05/16/2024
NATIONAL BARBECUE DAY | May 16
Each year on May 16 we celebrate National Barbecue Day in the United States. Whether you grill at home or grab some takeout, you will find Americans across the country enjoying an assortment of mouthwatering barbeque (BBQ) flavors and sauces.
In the world of barbecue, grillers decide how to cook their barbeque. Whether they choose charcoal, wood charcoal, wood, gas or slow cooking, they consider themselves the culinary expert of barbeque. Traditionally, Americans have four types of BBQ regions:
1.Kansas City - A variety of beef and pork cuts are slow cooked with a tomato and molasses-based sauce.
2.Carolina - Slow-roasted pork is cooked with a sauce with a vinegar and ketchup base combination.
3.Memphis - Dry rub pork is cooked low and slow absorbing the smokey, BBQ flavors.
4.Texas - Beef is slow-cooked in smoker grills and topped a with smoky, dry rub.
NATIONAL BARBECUE DAY HISTORY
Traditional barbeque methods involved digging a hole, placing meat over a pot and covering the hole with leaves. The meat was slow-cooked with the pot catching the juice from the meat, later to be used as a broth.
North Carolina
Today, American barbeque origins point to North Carolina as the oldest place barbeque is found. References to Barbecue can now be found in places across the country, but its "American" origins are in North Carolina. As barbecue spread across the country it changed in many ways. However, North Carolina BBQ has held true to its definition for generations. References to “a whole Hog barbecu'd” date back to the 1700s, using pork as the original meat of choice because it was plenty and inexpensive. After the meat was cooked, it was often hung in a smokehouse for preservation for use in the coming days or weeks.
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