How To Barbecue

(Following is the second of a series of articles intended to give a historical and practical perspective to the art of how to barbecue.)

In our first article we tracked the history of barbecue from its “discovery” by Spanish colonists upon their arrival in the Americas.  Unknown to them prior to this time, they inadvertently stumbled upon a cooking form which would come to be symbolized by the western world.  It is impossible for anybody born or raised in North or South America to separate this style of cooking from the traditions we are all familiar with.

Barbecue really took hold in the American South in the 19^th century.  Pork was the meat of choice because the pigs did not need to be tended on a farm but were allowed to run free and semi-wild.  There were economic advantages to this since there was no need to feed them but they were more or less readily available for consumption as needed.  Though they would have tougher and stringier meat than their corn-fed cousins, anybody who knew how to barbecue could remedy this through the slow cooking method which made virtually any meat tasty enough to eat.

As the technique of barbecue spread throughout the south different versions of barbecue sauce recipes and sometimes different meats became popular in certain locations, but pork was still the most prevalent.  The prime exceptions to this are Kentucky and its mutton and Texas’ love affair with beef. Let’s start where barbecue had its beginning: the eastern US.

 In North Carolina the type of sauce you cook with depends upon what part of the state you live in.  In eastern Carolina you will find a very peppery, vinegar-based sauce, while in the area to west of Raleigh there will be a similar version chock full of tomatoes.  The self-styled “Barbecue Capitol of the World,” Lexington, NC boasts one barbecue restaurant per thousand residents.  Wow!  That is a barbecue lover’s paradise!

There are four main barbecue sauce recipes: tomato-based, both light and heavy; mustard-based; and vinegar-based.  It is a fact that South Carolina is the only state which includes consistent representation of all four.  Georgia, on the other hand, favors amustard-based yellowish sauce as well as a tomato-based sweet sauce.  In both Carolinas and Georgia the pork is chopped and sliced after cooking.

As you travel west the style of cooking becomes known as “pulled” pork.  This type of preparation involves a more distinct slow cooking and the hand-shredding of the meat with the sauce added after the cooking.  Though this pulled style of cooking became known as Memphis barbecue it was popular throughout the more southern states like Alabama and Mississippi.

As you can see, the history of how to barbecue is rich with variety and we look forward to sharing more with you as this series continues.  As we go on we will also investigate how to barbecue ribs and how to barbecue chicken as well.  See you soon!

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