The Insider History of Barbecue

If you aren't adding a sauce or some kind of flavoring, many would say that you're simply grilling meat, not having a barbecue. A traditional barbecue is a social event, involving the serving of meat that has been basted with some kind of sauce, and slow cooked for five to six hours at a low temperature (usually about 200F), over either wood or charcoal.

Traditional barbecue meats are cuts of steak or pork, but today, we more often think of hamburgers and hot dogs. In some regions, you might also see bratwurst or other kinds of sausage. You might also find kebabs including roasted vegetables, as well as meat. Texas, Virginia, both of the Carolinas, and Georgia, all claim to be the authentic home of barbecue and those claims may have some validity in each area, as each state has its own barbecue etiquette and traditions, as well as its own methods and sauces to make for a unique barbecue experience.

A Texas barbecue sauce is thick and sweet, with rich tomato flavor. The Texas dry-rub has a mixture of seasonings. Whether the sauce or the rub is used, each is typically applied to large cuts of beef, which are then hung to cook slowly over a well-controlled fire.

To the southeast, the sauce is thinner, and more vinegar is used, while the meat of choice is more likely to be pork. Additionally, the method of cooking typically is to place the meat in a pit or enclosure, which concentrates the heat and smoke, to give the meat a truly different taste.

Regardless of the area of the United States that you're in, however, the barbecue is an American tradition, and there's no chance of it declining in popularity. Almost every family has their BBQ favorites as to sauces and cooking methods. Kind of funny how people take in so closely their family secret recipes. Either way BBQ gatherings are some of the best outdoor activities you can do with friends and family.

At your next barbecue event, you can stir up the conversation and controversy by simply asking your local BBQ connoisseurs seeming simple questions such as what's the difference between grilling and barbecuing or what's better, wet sauce, or dry rub? Maybe, where did barbecuing originate? The answers may depend on the amount of alcohol the conversation participants have imbibed, but the responses you get are sure to be interesting!

Hot Sauce History 101

Things may be heating up for hot sauces, but they've been around since humans first realized they could eat chile peppers. Bottles containing hot sauce have been recovered from archaeological digs as well as shipwrecks, according to "The Hot Sauce Bible," The Crossing Press, 1996.

We have had a long love affair with hot sauces in the United States. Advertisements for cayenne sauces appeared in Massachusetts newspapers as early as 1807, according to some reports. In 1849, England's Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce was first imported into the United States from Great Britain.

Many of the first homegrown hot sauces in the United States came from the South. Cajun cuisine and other fiery ethnic foods fueled the drive to make hot sauces.

One of the first mass manufactured domestic hot sauces was Edmund McIlhenny's Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce, which came on the market in 1868 and is still made today. According to McIlhenny "family lore," Edmund first bottled his Tabasco® sauce in recycled cologne bottles. The McIlhenny Company has trademarked "Tabasco," which is why it's the only Tabasco sauce on the market today. (Although it is trademarked by McIlhenny, Tabasco actual refers to a geographic and political region in Mexico - where the Tabasco pepper was said to originate.) Similar sauces can note they are made with Tabasco peppers, but can only be known as "hot sauce." In addition, the McIlhenny Company is so proud of its heritage that it is opening a museum in 2006 in New Orleans.

McIlhenny's initial success also spawned a raft of imitators particularly in the roaring 1920s including Trappey's Hot Sauce (made by B.F. Trappey, an ex-McIlhenny employee) as well as Crystal Hot Sauce, according to Linda Stradley's Whatscookingamerica.com web site. Jacob Frank started selling Frank's Redhot Cayenne Pepper Sauce in 1920 and it was this hot sauce that French's, the current owner of Frank's Redhot Cayenne Pepper Sauce, proclaims as the "secret ingredient" in the original Wing Sauce concocted in 1964 by Teresa Bellissimo at the Anchor Bar and Grill in Buffalo, NY. All three of these sauces are continued to be made and sold today.

Some hot sauces didn't tickle the palate of consumers. Heinz, the condiment company based in Pittsburgh, produced a Tabasco Pepper sauce, but it failed to compete with McIlhenny's original and was eventually taken out of production. Other early America hot sauces included a "Chilli Sauce" from E.R. Durkee & Company, which continues today as a spice and condiment company.