Читать книгу BBQ For Dummies - Carey Bringle - Страница 20

Barbecue is a cultural phenomenon second only to apple pie or baseball. You don’t get more American than barbecue, and that comes in many different shapes and forms all around this great country. Barbecue’s popularity has spread across the United States; it’s not just the four premier regions anymore. Here are some examples:

 Alabama: North Alabama has become a staple in the barbecue world, defined by the white sauce applied to a smoked chicken or turkey.Alabama white sauce was made famous by Big Bob Gibson in Decatur, Alabama. (I include his restaurant in my ten-best list in Chapter 20.) It has a mayonnaise base and is thinned with either white vinegar or apple cider vinegar. The other ingredients include black pepper, maybe lemon juice, and sometimes sugar.You can find many variations on Alabama white sauce with various ingredients — check Chapter 13 for my recipe. Experiment on your own and see what stands out to you.

 Georgia: Georgia now has its own barbecue community defined by a mixture of different styles. Texas, West Tennessee, and Kansas City styles are all present in the Georgia market.

 Kentucky: Kentucky has its own unique take on barbecue — mutton defines Kentucky barbecue to a T. Simply put, mutton is lamb barbecue, and it’s unique to Kentucky.The lamb is slow-smoked just like a pork shoulder, a whole hog, or even a brisket, and it’s often pulled and coated with sauce. When Kentuckians have leftover mutton barbecue, they make burgoo, a stew made with mutton barbecue very much in the tradition of Brunswick stew, which was born out of South Carolina barbecue.

I could go on to name almost every state in the country and talk about the different styles of barbecue there. You find distinct barbecue styles from California to New York. People have the barbecue bug, and they’re coming up with their own spin on what was once a very narrowly defined American tradition. Generally, barbecue in states that aren’t defined by a particular region or a particular style are an amalgamation of multiple styles of barbecue.

The abundance of different styles of barbecue — more than you can count — gives the citizens of the United States the unique opportunity to try a new style in almost every state they visit. Barbecue, simply put, is a great American tradition no matter which way you slice it or pull it.