What's In A Name?

Disclaimer: I am not a food paleontologist and by all observations I am an extremely amateur etymologist.  Here, I will prove my incompetency in both disciplines and likely muddy the waters altogether.

When the subject of barbeque arises there are always strong opinions voiced in all directions about what makes for the best bbq.  I have some experience on the subject, although again, I'm going to hide safely behind my claim of rock amateur, I mean rank amateur.

This article is a about words and a little about the history of BBQ.  There is general agreement that "barbeque" is a term indigenous  to Central America (primarily Mexico) and the Caribbean Islands. Generally speaking, the historical barbeque formula is Pit + Smoky Heat + Meat + Slow.  Variations in amount of moisture, spices, time, heat, and meat types add to the diverse character of the Q'uisine.  Remember, we’re talking about aboriginal food preparation not the technical method for making crème brûlèe.  Barbeque methods evolved over time based on local preferences and local resources so it is really not intellectually honest to say there is only one way to prepare barbeque.

The word “barbeque” derives from barbacoa – a word which is related to barber (a person who cuts hair and shaves beards). French, Spanish, and Italian all have words which refer to the beard with words beginning barb-.  How do we get from beards to burnt ends?  Unless you are grilling (which is NOT barbeque!), you want to keep the meat and the heat source at a reasonable distance from each other, typically by suspending the meat at some distance above the (rising) heat source.  I think it would be fair to define the origin of barbacoa as specifically referring to cooking meat slowly over an indirect heat source.  In the native home of the barbacoa, the preferred wood for separating the meat from the fire is the ficus barbata – commonly known as the Bearded Fig.  This wood is dense and largely heat resistant – great for standing strong between meat and fire.  The Spanish word for this tree is Los Barbadoes – from which Barbados* (an island in the Caribbean) gets its name.  Is this all coming together?  Barbeque is a 800-1000 year old word from south of the border that means throw some meat on a wood rack over a fire.

I spent my teen years in the Lone Star State and now feather my nest in the land of Sunflowers and Oz.  As for my personal eating and cooking style, I prefer a hybrid of Kansas City style BBQ spice and Texas BBQ sweet.  (Yes, I said it that way and I've been severly upbraided for my choice of words.  HOWEVER, Texas sauce is typically tomato + molasses based - sweet.  KC sauce is typically tomato + paprika based - spice-y.  I'm not talking about who uses more cayenne.) Texas is the Ground Zero of the Barbacoa Quadrangle.  In 1800s Texas, in the Hill Country to be specific, four worlds collided and brought us the delectable savor that we all argue about today.  Cutting the history lesson as short as possible, let’s weave these four strands together.  

• First, Texas turns out to be a great place to raise cattle (before they were unceremoniously herded north on the Chisolm trail).  
• Second, proximal to Mexico, Texas received significant food influences from its southwestern cousins (hence:Tex-Mex), although that whole Alamo thing didn’t help relationships. 
• Third, proximal to the Gulf and Caribbean, Texas was the point of entry for many thousands of African slaves who often laid-over in the Caribbean Islands (before being herded unceremoniously to the Continent) and they brought those Caribbean food influences with them.  
• Fourth and not to be overlooked, Texas strangely became a popular destination for large numbers of Germans who just happened to know a thing or two about meat preparation (and beer to go along with the bbq). Throw all these influences together and you have a “manifest destiny” that changed the culinary landscape of America. You could say, and some have said, that barbeque was born in Elgin, Luling, and Lockhart.

Now about that Pirate Food category… Barbacoa is the term deriving from the type of tree used to separate the meat from the heat. But there is another word that refers specifically to the rack of the barbado wood that the meat was placed on. That rack of wood was called a buccan and it lent its name to those festive young men who enjoyed a hearty, smoky meal followed by a wee bit o’ pillaging and piracy. Our beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Pittsburg Pirates (nicknamed the Bucs - short for "buccaneer") are first and foremost BBQ enthusiasts and despicable humanssecond.  It's all true.

* The ficus barbata is featured on the Coat of Arms of Barbados. The ficus family is notable for the manner in which the trees drop "aerial roots" which look like beards. You see these beards dangling below the bottom limbs on the tree in the coat of arms.