Real Barbecue

by Bruce Schimmel

As the Fourth of July approaches, let us celebrate the premier, if not aboriginal, culinary art of the New World -- the barbecue.

The very sound of the word might lead you to believe that the French invented barbecuing, but they didn’t. The word was probably coined by natives long before the Europeans’ arrival. Barbecue comes from “barbakoa,” from Arawak, meaning a “frame of sticks.”

And even if the French inadvertently stumbled across this blessed technique on the way to creating the art of haute cuisine, it now seems they want no part of it.

That’s surprising, since everyone knows that the French have the gall to claim responsibility for having created, if not actually perfected, many of the world’s great pleasures, such as foie gras, the art of romance, and mechanized execution.

But not barbecue. The word doesn’t even appear in Escoffier, the classic encyclopedia of cuisine. Nor is it mentioned by name in my 1,100-page edition of Larousse Gastronomique, except in three scant paragraphs, and then merely by implication.

Only grilling, not barbecuing, is listed. Grilling, we learn, is a way of cooking food on a gridiron over wood or charcoal embers, and which at best is considered a crude and ancient method of preparing food.

“Nowadays,” we are informed, “foods may be grilled by gas or electricity, and, thanks to the scientific development of this type of apparatus, the art of grilling or broiling has reached perfection.”

Perfection? Sorry. Perfection in barbecue isn’t revolutionary or evolutionary, it’s devolutionary. It’s basic.

Perfection is pulled pork, meat scraped from the loins of a pig that’s been buried in a pit, smoking for a day under the earth.

Perfection in barbecue is found in a hot hole in the ground.

To be sure, you will not find this blessed kind of barbecue commercially, even from a hole-in-the-wall. It’s generally illegal to sell meat that’s dead and buried.

But you can get a hint of what real barbecue tastes like if you see a roadside stand run by a VFW or a volunteer fire company, one with a barbecue smoker made from a 250-gallon oil drum cut in two, topped with a tiny chimney exhaling a thin column of white smoke.

In the bottom half of the drum are those embers, hopefully from applewood, whose cool and moist smoke roasts the pig, braising it in its own juices.

If they have potato buns and pickles, cabbage and green tomato slaw, celebrate. Pile up the meat, drizzle on some sweet, hot vinegar, and taste real food at its very root.

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October 16, 2003
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