Little Known Facts For The BBQ Enthusiast |
Posted: January 15, 2018 |
The interesting, little known history of BBQ in America and its current resurgence Barbeque is a great American tradition that is showing signs of a resurgence after 10 consecutive years of dropping American appetites for meats of all kinds, particularly beef . BBQ is now officially enjoying a renaissance thanks to lower cost pressures on meat producers being passed onto grocery shoppers. BBQ is now considered a movement all its own, with whole neighborhoods holding BBQ festivals and picnics in the summer and spring, a proliferation of BBQ food trucks all over the place and hundreds of popular BBQ competitions being held across the country every year – smoking the perfect brisket or pork shoulder with the best homemade sauce is now considered an actual competitive art form. The classic backyard BBQ is also alive and well. An estimated 75% of American adults own a grill or smoker and enjoy grilling and barbecuing for great tasting food, relaxation or in order to play host, or "grillmaster", to a social gathering of family and friends. Whether you’re a casual fan of BBQ or a hardcore enthusiast, read on for some interesting history and some little-known facts about BBQ that might impress your buddies come next Memorial Day. The prevailing mystery surrounding the origin of the term "barbecue." First up, where exactly did the term "barbeque," and its practice, originally come from? Though surrounded in some mystery, one common and credible theory is that, when the Spanish landed in the New World, specifically in the Caribbean, they came up with a variation of the natives' word, barabicu, for their method of slow-cooking meat on sticks. The licks of flame and enveloping smoke gave the meat a wonderful and to the Spaniards a totally new flavor. The Spanish explorers chose the word barbacoa which over the years evolved, as words typically do, into today's barbecue, or so the theory goes. Travelers from all over the world come to the U.S. for BBQ cook-offs. Smoking meat and applying marinades, spice rubs and sauces has actually entered the ranks of competitive art form. There are hundreds of competitive events all across the country every year, but the Super Bowl of BBQ has occurred every year in Kansas City for the past 38 years. Called the American Royal World Series of Barbecue, aspirants travel from all across the country -- and increasingly from overseas –-towing with them all manner and variety of smoking apparatus, ranging from small tabletop or deck models to gigantic, $5-6,000 customized BBQ rigs. Some categories of competitions involve whole teams and official sponsors. George Washington attended a BBQ in colonial times. We know BBQ was practiced in colonial America. None other than future founding-father and first American president George Washington recorded in print that he attended a BBQ shindig in 1769. By the next century, BBQ was particularly well established in the South, where the large number of pigs in the area made pork the go-to meat. With BBQ, one can cook large amounts of food at once, making it well suited to big gatherings like church events and town picnics and festivals. Texas, as they customarily do, forged their own BBQ identity with their love of mouth-watering, mesquite-smoked beef briskets and ribs. Texas also placed less emphasis on sauces than the other big three BBQ American varieties. These are Memphis, the Carolinas and Kansas City. In North Carolina, pork is usually cut up into smaller bits and mixed with a vinegar-based sauce that’s low on tomato sauce and that relies strongly on spices. In Tennessee, pork is again the staple meat, and here people can't get enough of their ribs, heavily drenched in sauce. Kansas City has more of a melting pot tradition that combines several of the best aspects of other region's BBQ variants. Kansans, like Texans, especially enjoy their beef, prepared many ways but usually with a thick and sweet sauce. Speaking of sauces, if you're at all serious about BBQ, the best way to go about it is to prepare your own sauce. If you've never tried this before, one highly rated homemade BBQ sauce recipe that should have broad appeal includes canola oil, minced garlic, chopped onions, ketchup, molasses, brown sugar, minced chipotle peppers, distilled vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. If you want to go the extra mile, include some plant-based carrageenan in your recipe to properly thicken it. Many people all over the world are fiercely passionate about barbecue and everything it entails. While there are wide variations across the U.S. and the world, the unique and amazingly flavorful combination of smoke, meat juices, fat and whichever spices or sauces are included make for some truly phenomenal eating.
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