I originally submitted this article as a guest blogger for the wonderful www.BBQHub.com, a great BBQ resource. Thought I would share it for my readers. It explains in great detail and irrefutable logic why BBQ is the most bestest thing of all, ever.
What is barbecue? Let’s begin by understanding what it is not. For generations we have cooked meat for our consumption. This is not BBQ. Barbecue was born out of a social event. Thousands of years ago Noog clubbed a rodent and threw it over a flame. Not a BBQ. One day someone happened to be walking by Noog’s cave at the right time, perhaps carrying a freshly-made batch of cole slaw or maybe a pecan pie. The first BBQ.
Barbecue is not simply preparing meat over flame for the mere sake of consumption. It means we must invite others to witness the event. It means we must painstakingly go through our specific and particular steps to prepare, condition and cook the meal. It also means that our crowd of witnesses are encouraging us and ensuring we never have an empty beer.
I tend to be a purist as to what truly defines BBQ. To me it means preparing the meat with a dry rub, slow-cooking it in a smoker, and finishing it by basting with any variety of secret sauces. It should take all day and it should not involve dunking the meat in boiling water. But that’s me. I won’t argue with someone who likes to “barbecue steaks.” If this past Labor Day you invited friends and family over to “barbecue some hamburgers and hot dogs,” I would defend your decision and choice of words from the top of the Rocky Mountains. After all, nobody less than my own beloved Father has been known to extol the virtues of marinating a top sirloin in BBQ sauce, grilling it to perfection then enjoying it with a side of, you guessed it, BBQ sauce. Who am I to tell my Father that he’s got it all wrong?
So if you want to call it a BBQ you’ll get no argument from me as long as the act is not done in isolation. For if a man barbecues alone in the forest, is he really barbecuing? And is he really a man?
To the BBQ snobs out there I say if it contributes to the collective joy of the Q then it is a good thing even if it’s sideways with your rigid idiosyncrasies. After all, life is much more tolerable because of BBQ. I believe God wants us to be happy, and BBQ is proof of that. Imagine life without BBQ, or as I call it, Hell:
The most obvious consequence of a BBQ-less world is that the earth would be run by two warring factions, Cows and Pigs. Humans would be the Manatees of that world. Odd, cute creatures relegated to zoos and shallow waters where we would be given three meals a day of corn flakes or get run over by bovine fishing expeditions. Oh sure the pigs would be sympathetic since we share some genetic material, but it wouldn’t be genuine. We all know swine are incapable of true love. I would rebel against our patronizing pig captors! Let’s all throw our feces at them!!!
Also in a world sans-BBQ there would be a radical geographic and demographic realignment. Kansas and Nebraska would be known for corn – only. Texas would be a far less proud place. The Carolinas would only come up in conversations about March Madness or Senior PGA tournaments. Memphis would cease to exist. With no Memphis there would be no Elvis. With no Elvis there would be no 1960’s counter-weight to the British rock invasion. The culinary hole left by BBQ would be filled with fish n’ chips and mushy peas. I would rather be in my cage with a steady diet of corn flakes thank you very much.
And finally, without BBQ domestic beer would be un-drinkable. I mean really, let’s be honest. You know it, and I know it. America’s worst contribution to the world was taking perfectly good beer and watering it down. Just like real BBQ uses smoke, real beer uses hops. If you don’t like craft beer because it’s bitter, then you don’t like beer period. You should stick with malt beverages made for women but inexplicably marketed to men (I’m looking at you Mike’s Hard Lemonade. You’re fooling nobody).
We all know that BBQ is good, and with my compelling and irrefutable logic I have just proven as much. So let us soldier on, Brothers in BBQ, and carry the banner high. Regardless of the region, the sauce ingredients or the method of preparation we should all “Eat more Q!” As we enter this post-Labor Day period where The Man tells us to put away the grills and smokers I make a bold declaration: MORE BARBECUE PLEASE!
Colorado Jim is a BBQ Judge and Enthusiast He lives in Fort Collins with his beautiful wife and lovely children, where he has a job that would bore you to tears You can visit his website at www.NocoBBQ.com
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