Defining Barbecue

[gknl]

I don't think most of America uses barbecue as a noun, but rather as an adjective or a verb. So they'd call the ribs and chicken barbecued ribs and barbecued chicken. And to most of America barbecue is considered synonymous with grilling over direct heat outdoors. Barbecue as a noun was distinctly southern in my experience (although Kansas City and Oklahoma might be exceptions to that) but it is spreading and becoming more commonly used.

I think it is possible for a dish to be called barbecue (the noun) without having been technically barbecued (the verb) because the things that define the dish (shredded meat, sauce, etc.) are different than the things that define the cooking technique (slow cooking at low temperatures with some sort of smoke) even if the dish itself was originally cooked a certain way.

Trying to define something that's as old and widespread as barbecue is pointless, really. Regional variations and customs trump linguistic precision every time. So you may sneer at the NC gas cooked pork and say it's not real barbecue, but the people buying it couldn't care less.

[Fat Guy]

For example, it is nearly universal in America to refer to oven-baked ribs with sweet sauce as barbecue. Is that barbecue?

To say that it's universal in America to refer to those ribs as barbecue is wrong. In fact, until I moved to the South over 20 years ago, I never heard of the word "barbecue" used as a noun that is a type of food.

"Let's go out for barbecue," is totally common vernacular in the North and has been for my entire life. Likewise, we have restaurants in the North called Dallas BBQ, William's Bar-B-Que, etc., that simply serve oven-baked and rotisserie meats -- no smoke. Whether most Americans would call the ribs "barbecue" or "barbecued ribs" strikes me as totally irrelevant to the conversation. Either both are wrong, or anything anybody calls barbecue/barbecued is barbecue/barbecued.

[FathyrJack]

I grew up in NJ and I cant recall anyone in my family or myself for that natter ever saying lets go out for BBQ. I lived there for 26 years and to this day could not tell you where to get BBQ in NJ. At least the central Jersey area. For us BBQ was a get together of family and friends.

[Fat Guy]

Trying to define something that's as old and widespread as barbecue is pointless, really.  Regional variations and customs trump linguistic precision every time.  So you may sneer at the NC gas cooked pork and say it's not real barbecue, but the people buying it couldn't care less.

Not caring doesn't equal not wrong.

Difficult to define doesn't equal pointless to define.

Widespread incorrect usage doesn't make that usage correct; it makes it something that should be corrected. Those who labor to create real barbecue deserve to have that term properly utilized by those who care about good food, and especially by those who write and communicate about food.

Without language communication becomes extremely difficult; without precise language precise communication is nearly impossible.

[Fat Guy]

I grew up in NJ and I cant recall anyone in my family or myself for that natter ever saying lets go out for BBQ. I lived there for 26 years and to this day could not tell you where to get BBQ in NJ. At least the central Jersey area.  For us BBQ was a get together of family and friends.

Any get-together was a barbecue, or did something specific have to happen there?

Whether or not you've ever employed or heard the phrase "let's go out for barbecue," certainly you've used or heard, "barbecued spare ribs" or something along those lines.

The point is, Northerners use the words barbecue and barbecued in a variety of contexts, and it doesn't mean all those uses are correct. Just as a McRib isn't barbecue or barbecued, neither are oven-baked ribs smothered in sweet sauce. That, or the term is meaningless.

[FathyrJack]

I agree with Fatguy. Growing up in NJ I thought BBQ was anything cooked on the Weber. As I grew up and learned more and more about different foods I accepted the fact that what I had been doing all those years was grilling. I don`t argue about it. i accept the true meaning. Which I have come to understand as , cooking larger pieces of pork , using smoke from indirect heat , created from burning hard wood and keeping the tempature of the smoke between 200-215 degrees for as many hours as the meat requires to cook

[sashorter]

Widespread incorrect usage doesn't make that usage correct; it makes it something that should be corrected.

Now we're veering from food to linguistics/lexicology. I've checked with my mom, a leading computational linguist, and your statement is a matter of some debate among linguists and lexicologists.

