“Three hundred pounds of tri tip, 400 pounds of beef ribs, for pork ribs, probably 100 racks,” Victor Alvara, who’s been working the Thursday night McLintocks’ grill out for the last 29 years, told SFGATE when asked what he was cooking.

As Alvara maneuvered his way around the grill, the smell from the fire pit, lit up with red-hot embers from long-burning local oak, reminded me that for the last year, it’s been an ongoing mission to put myself in front of every plate of Santa Maria-style barbecue I could find.

From backyard spreads hosted by home cooks to Michelin-rated restaurants to the back parking lot of a butcher shop where a crew grills up their wares, I’ve sampled a lifetime’s worth of the seemingly straightforward, delicately prepared and impossible-to-replicate-anywhere-else meats — charred on the outside, pink on the interior. A pop of smoke hits the nasal passages and the roof of the mouth at the same time, setting off all four alarms of sensory curiosity.

And while the results have been varied and satisfying, an underlying narrative has emerged. It’s not a happy one: Santa Maria-style barbecue is slowly dying.

The reason it’s dying? The wood. The coastal oaks that have grown here for thousands of years are the cuisine’s key ingredient, the reason why Santa Maria-style barbecue looks, smells and tastes the way it does. But the wood is disappearing, and it’s not coming back. Not anytime soon at least.

“As a whole, oak loss is significant,” Steve Swain, a Marin County farm and environmental horticulture advisor for the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, told SFGATE. “Oak woodlands are really highly favored for building developments, and they weren’t really protected. That’s changing, but there are a lot of reasons why oak is going to get scarce.”

While Swain maintains that there “are still millions of oaks” here, when it comes to collecting the wood that keeps Santa Maria-style cookouts going, “you’re going after mature, dead trees, and that can be challenging.”

Scientists and forestry officials say the oak loss won’t slow down anytime soon. But let’s start with the good news first: Increased care and protection of the oaks is starting to gain momentum. “The general health status of oaks and oak woodlands varies from region to region in California,” Chris Lee, a forest pathologist for Cal Fire, told SFGATE via email. “Awareness of their biodiversity value, their drought tolerance, and their cultural importance has increased in recent decades. Because of this, oak woodlands are doing ‘better’ in many places.”

But there is a but — and it’s a big one. There are major threats to the oak population, including disease and development, Lee continued, and it’s overwhelming how many significant threats there are.

First, over the last century especially, there’s been the removal of oak woodlands, often for housing or agricultural development. After that, the invasion of other trees in their place shaded out new oak growth. And those new trees have been less drought-tolerant and less fire-resistant, Lee explained. The California Native Plant Society estimates that during the past 70 years, more than 1 million acres of oak habitat have been lost due to development and climate change.  

Then, came the “consistent importation of non-native insects and pathogens that can kill native oaks, such as the sudden oak death pathogen, the goldspotted oak borer, and the Mediterranean oak borer,” Lee continued.  

Sudden oak death, otherwise known as phytophthora ramorum, is right now mostly limited to Northern California where the winters are wetter and colder, researchers said.  

“In the areas it exists, it is devastating,” Swain said. “The most north I’ve heard of anyone being concerned about it is San Luis Obispo, only by like a mile into the county. All the rest of the counties (currently affected) are north of that, and all the significant die-off is north of that. It’s a huge problem in Marin and Sonoma.”

Ironically, although barbecue is fueled by dead oak trees, Swain said “you can’t move them, can’t bring them down because of the quarantine.”

Even if Santa Maria-style barbecue lovers could use the dead oaks, would it matter for the long-term? The short answer is no. “I don’t think we’ve been planning ahead,” Swain said. “I think the answer is yeah, it’s a finite resource and we could grow it, but global warming is going to throw a wrench in the works.”

It already is. “[There are] a lack of young trees to replace mature oaks,” Lee said. “In many areas, there are numerous oak seedlings that are produced from year to year, but they rarely make it to the next developmental stage. It’s unclear why this is happening.”

Taking it back to the barbecue, the oak scarcity manifests into issues finding fuel to fire up the grill, Alvara said. “It’s really hard finding oak now, yes,” he explained while turning a rack of ribs. “Short of product. There’s a lot of new rules.”
 
It’s difficult to get any pitmaster to elaborate about wood shortages. One, it’s not their area of expertise. And two, it’s the kind of the thing that feels like it’s the quiet part nobody wants to say out loud. And why would you? It’s the weekend. The sun is out. There’s food on the grill. Things seem OK — for now.  

“We’re out here cooking, doing what we love, man,” backyard cook James Gleason told me during the mid-May Santa Maria Barbecue Festival.

Gleason, who was born and raised in New York, made Santa Maria his permanent home in 2005. The barbecue was a big reason why. “When it’s done right, right here, you taste the difference,” he said. “This isn’t food you can find anywhere else. You want Santa Maria (style) barbecue? You’ve got to come to here to get it.”

He’s right. The tradition dates back to the region’s Chumash tribes, who used the coastal winds to keep the oak embers bright. That carried on through the 1800s when the vaqueros would burn oak in pits and suspend the meats over it on willow branches for gatherings and parties. In 1931, the Santa Maria Club, which would host cookouts called “Stag Barbecue,” took up the tradition.

From there, the movement found its way to the Santa Maria Elks, where their Friday cookouts remain a quintessential California experience (if you can get in.)  

Santa Maria-style barbecue is a favorite of celebrity chef Bobby Flay. Bay Area resident Guy Fieri is a patron saint of the cuisine. Longtime Central Coast resident Ronald Reagan famously brought Santa Maria-style barbecue to the White House South Lawn for what his social secretary called “the best meal that has ever been served outdoors at the White House.”

But for the folks who love the cuisine most — live for it, even — the change is already happening.  

“I worked here, [at McLintocks’] 20 years ago, and then we moved to Fresno, and I always wanted to come back,” Jesus Campos told SFGATE as he marveled at the Thursday night barbecue crew. “I got the Fourth of July week off and wanted to do two things: I wanted to come to Hearst Castle, and I wanted to come here.”

Campos said he’s part of a backyard barbecue group in Fresno, and he told his fellow cooks he was making a pilgrimage to the Central Coast. “I told them where my love for barbecue started, and it started right here.”

He also said he was thinking about stocking up on some wood while he’s out here. “If I wanted to buy the wood here, a bundle here would cost me $10. It’s $40-$50 at home. Try to get it in Fresno, not happening,” he said. “This wood burns hotter than any wood. That’s what makes the difference.” 

One of the most difficult things about living in a time of overlapping existential crises and constant warnings about significant changes is that if you take a snapshot on any given day, things seem normal. Santa Maria-style barbecue, like the rest of us, seems to be finding a way. But for how long? What can we do to extend its lifespan? And is there hope?

“Since many species of oaks are so drought-tolerant and resilient, I don’t tend to think of them as doomed,” Lee said. “… But it definitely makes sense to me to pay attention to specific populations and specific species that occur in local areas and figure out what kind of land management will best serve those landscapes.”

Researcher and horticultural advisor Swain agrees: “I’m a plant pathologist and arborist and don’t know a whole lot about barbecue,” he concluded. “Here’s the thing: Wood availability is my specialty. I’m doing — we’re doing — everything we can.”