Tennessee Red’s: Real BBQ in Portland

What is Barbecue?

There is perhaps no word in the culinary lexicon of American English that sets mouths to watering and arguing as profusely as barbecue. You probably know what it is, and what it is not. We all know that when at its best, barbecue is an apex of achievement in American gastronomy. It is the art of coaxing deep flavors from meat through the application of slow, indirect heat and wood smoke. Hickory and mesquite are the most commonly used woods, but apple, cherry, alder, maple, oak and others also find their way into the mix. There are various dry and wet seasoning techniques utilized before and during the cooking process, and an array of sauces can be had as condiment. Most aficionados of the Southern U.S. style of barbecue agree that sauce should never be applied to the meat until after the cooking is finished, and then only according to individual taste. The über-purist will maintain that if barbecue requires any sauce at all, it’s simply not that good. Suffice it to say that the variations on technique and composition are myriad, and that pride in regional barbecue styles is generally quite strong. Though none of us should need reminding that there is glee to be gotten from outdoor cooking of any sort, or that we are wealthier for the variety.

Most etymologists agree that the word barbecue comes to us from the indigenous Arawak people of the Caribbean by way of Christopher Columbus. Barabicu - which became the Spanish barbacoa – refers to a framework of wood or sticks built over a pit for cooking meat. In the Arawak tradition, the meat was typically a whole goat or pig wrapped in leaves and placed on the framework, then buried in coals to roast slowly for hours. Fittingly enough, it is the Arawaks who also gave us the hammock.

Esteemed culinarians opine that in proper American usage, barbecue is always a noun referring only to the finished dish, and never a verb. This doesn’t seem to stop Americans from saying, ‘Let’s barbecue,’ or ‘We’re going to a barbecue.’ It is perhaps best to leave the grammatical and etymological argument to scholars. We know that they are often not half so happy, nor half so wise, as us blissful dullards who prefer chewing delicious food to pedantic debate. However the word is used or misused, its utterance will almost universally indicate that a fire will be lit outdoors, and that the flesh of an animal will be cooked on or near that fire. For our purposes here, barbecue will refer to the dish, not the activities or events which produce that dish. With this set in place, we can move on to the question of regional barbecue styles…

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Tags: barbecue, bbq, chef, cooking, food, oregon, pdx, Portland, portland food, portland food and drink, Restaurants