Barbecue, bar-b-q, BBQ, Que, Cue (pronounced coo) or Q No Matter How You Spell It, It’s Good Eatin’!
Barbecue, its origins, styles, sauces, lack of sauces and multiple definitions can be a source of great satisfaction and great debate.
The word itself can be a noun or a verb, with or without an object.
Barbecue can be -
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 pieces of protein; beef, pork or lamb
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equipment; grill, pit or spit
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a carcass roasted whole
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a meal; usually outside and combined with a church, social or political event
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to broil or roast whole or in large pieces using a grill, pit or spit
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to cook sliced, diced or chopped meat in a highly seasoned sauce
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“Sunday would be a great day to barbecue in the backyard!”
The word “barbecue” and the basic cooking technique was derived from the Taino and Carib peoples of the Caribbean and South America. The Spanish conquistadores observed natives roasting, drying, and smoking meats on a wooden framework over a bed of coals, called a barbricot, which the Spaniards called barbacoa. Europeans had been cooking meat over fires for centuries. The low heat of the coals and long cooking times set the New World apart.
Europeans in the New World quickly learned that hogs made great barbecue. Barbecue parties featuring whole hogs became fashionable enough by the late 1600s that Virginia passed a law banning the discharge of firearms at barbecues. From the founding fathers to LBJ, church socials and family reunions to 100,000 people attended competitions; the barbecue has brought Americans together for centuries.
The reason for such a wide variety of definitions and styles is that numerous countries and cultures have a long history of slow cooking tough cuts of meat. The traditional American slow-cook barbecue first popularized in the American South will be the focus of our discussion.
The oldest form of American open pit barbecue is practiced all along the flat coastal plain of the southeastern United States where the English colonists originally settled. The pit can be a hole in the ground or a wide, shallow container, with a rack over it. A whole dressed hog is split and placed on the rack. Hardwood logs are burned down to coals in a separate fireplace then continually shoveled under the meat. The meat may cook from eight to twenty-four hours depending on the fire and the pitmaster. This extremely laborious and grueling process requires constant attention. The meat is not basted or sauced but may be dry rubbed with spices before cooking. When the meat is so tender it is falling off the bone, the pig is removed from the rack, the meat is “pulled” into threads, splashed with a thin, sharp sauce of vinegar and red pepper. This barbecue is most often served topped with some cole slaw and additional sauce then placed on a bun to make a sandwich. Sweet tea and hushpuppies could be served on the side.
Whole hog barbecue with a simple vinegar sauce can still be found in rural areas of Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama. Urban areas of these states serve more shoulders and ribs. South Carolina is famous for its unusual yellow mustard based sauce and Georgia adds a mustard influence to its tomato based sauce.
It is in Kentucky, where mutton barbecue becomes popular, that the first real break from the pork tradition occurs. This could be attributed to the Wool Tariff of 1816, making sheep inexpensive to raise, as well as the influx of sheep-loving Welsh immigrants. Every May over twenty thousand pounds of barbecued mutton is served at the International Bar-B-Q Festival in Owensboro, Kentucky.
In Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas barbecue morphs in two ways. Beef, especially brisket, is the meat of choice and the cooking method adds new elements. These changes are bases on a convergence of several influences.
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African-Americans, both free and slave moved into the area from the Southeast and brought a love and knowledge of barbecue cooking techniques with them. In the early twenty-first century, most western barbecue restaurants that specialize in pork are owned by African-Americans.
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Mexican barbacoa, a pre–Columbian technique of slow cooking leaf wrapped meat in earth covered pits.
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The discovery by nineteenth–century cowboy cooks that they could make tough beef from range cattle edible by using long cooking techniques over coals.
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German and Eastern European immigrants came to Texas in the 1800s with a vast knowledge of butchering and a liking for certain cuts of meat and sausage. These cuts were quickly incorporated into western–style barbecue.
Western–style barbecue tends to be “closed pit”; the cooking container is covered, and uses indirect heat rather than live coals under the meat and features a great deal more smoke than the older southeastern style. Closed pit barbecue produces the telltale pinkish ring, just inside the meat, that forms as part of a chemical reaction between the smoke and the moisture in the meat. This is an indicator of great barbecue in the West but would be considered over–smoked on the Eastern seaboard.
In Texas, the very smoky beef is cooked and served without sauce, is “mopped” with flavoring liquids during the cooking process and served with a thick tomato based sauce that can be spicy or mild or a thinner more vinegar based sauce.
The future of authentic slow–cooked barbecue in the U.S. is not clear. The labor-intensive nature of real barbecue could be its death knell or its savior. Many pitmasters and those able and willing to honor the process are retiring. Few younger people are interested in carrying on the traditions.
On the other hand, barbecue contests continue to grow in numbers and stature. The media and organizations like Slow Food and Southern Foodways Alliance bring awareness and information to those interested people who could insure barbecues legacy. Do we want a very important part of our culinary history left to mega corporations alone? Authentic American traditions are worth saving. Barbecue is surely one of these. It can only be hoped that such a delicious, unique and fascinating method of cooking will be preserved and prosper.
Lovegren, Sylvia. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004
Jamie Samford
Corporate Chef
Winn Meat Company
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