowds of ranch hands and farmers. Early black and white photographs in the Santa Maria historical archives show huge pits fueled with blazing wood, which traditionally was local red oak. The meat, a flavorful loin cut called top block sirloin was skewered on long steel rods and spit roasted over the open fire. The seasonings were kept simple – salt, pepper, garlic powder or salt, perhaps a little dried parsley—to keep the emphasis on the taste of the meat.
In time, the accompaniments came to include a distinctive small, pinkish local bean of Hispanic origin—the pinquito. Stewed with tomatoes, onion, and spices, it became the Santa Maria version of baked beans but considerably less sweet. A good, traditional Santa Maria tri-tip steak meal is generally rounded off with salad and garlic bread.
