The “How’s,” “Why’s,” and “Wherefore’s” of Barbecue

The annual "RC Cola & Moon Pie Festival" is held in Bell Buckle, TN. - Image by Miss Millificent via Flickr

As I had previously mentioned, barbecue is poor folks food.

Why?

Because ‘back in the day’ – even TOday – poor folks did not have electricity, and certainly did not even have the earliest of refrigerators, the venerable icebox – which was a primitive insulated cabinet into which a large block of ice was placed in the top. Why the top? If you recall your third grade science lesson, cool temperature air falls. The only ‘cooling system’ poor folks had was a creek, upon which they would build a small ‘house’ – or more accurately, a shed – to cool their food. Therefore, they did not have the luxury of storing raw meat. Not having the ability to refrigerate or freeze fresh meat meant that it had to be cooked, prepared and otherwise preserved – either through smoking, salting or other methods such as sausage making.

A common method of preserving meat was to smoke it.

Meat – again, which was most often pork – would be

How to make a simple, inexpensive barbecue smoker

For those uninitiated in the finer things of Southern culture, Barbecue is a staple Southern food.

In fact, it’s one of the primary food groups.

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It’s right alongside beer.

Yep, there’s bread, also known as the “staff of life” more often, though, it’s cornbread; there’re vegetables, which include tomatoes, green beans, black-eyed peas, corn on the cob; liquid refreshments which include sweet tea, beer – and then… there’s barbecue.