Barbecue in the United States


is a tradition often considered a quintessential part of American culture, especially the Southern United States.
First introduced to the lands which would become the United States by the Taíno to Christopher Columbus, and from the Spanish to later North American colonizers, barbecue in America first spread with pit barbecue, where meats were cooked over a trench which contained fires. This form of cooking adds a distinctive smoky taste to the meat. Over the years, American barbecues became centered around conventional backyard grills as well as restaurants. Barbecue's biggest mass adoption by the American public occurred during the 1950s, when grills became inexpensive and commonplace in backyards.
Today, barbecues can be found across the United States, and regional styles can be found across the country. Barbecues are often held on Memorial Day, itself considered the beginning of American summer, and are also held en masse during Independence Day celebrations.
In the South, barbecue is more than just a style of cooking, but a subculture and a form of expressing regional pride with wide variation between regions, and fierce rivalry for titles at barbecue competitions. Often the proprietors of Southern-style barbecue establishments in other areas originate from the South. Barbecue sauce, while a common accompaniment, is not required for many styles.

Description

There are usually three ingredients to barbecue—meat and wood smoke are essential. The use of a sauce or seasoning varies widely between regional traditions.
The first ingredient in the barbecue tradition is the meat. The most widely used meat in most barbecue is pork, particularly pork ribs, and also the pork shoulder for pulled pork. In Texas, beef is more common, especially brisket, which owes its popularity to Jewish immigrants who settled in Texas in the 1800s.
The techniques used to cook the meat are hot smoking and smoke cooking, distinct from cold-smoking. Hot smoking is when meat is cooked with a wood fire, over indirect heat, at temperatures 120–180 °F, and smoke cooking is cooking over indirect fire at higher temperatures, often in the range of 250 °F ±50 °F. The long, slow cooking process can take up to 18 hours, and leaves the meat tender and juicy.
Characteristically, this process leaves a distinctive line of red just under the surface, where the myoglobin in the meat reacts with carbon monoxide from the smoke, and imparts the smoky taste essential to barbecue.
The second ingredient in barbecue is the wood used to smoke the meat. Since the wood smoke flavors the food, the type of wood used influences the process. Different woods impart different flavors, so the regional availability of various woods for smoking defines the taste of the region's barbecue.
Stronger flavored woods are used for pork and beef, while the lighter flavored woods are used for fish and poultry. More exotic smoke-generating ingredients can be found in some recipes; grapevine adds a sweet flavor, and sassafras, a major flavor in root beer, adds its distinctive taste to the smoke.
The last, and in many cases optional, ingredient is the barbecue sauce. There are no constants, with sauces running the gamut from clear, peppered vinegars to thick, sweet, tomato and molasses sauces to mustard-based barbecue sauces, which themselves range from mild to painfully spicy.
The sauce may be used as a marinade before cooking, applied during cooking, after cooking, or used as a table sauce. An alternate to barbecue sauce is dry rub, a mixture of salt and spices applied to the meat before cooking.

