BARBECUE

BARBECUE. While meat grilled over a charcoal or wood fire is common to many cultures around the world, American barbecue is distinguished from these other dishes because of the cuts of meat it traditionally involves, the cooking techniques it employs, and the definitive sauces and side dishes that accompany it. Barbecue is cooked slowly at temperatures ranging from about 175 to 300°F with more smoke than fire. The meat involved varies from region to region. Traditional barbecue most often is pork, beef, lamb, or goat. However, chicken is also a popular barbecue meat.

The word "barbecue" is generally thought to have evolved from the word "barbacoa," which first appeared in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo's 1526 book De La Historia General y Natural de Las Indias. He describes the technique of skewering meat on sticks and then roasting it over a pit dug in the ground. The writing of Bernardino de Sahaún, who accompanied Hernán Cortés in his conquests of Mexico, uses the word "barbacoa" in references to meats roasted under the ground. References to barbecue cooking technique are also found in the 1698 memoirs of Père Labat, a French priest who wrote about his travels in the West Indies.

Several countries have culinary traditions that, to greater or lesser extents, could be called barbecue. For example, in India, meats are often roasted over charcoal in tandoor, a clay oven. In Jamaica, pork and chicken are barbequed "jerk" style over a slow fire of wood from the all-spice tree. In Mexico, whole goats are often butterflied, skewered, and cooked over a slow fire. In South Africa, the word braai is used to refer to the metal or brick pit over which meat is grilled, or to the event at which such meat is served. In Cuba, pit-roasted pigs are the traditional Christmas Eve dinner. In Brazil, churrasco refers to the technique of cooking meat on skewers over open pits. That country's churrascaria restaurants are famous for their all-you-can eat style of service. American barbecue enthusiasts generally refer to the technique involved in cooking steaks, hamburgers, or fish over an open fire as "grilling" rather than "barbecueing."

The word "barbecue" can be employed as a verb when it refers to the cooking technique. It is also an adjective, as in the phrase "barbecued ribs." And it is a noun when it refers to the gathering at which barbecue is served, as in the sentence, "We are going to a barbecue." Barbecue is important in the American culinary lexicon for two main reasons. First, it takes place outdoors, the cooking is often a public if not a communal event, and it is closely associated with family gatherings and such holidays as Independence Day and Labor Day. Second, barbecue is closely associated with particular regions of the country. The cultural identity of those regions and the people who live in them are inextricable from the style of barbecue served there.

Several theories have been advanced about how roasted meat evolved into American barbecue. The writings of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington include references to barbecue. The event is clearly related to the pig roasts common in Great Britain. While pig roasts may have been common in New England, barbecue did not take root there. Rather, in the eastern United States barbecue is most closely associated with states in which enslaved Africans did much of the cooking. Many of these people were transported from Africa via the Caribbean islands, where they may have learned some of the barbecue techniques of Native Americans. Mexican-Americans continue to use the barbacoa technique described in the writings of Bernardino de Sahagún today.

Barbecue is primarily associated with the American South and is cooked and eaten by most of the region's ethnic groups. But the food was taken to other regions by African-Americans as they fled the South for factory work in the Midwest and other regions in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Barbecue ultimately became common in the area from Virginia over to Kansas, down to Texas, and across to Florida and in African-American enclaves in California.

Barbecue geography can be tricky in that often barbecue styles do not conform to the lines on maps. In the Carolinas, Georgia, and other parts of the Southeast, barbecue means pork, either whole hogs or pork shoulders, generally cooked over hickory or oak wood. It is then chopped, sliced, or pulled and served on buns. Sauces vary widely within the region. Parts of South Carolina are unique in that they use mustard as the basis of their sauce. Parts of North Carolina and Kentucky are similarly unique in that they use a thin sauce that tastes like Worcestershire sauce. The most popular sauce throughout the Southeast is a thin vinegar-based recipe flecked with flakes of dried red pepper and sometimes sweetened with sugar. The most popular barbecue sauce in the country, a thicker, sweeter, tomato-based sauce, is also popular in parts of the Southeast.

Though coleslaw and hush puppies are common side dishes throughout the Southeast, the definitive side dishes are regional stews. In South Carolina and parts of eastern Georgia barbecue is often accompanied by rice and hash, a stew made with some combination of pork and pork organ meats. In Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, Brunswick stew is served. The ingredients in this dish vary considerably and can include wild game, corn, lima beans, potatoes, and tomatoes, depending on the locale. In Kentucky, where mutton is the preferred meat for barbecuing, burgoo, a stew similar to Brunswick stew, is the popular accompaniment.

