An American Tradition: The Barbecue

Cooking over an open fire was invented by our early ancestors because they found out by accident that cooked food tastes better then raw. This was the origin of the barbecue pit. Different peoples improved this method of cooking. The most common method of barbecuing for the most part we owe to the Native Americans because many of our earliest settlers adopted much of this way for their own. Barbecuing actually came into use extensively in North Carolina, and then spread its way into Texas and then into the other states. In the beginning of the American Barbecue the favored meat was pork that was prepared in different ways. It was at this time that the favorite “Pulled Pork” came about because many of the participants at the barbecue had no teeth and it was easier for them to chew. When this style of cooking spread to Texas there were few pigs, but plenty of wild cattle that provided beef, so the style of barbecuing changed to accommodate this new meat. These weren’t the only meats that were barbecued so were different game animals like deer, raccoon, possum, rabbit and many others.

The barbecue pit is a hole in the ground about 18 inches deep; usually the edges of the pit were lined with stone, and in the earliest ones a rack of green branches was erected over the pit to slow cook the meat and impair a smoky taste to the meat as it cooked. You could also cook vegetables or fish in a barbecue. The pit had a dirt bottom for the fire to rest on while the food was cooking. Periodically the cook would sprinkle the food with a barbecue sauce that had been prepared before hand. This added an extra flavor to the food as it was being cooked. There are as many different barbecue sauces as there are barbecue cooks except for the commercial varieties you can buy off the store shelf.

Some of the pits were equipped with a turning spit designed to cook a whole animal at once like a pig or steer. The spit was slowly turned over the flames so the meat was cooked. Since the whole animal was so large it wasn’t cooked at once and slices of meat were cut off as the animal cooked. They also applied barbecue sauce to the animal as basting.

Although a fire pit is still usable there are many devices on the market that you can use for your barbecue ranging from a simple “Hibachi” made in Japan to huge barbecues costing thousands of dollars. Whatever you use for your barbecue just remember that the art of barbecue was developed over an open fire, and slow cooking along with the effects of wood smoke coming in contact with the food being prepared is half the battle. The other is picking the right sauce for the food being prepared even if it is barbecued armadillo.