May is National Barbecue Month

The technique of cooking over hardwood coals or a low fire, or with smoke and indirect heat from hardwood, at a low temperature (about the boiling point of water) exists in a great many different cultures, and has from time immemorial: Europeans and Africans were both familiar with it before they arrived in the New World and found the native Indians doing it.


The word barbecue came into English only some five hundred years ago. In the first decades of the 1500s Spanish explorers in the Caribbean found the locals using frameworks of sticks to support meat over fires. They did this either to slow-cook it or to cure and preserve it. Both on the island of Hispaniola (modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and on the northern coast of South America this apparatus was called something that the Spanish heard as barbacoa.

Barbecue pits date back to 25,000 B.C., and starting around 1600 B.C., the ancient Greeks were hosting open-pit barbecues. Writing in the eighth century B.C., the Greek epic poet Homer describes an early barbecue: Among guests of honor were Ajax and Odysseus, and the pit master was Achilles.

In the 1600s, shooting firearms at a barbecue was declared unlawful in Virginia. By 1769, barbecue was an American social and culinary institution. An entry in George Washington's diary that year states: "Went up to Alexandria to a barbicue."

Barbecue flourished first in the South, where the domesticated pig was and still is the meat of choice. Barbecue followed the herds of cattle west to Texas, where beef was and still is synonymous with barbecue. And in the Midwest, Southern and Western barbecue traditions crossed and mingled.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries regional barbecue developed into the well-defined varieties, styles and sauces that have made America the barbecue capital of the world. It was the food of the poor--slaves, cowhands, rural country folk.

It was the alfresco feast of the rich--who hosted lavish barbecue parties. And it was the crowd-pleasing bash of politicians--from Boss Tweed to Lyndon Baines Johnson, Jimmy Carter to President Bush. In the 20th century, the rediscovery of regional American cuisine has refueled our interest in barbecue.

Ready to barbecue?

The following titles and many others can be found in our cookbook section at call#’s 641.5784 & 641.76

Low and slow : master the art of barbecue in 5 easy lessons / by Gary Wiviott ; with Colleen Rush.

Smoke & spice : cooking with smoke, the real way to barbecue / by Cheryl and Bill Jamison.

Serious barbecue : smoke, char, baste, and brush your way to great outdoor cooking / by Adam Perry Lang

For a review of barbecue smokers and grills visit:

Amazing Ribs - All about Barbecue, Grilling, and Outdoor Cooking

Galt Technology - Internet Guides, Buying Guides, and product reviews