In Tennessee the basic barbecue dish is pork served on a bun with mayonnaise coleslaw. There as in many parts of the barbecue belt significant differences exist between urban and rural barbecue. In urban areas the sauces tend to be thicker and sweeter, and barbecued ribs are a standard part of the menu.

The distinctions in Texas barbecue are based largely on proximity to Mexico. Barbacoa, cow's head cooked in underground pits with mesquite wood and served with salsa on tortillas, is a common Sunday morning meal. While beef brisket is the standard barbecue meat in most of Texas, people along the border often refer to this as "American barbecue" to distinguish it from barbacoa. In southern Texas pinto beans generally accompany barbecue, and the meat is usually seasoned with cumin and chili powder. Eastern Texas barbecue is primarily beef brisket, but baked beans are more common than pinto beans there. Potato salad often replaces coleslaw as a side dish in eastern Texas, and spicing of the meat is influenced less by Mexican flavors.

In Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri, where the southeastern and southwestern traditions merge, beef and pork are equally popular. The sauces in those places tend to be sweet, thick, ketchup-based recipes. In Chicago and other cities where African Americans settled, pork ribs are the staple rather than whole hogs or pork shoulders.

Unlike most home cooking, barbecue is generally cooked by men. Sociologists have several theories for this. Men may be attracted to the fact that barbecue is cooked outdoors and in public rather than in a closed kitchen. Also at the root of barbecue is a primitive technique, often involving chopping wood, taming a fire, and butchering large cuts of meat. These tasks are traditionally viewed as masculine, and the technique is passed down from father to son.

With an increasing emphasis on faster, simpler cooking, some commercial establishments have replaced wood and charcoal pits with electric or gas ovens. Additionally the popularity of barbecue sauce as a condiment has meant that sometimes any meat slathered in a sweet, ketchup-based sauce is improperly called barbecue.

See also United States, subentries on African American Foodways and The South.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bass, S. Jonathan. "'How 'bout a Hand for the Hog': The Enduring Nature of the Swine as a Cultural Symbol of the South." Southern Culture 1, no. 3 (Spring 1995).

Browne, Rich, and Jack Bettridge. Barbecue America: A Pilgrimage in Search of America's Best Barbecue. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1999.

Egerton, John. Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History. New York: Knopf, 1987.

Elie, Lolis Eric, and Frank Stewart. Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996.

Hilliard, Sam Bowers. Hog Meat and Hoecake: Food Supply in the Old South, 1840–1860. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972.

Johnson, Greg, and Vince Staten. Real Barbecue. New York: Harper and Row, 1988.

Perdue, Charles L., Jr., ed. Pigsfoot Jelly and Persimmon Beer. Santa Fe: Ancient City Press, 1992.

Raichelen, Steve. The Barbecue Bible. New York: Workman, 1998.

Smith, Steve. "The Rhetoric of Barbecue: A Southern Rite and Ritual." Studies in Popular Culture 8, 1 (1985): 17–25.

Taylor, Joe Gray. Eating, Drinking, and Visiting in the South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.

Wilson, Charles Reagan, and William Ferris, eds. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

Lolis Eric Elie

Barbecue

Although the true source of barbecue is vague, its origin is most likely in the Southern region of the United States. A highly popular food and important community and family ritual, various regions and interests have attempted to lay claim to what has become an industry throughout the country. One theory states that the word "barbecue" is a derivative of the West Indian term "barbacoa," which entails the slow-cooking of meat over hot coals. While most Americans view a "barbecue" as any type of outdoor cooking over flames, purists, as well as regional and ethnic food experts, agree that real barbecue is a particular style of cooking meat, usually outdoors, with some kind of wood or charcoal burning apparatus. While pork is the only acceptable barbecue meat in many areas of the south, beef, fish, and even lamb are used in many other areas of the United States. Needless to say, barbecue of some variety is found in almost every culture of the world that cooks meat.

Techniques for judging good barbecue include a highly defended personal taste and the particular tradition of an area. Common to most barbecue are flavorings which adhere to the meat, slowly seeping into it; at the same time, the heat breaks down the fatty substances that might make meat tough and reduces it to tender morsels filled with flavor. Different types of woods—hickory and mesquite among them—are frequently used by amateur barbecue enthusiasts as an addendum to charcoal. Wood chips, however, will not really contribute any specific flavor to meat prepared over charcoal flames. The true beauty of the barbecue is when slow cooking turns what were once cheap, tough cuts of meat—like the brisket and ribs—into a tender and succulent meal.

