Recipes

Recipes For Good Eating

Have you ever wondered where the term barbecue originated? The etymology of the term is vague, but one plausible theory suggests the word "barbecue" is a derivative of the West Indian term "barbacoa," which denotes a method of slow-cooking meat over hot coals. However, there is another school of thought which suggests the word comes from an extinct tribe in Guyana who enjoyed spit-roasting captured enemies. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the word back to Haiti, but others suggest that "barbecue" actually comes from the French phrase "barbe a queue", which translates head-to-tail. 

If the origin of the word is vague, there is substantial documentation that before the Civil War, Southerners consumed, on average, five pounds of pork for every one pound of beef. Though some Southerners may still have a predilection for pork, when it comes to good BBQ, it doesn’t really matter what meat you are preparing.
While the tradition of the neighborhood barbecue was well-established during the colonial period, it was during the fifty years prior to the Civil War when plantation owners regularly held large and festive barbecues, including "pig pickin's" for slaves, that the BBQ tradition was born.

In the nineteenth century, barbecue was a feature at church picnics and political rallies as well as at private parties. It still is today. The early restaurants grew out of a simple barbecue pit where the owner sold barbecue to take away. Many of the pit men only opened on weekends. The typical barbecue shack consisted of a bare concrete floor surrounded by a corrugated tin roof and walls. Later, stools and tables were added. Few pit men owned more than one restaurant, and few expert pit men were willing to share the secret of their recipes and sauce preparations.

If you are a devotee of barbecue, with its succulent taste and juices, these recipes from Guys Seasoning will make your next picnic, party or rally memorable. You all come back and visit us again because we plan to add more and more of our recipe favorites. If you have a recipe you’d like to share, please send it to brad@guysseasoning.com. We’d love to add your favorites to ours!