The original meaning of barbecue (from dict.org), i.e. the Guiana Indian meaning, is "a frame on which all kinds of flesh and fish are roasted or smoke-dried". They would argue that your definition is incorrect, since it refers to the food and not the tool.

My mom said:

This is a longstanding argument.  If we use "their" to refer to "singular" does that mean that "their" will become a correct usage even though it's plural. Language is flexible.  The French Academy would say "Non" but we have no overriding authority so the correct usage is what is accepted as correct. When the New York Times starts using "it's" as a possessive, then you know that the distinction between "it's" and "its" is failing and will eventually disappear.  I would say [Fat Guy] is probably fighting a losing battle.  People refer to barbecue when they mean anything grilled, which is not in my opinion correct, but understandable. It's a useful distinction for people who know the difference, but not for people who don't.  Like the difference between sauting and frying.  But I agree with him/her that food writers should use the correct terminology!  Because they are creating the standard as they write.

Sorry to get so pedantic...

-

Scott

[FathyrJack]

Any get-together was a barbecue, or did something specific have to happen there?

If the get together was outside and the cooking was also to be done outside, ex on the grill. It was a BBQ.

[Human Bean]

Also does not the cold-smoked versus hot-smoked dichotomy have some validity?

Certainly - take a hunk of cheese, cold-smoke it at under 100F, and you have a hunk of smoked cheese. Hot-smoke a hunk of cheese at over 200F, and (at best) you'd have a puddle of goo in the bottom of the smoker.

Neither one is barbeque though.

[Fat Guy]

Sorry to get so pedantic... 

Not at all. Ultimately I think the quoted passage supports what I'm trying to do here. And this is one case where I think it's not a losing battle -- if anything, there is more widespread understanding today of proper barbecue terminology than there was ten or twenty years ago. The trend may be in the right direction on this one.

[sashorter]

Of course the escape valve from this conversation is the fact that all words (and "barbecue" more than most, it appears) have multiple senses. It means a pig smoked over wood, and it means a social gathering around a Weber, and it means chicken parts with spicy tomato sauce on them, et cetera.

It can even mean contradictory things in different contexts.

--

Scott

[Varmint]

For example, it is nearly universal in America to refer to oven-baked ribs with sweet sauce as barbecue. Is that barbecue?

To say that it's universal in America to refer to those ribs as barbecue is wrong. In fact, until I moved to the South over 20 years ago, I never heard of the word "barbecue" used as a noun that is a type of food.

"Let's go out for barbecue," is totally common vernacular in the North and has been for my entire life. Likewise, we have restaurants in the North called Dallas BBQ, William's Bar-B-Que, etc., that simply serve oven-baked and rotisserie meats -- no smoke. Whether most Americans would call the ribs "barbecue" or "barbecued ribs" strikes me as totally irrelevant to the conversation. Either both are wrong, or anything anybody calls barbecue/barbecued is barbecue/barbecued.

Buy you live in New York City, Steve, which is the greatest restaurant city in the world! You know what barbecue is because you have it in the city. Go outside of the city, and I will assure you that the vast majority of people don't think of "barbecue" as a type of meat.

I do think that if you look at the adjective "barbecued" it has a connotation of being cooked outside over some heat source (which may be direct or indirect). If it's done inside an oven, then it's just baked! Does adding a barbecue sauce to baked chicken make it barbecued chicken? I don't think so, but that improper usage of the word is common.

Back to my NC example of putting 1,000 plates of chopped pork in front of people, if you told them that the pork was cooked over gas or electric, the vast majority would say it's still barbecue. If you told them that the pork was baked in an oven, then many fewer would say it's barbecue, even though there may be little difference in taste. The key, perhaps, is in the fact that barbecue is slow cooked over a heat source. ????

[Varmint]

And this is one case where I think it's not a losing battle -- if anything, there is more widespread understanding today of proper barbecue terminology than there was ten or twenty years ago. The trend may be in the right direction on this one.

