American Barbecue Culture: Evolution, Challenge and Fate of Its Regional Diversity in Both the United States and Germany

1 Schriftliche Hausarbeit zur Zulassung zum 1. Staatsexamen im Fach Englisch American Barbecue Culture: Evolution, Challenge and Fate of its Regional Diversity in both the United States and Germany. Universität Regensburg Philosophische Fakultät IV Institut für Amerikanistik und Anglistik Betreuer: Prof. Dr. Udo Hebel Verfasser: Sebastian Gotzler Fächerverbindung: Lehramt Gymnasium Englisch/Geschichte Matrikelnummer: 1241300 1. April 2012 Adresse: Silberne Fischgasse 14 93047 Regensburg Telefon: 0176/24915463 Email: [email protected] 2 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..3 2. Defining Barbecue………………………………………………………………………....6 2.1 A Short Guide to Cooking Techniques…………………………………………….6 2.2 Etymology………………………………………………………………………….8 2.2.1 The Transformation from Barbacoa to Barbecue ……………………...8 2.2.2 Barbecue – A Noun or a Verb?...............................................................9 3. History of Barbecue………………………………………………………………………11 3.1 Origin and Spreading from Colonial America to the American Revolution……..11 3.2 Introduction of Barbecue into Germany………………………………………….14 4. Regional Styles of Barbecue……………………………………………………………...19 4.1 Virginia – The Cradle of Barbecue……………………………………………….21 4.2 North Carolina – The Great Carolinian Barbecue-Schism……………………….22 4.3 South Carolina – The Mustard Belt………………………………………………25 4.4 Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky……………………………………26 4.5 Tennessee – The Supremacy of Memphis Barbecue……………………………30 4.6 Texas – The ―Holy Trinity‖ of Barbecue………………………………………...32 4.7 Missouri - Kansas City and St. Louis…………………………………………….38 4.8 Other American States and Regions……………………………………………...42 4.8.1 Chicago – Barbecued Street Food………………………………………...43 4.8.2 California – Fusion Barbecue……………………………………………45 4.8.3 New York City – The Late Arrival of Barbecue………………………….48 4.9 German Approach to American Barbecue………………………………………50 5. Competitive Barbecue…………………………………………………………………….53 5.1 Major American Barbecue Associations………………………………………….56 5.2 The German Barbecue Competition Circuit……………………………………...59 5.2.1 The German Barbecue Association………………………………………59 5.2.2 The German Barbecue Championship……………………………………60 6. Conclusion – The Legacy of American Barbecue………………………………………..63 7. Works Cited………………………………………………………………………………65 3 1. Introduction ―Barbecue is the quintessential American food, perhaps the only large enough to reconcile the lies and myths out of which the fabric of our national truth has been woven. Barbecue, then serves as a metaphor for American culture, bridging and embracing this nation‘s various facets‖ (Elie Smokestack 135). This quote form Louis Eric Elie raises the question why Barbecue as cuisine, commonly associated with the American South, of all notable American cuisines is considered to be the most appropriate and uniquely diverse representative of national and especially regional culture and identity in the United States, particularly in a time where the entire American diet is infamously associated with processed and artificial fast food specialties sold in national restaurant chains. The following will describe how this diversity of American styles of barbecue emerged, how they evolved, whether they still today show similar shades of unique regional variation or over time changed entirely and finally what impact the introduction of this completely alien food had on a non-American culture like Germany. The exact definition of barbecue has always been controversially, passionately and quasi-religiously discussed. ―Areas of disagreement include: (1) definition of the South; (2) definition of barbecue; (3) correct spelling of the word; (4) type of meat; (5) type of cut; (6) ingredients for sauce; (7) type of pit; (8) type of wood; (9) wet versus dry cooking; (10)‖ (Elie Cornbread 61), and so forth. Therefore the first step to truly understand American barbecue is the attempt to eliminate any misconceptions about it. The first part of the paper is briefly dedicated to the explanation of both the proper cooking techniques and the etymology of the term barbecue itself. The technical questions involve the following concepts: the temperature zone of barbecue, suitable appliances, the fuel, adequate cuts of meat and the concepts of direct and indirect heat. The etymological part revolves around the origin of the term barbecue and its evolution from the early 16th century to our contemporary understanding. Also, the dispute whether barbecue is a verb or a noun has to be settled. Any ―serious study of barbecue must of necessity contain within it a wide range of insights about American history and culture‖ (Elie Cornbread 4), especially to better understand its ongoing popularity and its regional diversification. The time frame