Man’s Earliest Culinary Art
Still in Worldwide Favor
 by Seared Lightly

 The art of barbecue was first practiced when man learned how to make fire.  Current evidence indicates that the practice of searing flesh over flames has become a popular sport as well as sustenance on a worldwide basis.  

The World Barbecue Association (WBBQA) is headquartered in Switzerland (no, not Memphis, Kansas City or anywhere in Texas)!  This organization counts chapters in 43 nations, covering the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.  It began sponsoring international team cook-offs in 1999, beginning in Switzerland (see, the Swiss know there’s more to life than fondue), with subsequent championship events in Nashville, Cape Town, South Africa and most recently this past month in San Diego…where one of the top teams hailed from Estonia. The 2003 world title barbecuing bout will be held in Auckland, New Zealand to kick off the America’s Cup sailing competition.

The WBBQA motto is Make people happy with fire, food and fun, and the mission statement is “as a leisure-time sport, BBQ shall become on all continents a peace-promoting and people-connecting lifestyle.”  Americans seem convinced.  Forbes business magazine states that 76% of American households own some type of outdoor grill and an estimated 72 million folk living under the stars and stripes regularly use this equipment.  If your personal skill and experience is lacking, check out the Culinary Institute of Smoke Cooking (www.bbqcookingschool.com), where, for $299, you can complete a home course, complete with textbooks and grading of your accomplishments.

BBQ Secrets Revealed

The late Charlie Knote of Missouri and his wife Ruth are authors of Barbecuing & Sausage-making Secrets, the key text for school students, covering the grilling of steak, hamburgers and chicken, plus the smoke-cooking of ribs, brisket , turkey and chicken.

Would be grill sergeants are advised to read the National Barbecue News, published in Douglas, Georgia.  Here you’ll find that the United States encompasses four distinct regional barbecue styles:  “Carolina,” which emphasizes marinating and basting pork with vinegar-based sauces; “Kansas City,” a bastion of ribs slathered with sweet cooking sauces; “Texas,” where beef brisket smoked nearly forever is king and “Memphis,” home of spicy rubs to flavor pork before smoke cooking.  This publication carries news of over 350 BBQ events staged under the aegis of 30 state or regional associations…the Pacific Northwest BBQ Association is based in Bellevue, WA.

Don’t miss Bones & Brew

The Northwest grilling group stages “Bones & Brew,” an annual pig out at Portland’s Tom McCall Waterfront Park this September 4-6.  We endorse this party, where attendees make a $3 charity donation for the privilege of purchasing some of the world’s better BBQ renditions from a lineup of vendors representing the major U.S. BBQ regions, plus Australian contenders for honors.  This is an invitational lineup of contestants who have earned awards from premier BBQ events.  Local pride will be sustained by Jackie’s Ribs from Salem and My Brother’s BBQ of Portland.  Suds and live music enliven the proceedings.

Adhering to the WBBQA credo of making people happy, BBQ events generally feature a humorous take on the subject.  The northern New York state town of Clarence is home to the annual Oinktoberfest, with emphasis on pork preparations.  Proving that pigs needn’t dominate BBQ, the central Texas burg of Brady hosted 125 cooking teams in the latest annual World Championship Goat Cook-off.

It began with Barbacoa

“Barbecue” is an anglicization of the Spanish word “barbacoa,” itself a derivation of a Carribean tribal word “brabacot.”  The European word was reputedly coined by Spanish explorers of the New World who found that natives of the Americas practiced an outdoor cooking method that involved lashing together a “grill” of green sticks which was suspended over a slow, smoky fire to render flesh toothsome.  The smoke flavor was enhanced and the cooking slowed by a blanket of green tropical leaves laid over the cooking meat, fish or poultry.

Years ago, when a modest income dictated that this columnist could only afford a small, bowl-shaped charcoal grill, we placed green maple sprigs on the coals for smoke, then intensified the flavor and lessened the heat by placing a layer of green maple leaves over the object of our cooking…and we’d never met a conquistador or Carib indian, but it made good tasting sense.  Nowadays, we utilize a fancy gas-fired grill and place wood chips, soaked in cheap bourbon, on a layer of foil over the flame for smoke.

Oregon’s own BBQ enhancement

Yours truly is on the verge of acquiring a wood pellet-fueled grilling and smoking unit, as developed in Mt. Angel by Joe Traeger.  Joe realized in 1985 that the successful technology he had developed for producing clean-burning, pellet-fired wood heating stoves could be successfully applied to barbecuing.  Now Traeger grills have gained popularity on an international basis and pellets have proved to be the ideal agent for both heating and flavoring.

Rib lover weighs in

A reader, Dr. Mary Ann Humphrey-Keever, writes that our readers deserve to know about a new BBQ restaurant she rates as “the best for ribs in the Portland metro area,” and states she’s “tried them all.”  She lauds “Mella’s,” recently opened in downtown Tigard, as the place to pork out, reporting “my mouth found a treat that went far beyond any ribs I have tasted to date!”  Ironically, this establishment is located next to a fitness studio, so that sin and solution can cohabit.  Thanks, doctor!

©2002 Oregon Magazine