Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie & BBQ

Barbecue: The History of an American Institution, Revised and Expanded Second Edition

A book by Robert F. Moss

How many of you weekend warriors know the real story of why BBQ has become such an “American” tradition? How can BBQ in Texas have an entirely different meaning than BBQ in South Carolina or Kentucky? If I’m cooking burgers on my Weber grill on a perfect 80-degree summer day and drinking a beer (or three) while doing it, am I BBQ’ing?

These are all questions Robert Moss does an excellent job of answering in the revised second edition of the history of Barbeque. He traces the lineage of American BBQ back to 1526. However, it wasn’t until about the mid-1700s in Virginia that BBQ took root as what we know today.

Ross takes a deep dive into the regional variations of barbeque cooking from Virginia to the Carolinas, later into Kentucky, Missouri, Texas, and beyond. Thankfully, he focuses not only on the cooking methods and tastes but delves into the cultural and social history as well as the context of how “BBQ” came to be.

He does a decent job of highlighting the hypocrisy of so-called “pit masters” in the antebellum south and subsequent years while all along, it was the enslaved that did the actual cooking. The book is not afraid to bring to light how the races have not been treated equally throughout the history of BBQ culture.

The result is that social and cultural traditions made BBQ what it is today. Barbeque is a mashup of different cultures, traditions, social statuses, and personalities. The combinations are why you get a pulled pork sandwich in North Carolina with spicy sauce versus a melt-in-your-mouth barbeque brisket in with a pickle on the side in Central Texas.

So for any of you that have ever asked “why” do we do this, Barbecue: The History of an American Institution, Revised and Expanded Second Edition book is a good read. At 312 pages, it’s a good one to pick up after you’ve put some mop sauce on that brisket and need to wait a few more hours until it’s “just right.” 

There is enough detail to make you feel more thoughtful about history, but you don’t get lost in the weeds, and you will walk away knowing a lot more than you did before.