From This Side of the Pond 11: Barbecue - Part Two

I've written about this project before. From now the essays which are written will be posted here and, as soon as I have a suitable space worked out, I'll be recording the essays.

Anyone who has any input on the essays, either corrections or additional information, add a note and I'll look to include it.

Please, enjoy.

There are several suggested roots for the word barbecue. The best etymology links to barbacoa, a word which comes to us through Spanish from their sixteenth century interactions with Carib and Arawak peoples in the Caribbean. An early, and poor, translation of the original word suggested a meaning of ‘sacred fire pit’ though later it was more correctly interpreted as describing food cooked while resting on a framework over fire or coals.

Other suggestions for the derivation of the name are it deriving from: ‘Bar, Beer, Cue’ and the notion that communal cooked meats made available by some bars was then contracted to BBQ; or that word comes from ‘Barbe-a-queue’, a French phrase for nose-to-tail, which sounds nice but is likely a conceit designed to remove any non-European lineage from the word.

Today barbecue feels universal, it can be found in every state with many having a ’signature style’; indeed many towns or regions in states will lay claim to their own unique barbecue heritage. As such talking about a defined heartland of barbecue in America seems a strange thing to discuss. Couldn’t it pretty much be described as the national food - yes, okay burgers and hot dogs we hear you but you have to admit, you taste better barbecued.

Yet, when a map of barbecue is considered, there is a definite heartland for the cooking method. It starts up at North Carolina and sweeps across to Texas, taking in all the coastal states. In landlocked states notable inclusions are Kentucky, Tennessee, and Kansas, though Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri are all likely to raise their hand and say their barbecue is just as special, but more on the down-low without any need for shouting and hollering.

Is there a reason why such a heartland exists?

We know that when the colonisers who became the forebears of today’s USA began arriving they found peoples who were adept at cooking meat in a way which we today recognise as barbecue. Whole cuts were placed over a frame and heated from below. This allowed for a flavourful meal at the time, and preserved meat in a time where cold storage was unavailable and easy transportability a necessity.

This is not to say that colonists looked upon this way of food preparation and thought it something to learn. A key point of colonialism is the patrician attitude that goes with it, the sure knowledge that knowledge flows one way, from ‘civilised’ to ‘savage’, never counter wise.

Of course the cooking of food on a frame over fire, or wood burnt down to hot charcoal, was not unique to what we now call the continental USA. The native Caribbean’s of the time cooked in such a manner and, as several hundred years of slavery brought people from all over Africa, many with their own similar cooking methods, there was a melding of techniques.

In the earliest days of colonisation barbecuing was more common higher up the Atlantic Coast than down in the Deep South. Spanish and English colonisers imitated the peoples they met in the ‘new world’ and used the technique more as a method of curing and preserving. This persisted through the rise of the USA and the expansion of the new nation across the continent. In frontier towns the smell of barbecued meat was often as prevalent as the prairie dust.

While meat was being cured for homesteaders expanding westward the nineteenth century also saw the rise of another barbecue phenomenon, the community barbecue tied to electioneering.

In a time before the internet, television, or even radio, an event where you could talk about the platform you wanted to run on needed something good to draw people in, and then keep them there. What better than food? And the bigger and fancier the spread, the better.

In these times those running for office shared similar traits. They were white, male, and landowners. Especially in the South a corollary which goes with landowning in the era, is slave owning. This becomes important to know when we think about the logistics of large-scale barbecuing.

Preparing a whole steer, or several pigs, or lambs, or combinations of such, is not the work of one person and nor is it an afternoon’s light task. And if you’re running for national office, could you really be expected to get up to the elbows in butchery, basting, and barbecuing?

No, the candidate needed to speak to the people who would elect him, or their wives. For menial tasks there would be a person assigned, well three-fifths of a person. And what is more menial than digging a trench, filling it with coals and cords of wood to gently smoke whole sides of meat for hour-on-hour of darkness, through the chill of early morning, and on into hot afternoons?

Some would contend that such barbecues where the product of slaveowners giving close instruction to the ones doing the barbecue. That, as they were slave-masters, so were they pit-masters, keeping a watchful eye on the food being prepared to ensure it was not spoilt through ineptness or laziness. Recorded history does not bear out such patrician thinking.

Then we can consider the intensity of flavour associated with good barbecue, be it derived from the seasoning and curing, the basting, the wood used, or the combination. These diverge distinctly from the palate of the average British descended American, which made up a majority of landowners and slave-owners of the period. Britain may have enjoyed laying claim to various parts of the world which produce spices and flavourings but, beyond some pepper, did little to incorporate them into everyday usage and they’re independent antecedents displayed similar tastes. Yet, as culinary historian Michael Twitty wryly comments, ‘We were able to enslave the palates of our enslavers’.

Barbecue is a long way removed from meat roasted until dry and vegetables boiled too much and then sprinkled with a touch of salt and pepper. It is food which pleases the stomach because it also feeds the soul, it is communal and sharing, it binds people together because it’s impossible to barbecue for one.

