How to Barbecue – A Short History and Instruction in Barbecue – Part 1
(Following is the first of a series of articles intended to give a historicaland practical perspective to the art of how to barbecue.)
Many of us have the memory of dad firing up the backyard grill and gettingready to barbecue ribs, chicken, or steak for a cozy summer cookout. It is atradition that has come down through the years with one generation passing onthe tricks, techniques, and secret barbecue sauce recipes to the next,preserving a time-honored ritual that is a part of the very fabric ofAmerican life today. Barbecuingis not simply throwing a piece of meat on thefire; there are tried and true variations on how to barbecue which provide amultitude of delicious results which we will explore in this series ofarticles.Barbecue is a particularly western ritual. Though there are variations onthe theme worldwide the preoccupation with summer barbecue seems to be atruly American (both North and South) pastime. It is hard to imagine goingto a picnic, a family reunion, a church gathering, or even a county fairwithout imagining the smell of meat mixed with smoke and some type of sauce.
The general consensus is that the term barbecue (or barbeque) derivesfrom a group of people called the Taino in the Caribbean, who calledtheir version “barbacoa”, meaning “sacred fire pit.” The Taino dug apit and placed a pot on the bottom to catch the dripping juices of themeat that cooked above it. Coals and leaves of the maguey tree werelit on top of the meat and then a couple of hours later there would bea great feast. Sounds something like your backyard last weekend,doesn’t it?This was a long-standing tradition which was met with great approvalby the European explorers who did not know how to barbecue and foundthis, among other truly American specialties like sugar, rum andtobacco, to be a wonderfully satisfying experience. As the settlersbegan to move northward from the Caribbean to the US mainland theytook this cooking style with them. It is notable that barbecue wasfor quite a long time barbecue was a uniquely “Southern” experience,likely born of the proximity to the islands of the Caribbean.In the early days of the US colonies most of the meat barbecued waspork. Since the process of slow-cook barbecue ended up breaking downmost of the collagen in the meat and made the meat literally fall offthe bones, less than prime cuts could be used to great effect. Cattleranches were not very prevalent in the south since cotton was king,and pigs were let run semi-wild until it was time to hunt one down fora barbecue. Since they were not corn-fed or pampered for plumpness,the pigs tended to be tough and stringy, perfect for the remedying artof the barbecue.
Leave a Comment