Barbecue sauce

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The St. Louis barbecue style of preparation involves slow open grilling until done, then simmering in a pan of barbecue sauce that is placed on the grill.

Barbecue sauce (also abbreviated BBQ sauce) is a liquid flavoring sauce or condiment ranging from watery to quite thick consistency. As the name implies, it was created as an accompaniment to barbecued foods. While it can be applied to any food, it usually tops meat after cooking or during barbecuing, grilling, or baking. Traditionally it has been a favored sauce for pork or beef ribs and chicken.^[1] Less often, it is used for dipping items like fries, as well as a replacement for tomato sauce in barbecue-style pizzas. In some barbecue circles, it is frowned upon to add any condiment, including barbecue sauce, to barbecued food,^[2] while others argue that barbecue sauce is central to the barbecue experience.

Barbecue sauces may combine sour, sweet, spicy, and tangy ingredients or focus on a particular flavor alone. It sometimes carries with it a smoky flavor. The ingredients vary, but some commonplace items are tomato paste, vinegar, spices, and sweeteners. These variations are often due to regional traditions and recipes.

History

The precise origin of barbecue sauce is unclear. Some put back its history hundreds of years to the formation of the first American colonies in the 17th century^[3]. References to the substance start occurring in both English and French literature over the next two hundred years. South Carolina mustard sauce, a type of barbecue sauce, can be traced to German settlers in the 18th century.

Early cookbooks did not tend to include recipes for barbecue sauce. The first commercially-produced barbecue sauce was made by the Louis Maull co. in 1926, but the first nationally distributed barbecue sauce did not appear until 1948, when Heinz released a product in the United States.^[4] Kraft Foods also started making cooking oils with bags of spices attached, supplying another market entrance of barbecue sauce.^[5]

Many restaurants have speciality barbecue sauces.

Variations

Bottles of a tomato based barbecue sauce from the American Mid-West: Maull's

Different geographical regions have allegiances to their particular styles and variations for barbecue sauce. For example, vinegar and mustard-based barbecue sauces are popular in certain areas of the southern United States, while in Asian countries a ketchup and corn syrup-based sauce is common. Mexican salsa can also be used as a base for barbecue sauces.

Australia

In Australia, barbecue sauce can be simply a blend of tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauce. There are various sauces in the market from fruity to brown sauce.

United States

Hunt's barbecue sauce. A nationally distributed sauce brand, of standardized flavor.

The U.S. has a wide variety of differing barbecue sauce tastes:

• Memphis - Memphis sauces occupy the middle ground between other styles. Based on tomatoes, vinegar, brown sugar and spices and moderately thick, these blends provide moderate amounts of sweetness, heat, and tang, with a lot of flavor.^[6][7]
• Kansas City – thick, reddish-brown, tomato-based with molasses
• St. Louis – generally tomato-based, thinned with vinegar, sweet and spicy; it is not as sweet and thick as Kansas City-style barbecue sauce, nor as spicy-hot and thin as Texas-style
• North Carolina – three major types corresponding to region: Eastern (vinegar with pepper flakes), Piedmont (tomato-based with vinegar), and Western (tomato-based and thicker)
• South Carolina – mustard-based (central, Low Country regions of state), vinegar and black pepper (Pee Dee region), light or thick tomato (Upstate region)^[8]
• Alabama – vinegar and pepper base in the northern counties; tomato/ketchup base with Mediterranean influences in the Birmingham area; sharper, unsweetened tomato/vinegar blend in the western counties around Tuscaloosa; mustard-based in the Chattahoochee River valley in the eastern part of the state; a special white mayonnaise and black pepper-based sauce is used on chicken in the area around Decatur
• Georgia – much of the state favors a ketchup base flavored with the likes of garlic, onion, black pepper, brown sugar, and occasionally bourbon; South Carolina-like mustard sauce found in areas around Savannah and Columbus
• Arkansas – thin vinegar and tomato base, spiced with pepper and slightly sweetened by molasses
• Texas – tomato-based with hot chiles, cumin, less sweet
• Chicago-Strong smell and flavor
• Mississippi - thin tomato base, spiced with pepper. Used on everything from Chicken, Pork, Beef, and Fish.

Asia

Hoisin sauce, a type of Chinese style barbecue sauce, serves as a base ingredient in many other recipes for Chinese barbecue sauces.

Tandoori Chicken is an Indian dish which uses a spicy, yogurt-based barbecue sauce.

Teriyaki is a Japanese style grill, traditionally fish, using a sweet soya sauce marinade (tare in Japanese) before and during the grilling process. The marinade sauce is simply known as Teriyaki Sauce in the westen world.

Wikibooks Cookbook has an article on

Barbecue sauce

See also

• Condiment
• Marination
• Basting
• Regional variations of barbecue
• Barbacoa
• Tailgate party

References

External links