Barbecue began, and still remains, at the center of many family and social gatherings. From "pig roasts" and "pig pulls" to the backyard barbecue of the suburbs, people have long gathered around the cooking of meat outdoors. Additionally, church and political barbecues are still a vital tradition in many parts of the South. Unlike most food related gatherings that take place indoors, men have traditionally been at the center of the cooking activity. The "pit men" who tended the fires of outdoor barbecue pits evolved into the weekend suburban husband attempting to reach culinary perfection though the outdoor grilling of chicken, steak, hamburgers, and hot dogs.

Despite the disappearance of many locally owned restaurants throughout the country due to the popularity of chain stores and franchises, regional varieties of barbecue can still be found in the late 1990s; pork ribs, for example, are more likely to be found in the Southern states and beef ribs and brisket dominates in states like Missouri and Texas. The popularization of traditional regional foods in the United States has contributed to the widespread availability of many previously isolated foods. Just as bagels, muffins, and cappuccino have become widely available; ribs, brisket, smoked sausages, and other varieties of barbecue can be found in most urban areas throughout the United States. Barbecue has clearly become more popular through franchises and chain restaurants which attempt to serve versions of ribs, pork loin, and brisket. But finding an "authentic" barbecue shack—where a recipe and technique for smoking has been developed over generations and handed down from father to son—requires consulting a variety of local sources in a particular area, and asking around town for a place where the local "flavor" has not been co-opted by the mass market.

—Jeff Ritter

Further Reading:

Barich, David, and Thomas Ingalls. The American Grill. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1994.

Browne, Rick, and Jack Bettridge. Barbecue America: A Pilgrimage in Search of America's Best Barbecue. Alexandria, Virginia, Time-Life Books, 1999.

Elie, Lolis Eric. Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country. New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1996.

Stern, Michael, and Jane Stern. Roadfood and Goodfood: A Restaurant Guidebook. New York, Harper Perennial 1992.

Trillen, Calvin. The Tummy Trilogy: American Fried/Alice, Let's Eat/Third Helpings. New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1994.

BARBECUE

BARBECUE. Barbecue, a method of cooking meat over outdoor, open pits of coals, comes from the Spanish word "barbacoa." Barbecue entered the United States through Virginia and South Carolina in the late seventeenth century by way of slaves imported from the West Indies. The barbecue as a social event became very popular during the 1890s, when the United States began building its national park system, and Americans began socializing outdoors. However, the barbecue as a site for political campaigning dates back to George Washington. Candidates often held barbecues on the grounds of the county courthouse, offering free food in return for an opportunity to share their political platform with the dining public. Although initially associated with poorer citizens, barbecue, as both a method of cooking and recreation, spread to the middle and upper classes by the middle of the twentieth century and continues to dominate the southern United States's cultural landscape today.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edge, John T. A Gracious Plenty: Recipes and Recollections from the American South. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1999.

Elie, Lolis Eric. Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country. New York: North Point Press, 1996.

Neal, Bill. Bill Neal's Southern Cooking. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1985.

Perl, Lila. Red-Flannel Hash and Shoo-Fly Pie: American Regional Foods and Festivals. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1965.

Root, Waverley, and Richard de Rochemont. Eating in America: A History. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1976.

KimberlyLittle

bar·be·cue / ˈbärbiˌkyoō/ • n. a meal or gathering at which meat, fish, or other food is cooked out of doors on a rack over an open fire or on a portable grill. ∎  a portable grill used for the preparation of food at a barbecue, or a brick fireplace containing a grill. ∎  food cooked in such a way.• v. (-cued, -cu·ing) [tr.] cook (meat, fish, or other food) on a barbecue: fish barbecued with herbs [as adj.] (barbecued) barbecued chicken. ORIGIN: mid 17th cent.: from Spanish barbacoa, perhaps from Arawak barbacoa ‘wooden frame on posts.’ The original sense was ‘wooden framework for sleeping on, or for storing meat or fish to be dried.’

barbecue Originally Caribbean (native American) name for a wooden frame used to smoke and dry meat over a slow, smoky fire; the whole animal was placed on a spit over burning coals. Now outdoor cooking of meat, sausages, etc., on a charcoal or gas fire; also the fire on which they are cooked.