By Aillinn Brennan • Special to The Current
There’s nothing like the whiff of smoking meat on the perfect summer day while waiting for picnic time! Quintessentially “summer” and “American” this favorite cooking style has its roots in the Caribbean. It made its way from South America by the Spanish explorers and then moved eastward by European settlers who added their seasonings into the mix.
Hernando de Soto in 1540, got to try delicious pork “barbacoa.” It was cooked low and slow with indirect heat coming from green wood to keep the meat from burning. The word “barbacoa” eventually evolved into the word, “barbecue,” which eventually made it to the colonies as north as Virginia.
Pork was the original meat of choice for the fact that pigs are way more cost effective than cattle. Pigs would be set loose in forests to fend for themselves, requiring little effort to raise. The free-range piggies were leaner on slaughter so naturally lent to the slow cooking nature of barbacoa making them tender and tasty! These foraging forest pigs were widely consumed until down the road, when Southerner’s took great care in raising their pigs for BBQ deliciousness!
The “Barbecue Belt”
Stretches from the Atlantic to the Gulf coast Texas is big! So, there are several regional styles with a multi-meat approach. The big three meats are, pork ribs, beef and “hot gut sausages,” spicy ground beef sausages. Yum!
Central Texas uses a simple dry rub of salt and pepper, slow cooked with indirect flame and wood; either mesquite, oak or pecan.
In East Texas they take it slow. Cooking the meat to tender perfection bathed in a marinade rather than a dry rub. In these parts, hickory wood is it! It imparts a strong flavor but also a dark color to the meat, favored by pit masters.
In South Texas there is more of a Mexican influenced style especially close to the Rio Grande valley near the border, where we revisit the original barbacoa method, with the meat cooked in a hole in the ground covered with “maguey” or Agave americana leaves. This style uses all sorts of meats including goat, sheep or lamb and the sauce is sweet molasses based which keeps the meat moist in the cooking process.
In West Texas it’s more of a grilling technique with direct flame and mesquite wood, a little stronger flavor wise, to hickory smoke.
Kansas City Here I Come
A multi meat BBQ destination famous for crisp, perfectly charred tasty tidbit ends of pork and sweet tomato and molasses-based sauces. The city has more than 100 BBQ joints and boasts of world class BBQ contests including the “American Royal World Series of Barbecue.” Road trip!
Sweet Caroline-a!
South Carolina goes whole hog where North Carolina prefers a pork shoulder. The “mustard belt” stretches from Charleston to Columbia, where the sauce “Carolina Gold” mustard based, was created by German immigrants.
Elvis Has Left the Building
Memphis style is about pork ribs and shoulders, slow cooked with dry rub and finished with a rich sauce. No singing the blues!
Maybe it’s a road trip or two? Is it grillin’ and chillin’ or smokin’ and jokin’? It’s all about BBQ & U-SA! Happy Fourth of July!
Aillinn Brennan is proprietor of The Marion Hose Bar located at 16 W. Broadway in Jim Thorpe.
For more visit www.marionhosebar.com
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