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The reason for his hatred of this cut of meat was the fact that it was in his opinion always overcooked and to a man who like his beef rare, entertaining eating beef that was cooked all the way through really just wasn't on.
I'm sure that what added to his frustration was that brisket was cheap and having lived through two world wars to have meat at all was a luxury and the least of your worries was how it was cooked.
So in turn, my parents have always shunned brisket and so have I, at least that was the case until I took up home smoking.
Brisket comes from the belly of the cow, it is fibrous (the fibers are collagen if you really want to know) and it's only through a long and slow cooking process that these fibers are broken down so making the final product edible.
So in the old days the only established way to cook it was to boil for hours until it basically fell apart and when you I can understand why it wasn't universally liked.
I can just see it now, a plate of steaming meat and vegetables with little or no texture or flavor, I can only thank my lucky stars that I'm one of the post war baby boomers.
There are however two great things that you can do with brisket to make it bother tender and pleasant to eat.
Both are variations on a theme and that theme is to smoke it.
The process of hot smoking brisket achieves the same tender result using a low humid heat for a long period of time to break down the collagen fibers but where it becomes more interesting is that the texture still remains quite firm and a lot more flavor is added by the smoke and the use of rubs and marinades prior to cooking.
Smoked brisket is absolutely great cold, I love it in sandwiches and this brings me onto the other use for brisket - did you know that you can use brisket to make pastrami? Beautiful firm texture, pink color and that all important peppery crunch when you bite into it.
Pastrami can be made from other cuts of beef too but essentially the easiest thing to do is to take a rolled brisket from your butcher, snip the string and unroll it.
Traditionally pastrami would have been cold smoked but now it's a lot quicker and easier to hot smoke it.
That said it still needs a 6 day soak in marinade to make the perfect pastrami, plenty of time for the active ingredient (salt petre) to give it that lovely pink color.
Whether you're new to brisket or an old hand, whether you love it or hate it, you owe it to yourself to try it smoked and next time you eat pastrami down at the deli, just remember which cut of meat it actually is and like me, you'll see brisket in a new light.
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