But, as already said, it’s time consuming and labor intensive, and all those states which we traditionally view as barbecue states well, they were slave states. As such it’s interesting to see that while this method of cooking remains consistent, the meats cooked change. From the traditional pork in the Carolinas round to the beef in Texas. Those who own the produce dictate what is cooked, but the ones doing the actual cooking, they brought their techniques with them as they were bought by the landowners.

Of course, slavery came to an end - even if those in Texas didn’t find out until well after the fact. What happened to barbecue then?

People moved about, slowly, and over time. Or they stayed where they were. In either case the traditional slow and indirect method of cooking persisted.

It’s from this era that mythical tales of barbecue shacks down rural backroads begin to take hold. Only the shacks and the folks running them weren’t mythical, just unlikely to European Americans who stumbled across them in ignorance.

It would be remiss to not mention other influences which have come into barbecue, and here is a good time to do so. Through the nineteenth century many non-British Europeans came to the US, and lots of them had a much better relationship with seasoning, and also curing meats. Immigrants from middle and eastern Europe - think the areas we know as Germany, Poland, Hungary - carried with them traditions which added to the barbecue we enjoy today. Those deep flavoured spiced sausages cooked in big links are a noticeable inclusion. And it’s likely that the idea of various sauces, be they vinegar or mustard based, comes from European influences.

From the end of the Civil War through to the end of the Second World War barbecue remained popular, especially in the heartland we discussed. There are many pictures and photographs from these years showing meats being cooked over pits, or large cuts piled onto table. It’s interesting to look at these because the majority show only African Americans as part of the scene, or where there are both European and African Americans, it’s clear and obvious that the cooking is being done by the later.

After World War Two barbecue’s popularity began to decline and, while blaming MacDonald’s for all food ills is a regular trope, we’re going to that well another time here.

MacDonald’s started as a barbecue restaurant in San Bernadino, California. From nineteen-forty you could drive in, order from a large menu, and even have the food delivered out to your car. Eight years later the restaurant was closed for three months and when it reopened barbecue was out, and fifteen cent burgers were in.

The MacDonald brothers weren’t the first folks to open a fast-food restaurant, that seems to have been back in nineteen-sixteen in Kansas, but from this small start they rode a wave of change which saw an expanding European American middle class have more leisure time, money to spend on eating out, and places to drive to. Fast Food was in. Barbecue was out.

Except, it wasn’t. Because another thing that took off during this period was the backyard barbecue. The dome top Weber grill was developed in the fifties and in the following decade grills which used propane were developed. And for many this is what barbecue came to mean; Dad cooking burgers, hot dogs, some wings, or a strip steak, out in the garden even while there was a perfectly good stove right there in the kitchen which Mom could use without burning the outside and leaving the inside raw.

This is not barbecue, but rather cooking outside, which is fine, and a great thing to do, but it cuts out the important bits of barbecue, specifically that long slow cook from indirect heat.

Sadly, it became the face of barbecue for the better part of thirty years or so. The communal aspect remained. Having folks round at the weekend, or for the game, or big events like Fourth of July, is what ‘having a barbecue’ was about. The association was the thing, and the food existed mainly to soak up a few beers or glasses of wine. With the eighties there came shows of naked wealth and one-upmanship. The meats being grilled got better, the grills got bigger and began to have dials which made them look even more like a portable stove. Still, it wasn’t barbecue as most of the history of barbecue would recognise.

That doesn’t mean proper barbecue disappeared. Folks in the south continued to have their favourite tiny place they would drive to for the two days a week it was open, travellers continued to stumble upon restaurants which did little to advertise but were always chock full and had customers who seemed to be second or third generation.

And somewhere, somehow, barbecue began a resurgence. Food Network had - and has - barbecue shows but before the network came into being, back in nineteen-eighty-five, Carolyn and Gary Wells alongside their friend Rick Welch set up a barbecue contest which became the Kansas City Barbeque (sic) Society, and competitive barbecue got the kick start earlier competitions hadn’t quite produced.

Today, in our connected world, it’s easy to learn about the ubiquity of barbecue and barbecue type methods from around the world: South African Braai; Argentine Asado; Brazilian Churrasco; Japanese Yakitori; Indian Tandoori; Samoan Imu. All similar, all different, all available to try yourself.

And that last point is a good one to remember. Barbecue was originally a method of preparing food, some for eating later. It was something you did, not something you went and purchased. It remains a wonderful and easy, though not quick, way to cook, and to have food which can be enjoyed at the time and for days later - weeks or months if you’ve got a good smoker and the right conditions.

The history of barbecue in America is long, involved, filled with histories overlooked and nearly forgotten. We’ve touched on some of its aspects here and in the previous essay.

There’s plenty more to find out and, even better, a whole future to flavourfully create.

words by stuartcturnbull. Picture licenced from Kirsten Alana and worked in Canva