Michael Twitty: Barbecue is an American tradition – of enslaved Africans and Native Americans
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/04/barbecue-american-tradition-enslaved-africans-native-americans?CMP=share_btn_tw
The common cultural narrative of barbecue, however, exclusively assigns its origins to Native Americans and Europeans; the very etymology of the word is said to derive from both Carib through Spanish (barbacoa – to roast over hot coals on a wooden framework) or from western European sources (barbe-a-queue in French – “head to tail” – which fits nicely with contemporary ideas of no-waste eating and consuming offal). Some American barbecue masters have taken to attributing the innovation of barbecue to their German and Czech ancestors.
If anything, both in etymology and culinary technique, barbecue is as African as it is Native American and European, though enslaved Africans have largely been erased from the modern story of American barbecue. At best, our ancestors are seen as mindless cooking machines who prepared the meat under strict white supervision, if at all; at worst, barbecue was something done “for” the enslaved, as if they were being introduced to a novel treat. In reality, they shaped the culture of New World barbecuing traditions, from jerking in Jamaica to anticuchos in Peru to cooking traditions in the colonial Pampas. And the word barbecue also has roots in West Africa among the Hausa, who used the term “babbake” to describe a complex of words referring to grilling, toasting, building a large fire, singeing hair or feathers and cooking food over a long period of time over an extravagant fire.
In the earliest colonial days, the West Indies served as a seed colonies for the presence of enslaved Africans in the New World especially because, within 10 years of European arrival, indigenous Americans endured mass, genocidal losses due to the introduction of diseases common in Europe. With only a few remaining Carib and Arawak indigenes, Africans quickly became the majority on the islands and, eventually, the Southeastern coast (where many island colonists resettled in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, often with their enslaved people in tow).
I first came upon Michael Twitty when he wrote an open letter to Paul Deen (which I thought was the best response to the fiasco).
http://afroculinaria.com/2013/06/25/an-open-letter-to-paula-deen/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Twitty is aptly named.
(Sorry, couldn't help it...)
might as well up the ante some...
Happy 4th cherokeeprogressive!
BBQ is slow cooked brisket served with beans, onion slices, pickles and white bread. The sauce is poured over the brisket after being sliced, not during cooking. There will be a basting sauce. Usually some will do sausages, pork, chicken but the crowning pièce de résistance is the brisket.
People need to stop trying to own this method of cooking. When you are in the Carolinas enjoy pork BBQ, when in Texas brisket, when in Mexico barbacoa and when in Connecticut 
hot dogs and burgers. If you argue with the cook that what they are preparing is not BBQ you are a most ungracious guest and will no doubt not convince anyone that you are right- just have convinced them you are a boor. Even if you are right remember no one wants to hear from Dr. Sheldon Cooper.
Bar over the initials BQ, as on a branding iron.
