Tatsu Aikawa was just ten years old when he left Tokyo for his new home in Elgin, the sausage capital of Texas. His mother and father had divorced, and she had taken him and his younger brother, Shion, to the U.S. It’s hard to imagine a more stark difference in landscape, or a greater cultural shift. The family would eventually relocate to Austin, but their time in Elgin would prove serendipitous: there was a smoker in the yard, and Tatsu’s mother put it to good use, giving him an early education in the art of smoking Texas style, albeit with different materials. “We cooked fish instead of brisket,” Tatsu told me. As an adult, Tatsu traveled the familiar path from dishwasher to prep cook to…View Original PostThe post Smoke Over the Water appeared first on Texas Monthly.