The barbecue region

The origins of American barbecue date back to colonial times, with the first recorded mention in 1672 and George Washington mentions attending a "barbicue" in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1769. As the country expanded westwards along the Gulf of Mexico and north along the Mississippi River, barbecue went with it.
The core region for barbecue is the southeastern region of the United States, an area bordered on the west by Texas and Oklahoma, on the north by Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico and Central Florida, and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean.
While barbecue is found outside of this region, the 14 core barbecue states contain 70 of the top 100 barbecue restaurants, and most top barbecue restaurants outside the region have their roots there.
Barbecue in its current form came from the South, where cooks learned to slow-roast tough cuts of meat over fire pits to make them tender.
These humble beginnings are still reflected in the many barbecue restaurants that are operated out of "hole-in-the-wall" locations; the "rib joint" is the purest expression of this. Many of these will have irregular hours, and remain open only until all of a day's ribs are sold; they may shut down for a month at a time as the proprietor goes on vacation. Despite these unusual traits, rib joints often have a fiercely loyal clientele.
Barbecue is strongly associated with Southern cooking and culture due to its long history and evolution in the region.
Indian corn cribs, predecessors to Southern barbecue, were described during the Hernando de Soto expedition in southwest Georgia, and were still around when English settlers arrived two centuries later.
Early usage of the word "barbecue", derived from Spanish barbacoa, meant "to preserve by drying or slowly roasting"; the meaning became closer to that of its modern usage as a specific cooking technique by the time Georgia was colonized.
Today, barbecue has come to embody cultural ideals of communal recreation and faithfulness in certain areas. These ideals were historically important in farming and frontier regions throughout the South and parts of the Midwest with influences from the South. As such, due to the strong cultural associations that it holds, barbecue has attained an important position in America's culinary tradition.
Parts of the Midwest also incorporate their own styles of barbecue into their culinary traditions. For example, in Kansas City, barbecue entails a wide variety of meats, sweet and thick sauces, dry rubs, and sliced beef brisket. Kansas City barbecue is a result of the region's history, a combination of cooking techniques brought to the city by freed slaves and the Texas cattle drives during the late 19th century, leading to the development of the region's distinctive barbecue style.
Barbecue as a cultural tradition spread from the South and was incorporated into several Midwestern regions such as western Missouri. Variations of these ideals by region are reflected in the great diversity of barbecue styles and traditions within the United States.

Barbecue tradition

Barbecue has been a staple of American culture, especially Southern American culture, since colonial times. As it emerged over years many traditions have become prevalent in the United States. Barbecue remains one of the most traditional foods in the United States. While many festive foods, such as roasted turkey or ham, are usually served on particular days or holidays, barbecue can be served on any day. Barbecue is often served on the Fourth of July; however, it is not only confined to that day. Barbecues tend to bring people together and serve as a bonding experience at any time of the year. It brings people back to their roots, providing a cooking experience that is often an escape from civilization and closer to nature. Barbecues are traditionally held outside. They could be small informal gatherings with a few people in a backyard or a formal event that could last all day, typically held for larger numbers of people. Barbecue has been a tradition in the United States beginning with Native Americans. As author Andrew Warnes states, "its mythology of savagery and freedom, of pleasure, masculinity and strength" is part of what makes barbecues so popular to date. By the 19th century, barbecues became one of the main forms of United States public celebration, especially in celebration of 4 July.
As barbecues continued to be held through the times of U.S. expansion the traditions began to migrate with the people. Today, barbecues held in different regions of the country vary in cuisine but the cuisines all hold the same concept of cooking outside and over a fire. Barbecues today have taken on new meaning yet again with the emergence of competitive barbecue. Competitive barbecue competitions are held throughout the country in which people will compete by cooking barbecue and having it judged by the events' judges. The constraints of what one may barbecue and the qualities that are judged vary by competition. Usually, competitions are held in big open areas where spectators will be admitted as well and barbecue is served to all.
The pig, the essential ingredient to most barbecue, became a fundamental part of Southern cuisine in the 18th century because it requires little maintenance and more efficiently converts feed to meat. As a result of the prevalence of hogs in the South, the pig became synonymous with Southern culture and barbecue.
The pig symbolizing Southern culture began as a result of its value as an economic commodity. By 1860, hogs and southern livestock were valued at double the cotton crop, at a price of half a billion dollars. The majority of pigs were raised by residents of the South and pigs contributed considerably to the economic well-being of many Southerners.
Pigs and barbecue were not only valuable economically but for barbecues "scores of hog" were set aside for large gatherings, often used for political rallies, church events, and harvest festival celebrations.
Barbecues have been a part of American history and tradition as early as the first Independence Day celebration. In the early years, Independence Day was celebrated as a formal gathering, in which civic ideals were reinforced. The traditions of Independence Day moved across the country as settlers traveled to western territories.
By the 19th century, the role of barbecue in public celebration and political events increased significantly, becoming prominent in the South and the Midwest.