By Matt Arthur, Living History Program Coordinator, Tryon Palace
We all know the phrase “as American as apple pie.” And like so many of us, apples are immigrants. European colonizers brought apples with them, and their recipes for pies, which have not changed in significant ways, really, for hundreds of years.
But if you want the perfect American meal, look to barbecue. It’s the food of celebration.
Cooking meat over fires is primal, human. It predates history. The magic that comes from adding pits and flavors and the spirit of barbecue? That has a mixed beginning. The very origin of the word barbecue itself has been argued to come from Carib through Spanish, from French, and from the Hausa of West Africa. The cooking traditions of the indigenous people combined with similar techniques brought by the enslaved Africans blended, at least in our Eastern North Carolina tradition, with the pigs that were brought by the Spanish.
Barbecue is beautiful in that it takes all these traditions and shows the best of them all. It has lowly roots. It was shunned. It was the “other” food, servant’s food. The origins and rise of barbecue’s popularity connect two outside groups. Food travels from its origin to the masses in one of two directions. The easiest is from the upper class down to those who want to emulate those in power. The other path is from the lower classes up. This a much harder climb, and if the food succeeds, it has done so because of one thing and one thing only – it is delicious.
It is human nature that if you like something, you tend to want to make it your own. That is what every group of people who have met barbecue have done. Some add spices and sauces that have ingredients like “catsup” with its roots in Southeast Asia to European ideas. Mustard-based sauces are traced to Germans. We all put a spin on it but still, those roots laid out by the oppressed people are some of the major notes that you look for, that soft, smoky, tender, make you want to cry out for more, juicy meat.
Tryon Palace • 529 South Front Street • New Bern, NC 28562 • 252-639-3500 • www.tryonpalace.org