I won't argue with you on this point, as many more people are aware of what is barbecue. A lot of this is due to many people moving from the North to the South, where barbecue is more prevalent. Moreover, the media has given barbecue a lot more attention -- whether it's magazines, newspapers, or the Food Network, barbecue, in its most authentic and genuine form, is big.

[Schielke]

Should I even bring up liquid smoke?

[FathyrJack]

[Varmint]

Should I even bring up liquid smoke?     

Actually, I don't think the addition or exclusion makes any difference whether or not something is barbecue. It's merely a flavoring agent (and a bad one at that).

[Chad]

Oy, until I moved to Kansas, I'd never seen beef referred to as barbeque. Growing up in Tennessee, Georgia & South Carolina, barbeque (the noun) was slow cooked pig. Gas, charcoal, wood -- doesn't matter all that much. But it was always pork.

I was (and still am) appalled at Kansas style "barbeque" that's basically grilled or smoked beef smothered in thick, sticky-sweet sauce. Ick.

I'm on the fence about Memphis-style dry rubbed ribs. They are a joy and a wonder, but I'd argue that, all of the competitions and cookoffs to the contrary, they ain't barbeque.

So let's throw another variable into the equation. Is it the smoke, the cut of meat (tender or tough), the saucing (or lack thereof) or is it some combination of those with the type of animal consumed? I think we can all agree that chicken can't be barbeque (the noun). Neither can fish, cheese, veggies or, in my opinion, beef.

Chad

[Fat Guy]

Barbecue is a bigger term than that, I think. The challenge is limiting the term to a meaningful subset of food while allowing for those things that are traditionally and conceptually valid as barbecue. To describe specific stylistic ranges of barbecue, one should probably use, "North Carolina barbecue," "Memphis barbecue," etc., as the large subcategories. Of course, if you're in North Carolina, it's implicit that by saying, "barbecue" you mean North Carolina barbecue -- and perhaps, in a given locality, your implicit meaning is even more specific than that.

[FathyrJack]

Yes because NC has too distinct types of BBQ. I believe in East NC they only use a vinigar based BBQ sauce, where as West NC they use a tomatoe based one. Each side will tell you only theirs is the only true BBQ.

[melkor]

This link clearly shows that you are all mistaken, it proves without a doubt that barbeque has nothing at all to do with meat.

[Fat Guy]

Yes because NC has too distinct types of BBQ. I believe in East NC they only use a vinigar based BBQ sauce, where as  West NC they use a tomatoe based one. Each side will tell you only theirs is the only true BBQ.

There's a lot of writing out there that says that, but the sauce variance is pretty minor in practice. Likewise, some sources will tell you that ENC is whole hog and WNC is shoulder -- a much bigger difference, I think -- but that may not strictly be the case either.

A side note: It was pure coincidence that I quoted Schlesinger, or if there was an influence on my choice it was unconscious, but I should mention that he is the current featured chef in the "Chef" column in the New York Times dining section. Sam Sifton, the Times dining editor, is writing the articles. Here's last week's, about barbecue.

[Jim Dixon]

f you put a plate of NC barbecue in front of someone in Texas or Oregon or Maine, they'd just stare at it and wonder why they're being served cat food.

I can't comment on the reaction of Texans or down-easters, but there are at least of a few of us here in the Beaver State that would do more than just stare.

As for a definition, I don't think it'll ever be agreed on. It means one thing in NC, another in Kansas City, something else in Texas. My preferred meaning is "meat cooked slowly using a wood fire."

Jim

[Schielke]

It seems to me after reading this discussion that Barbecue is context sensitive. The term is so widely used that to pin it down, we would have to contradict certain uses of the word.

[Varmint]

I think that we can agree that it's meat that is slow-cooked, generally over a radiant heat source (that may be direct or indirect) and preferably, that heat source is wood.

[sammy]

Work's just about over. I'm going home to barbecue a steak. Just kidding!