of interest roughly lies between the discovery of the New World and the end of Colonial America. The introduction of Native American and Caribbean cooking to the Europeans, the adaptation and transformation of these techniques, especially through the introduction of non-indigenous flora and livestock like the swine, and most notably the abduction and enslavement of 4 thousands of black Africans who predominantly from then took on cooking barbecue for both themselves and their white masters shaped the way we understand barbecue as we know it today and its spreading throughout the United States and beyond. Since this paper also is intended to describe the idiosyncrasies of American barbecue in modern Germany, the history how this American classic got introduced to central Europe is examined. The main part of this paper focuses on the distinctive features of both barbecue in the United States and Germany. The mayor and traditional barbecue regions are without any doubt situated in the American South, basically the states of the Confederacy, and the Midwestern United States. Barbecue enthusiasts in these regions take pride in their particular way of preparing barbecue and passionately and stubbornly are involved in an intraregional dispute whose barbecue is the one and only way to do it right. There is probably no other food in the US that stirs up that kind of arguments and emotions. Robert Moss said, that ―no one has debates over which state serves the best chicken fingers‖ (4). Taking this into account, one has to acknowledge, that these rivalries should not be taken too serious, because people from the South also understand that while barbecue generates distinctive interstate identities, they also agree, that barbecue ―is a food that unifies the vast expanse of the American South‖ (Elie Cornbread 4) and sets them apart from the remainder of the United States. Those areas still should not be neglected. Even with the Southerners ridiculing the ―Yankees‖ for their take on barbecue, one has to concede that especially in recent years, mainly through research and communication on the internet, people from the North showed great interest and effort in that matter and are trying to succeed in mastering what a Southerner would call true and good barbecue, not only through copying it but also by adding their own regional flavors to it. This evolution of barbecue from an entirely Southern matter to a cuisine that by now people all over the world create and consume, also begs the question whether barbecue, especially in its native regions, underwent a homogenization process. With the standardization of food to appeal to a broader customer base and the competition presented by national chains or recently upscale barbecue-themed restaurants, particularly small, family-run barbecue restaurants face the challenge whether to stick to their authentic, traditional and above all regional ways of cooking barbecue and probably lose business or to adjust to the demands. Barbecue in Germany might at first glance not fit into this whole scheme, but similar to northern pitmasters, the small scene of German barbecuers also takes great effort and ingenuity in cooking barbecue, although they face a range of difficulties of reproducing what they understand to be authentic American barbecue and may have to settle for suboptimal results. Nevertheless, barbecue enthusiast from Germany might also be as strange to a 5 Southerner as its counterpart from New England or California, but the true question is, if the Germans managed to develop their own, distinctive regional barbecue culture in a rather short amount of time. Mainly on the basis of a selection of representative cookbooks, anthropological works about barbecue and restaurant guides, these intraregional, intra-national and international varieties of barbecue will be analyzed. Especially recipes, preferences and availability of ingredients, different cooking techniques, menus in local barbecue restaurant and of course the history of how those traditions arose in a designated area, spread and probably changed in the course of time reveal the most ostensive picture of how barbecue is pursued throughout the US. Literature about German barbecue, however is almost non-existent. Therefore the main body of research has to be comprised of internet sources, to an extent personal experience and few cookbooks and magazines. ―On any given weekend, hundreds of enthusiastic barbecue teams are competing for prizes in cook-offs throughout the country‖. This quote from Mike Mills (165), a highly successful competitor himself, shows why not only cookbooks with recipes anybody can reproduce in his backyard or restaurants are the sole sources to define diversities in barbecue. Especially the fact, that those competitions take place all over the United

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