If there's one issue that
divides barbecue fans more deeply than any other, it's the kind of
sauce that should be served on the meat - if, indeed, a sauce is to
be served on it at all. Though it inspires passionate argument, the
colorful variety of regional sauces - peppery vinegar-based in
eastern North Carolina, orange tomato-based in Kansas City, yellow
mustard in South Carolina - is actually a rather recent phenomenon.
Regional sauce variations
originated in the early 20th century with the rise of barbecue
restaurants. Before then, barbecue sauce was pretty much the same
from state to state. It was generally not a condiment applied at the
table, but rather used to baste the meat just before it was served.
From Virginia to Texas,
19th century accounts of barbecues are remarkably similar in their
descriptions of the sauce. In 1882, a reporter from the Baltimore Sun
visited a Virginia barbecue and noted male cooks mopping the meat
with "a gravy of butter, salt, vinegar, and black pepper."
A guest at a San Antonio barbecue in 1883 recorded the sauce as,
"Butter, with a mixture of pepper, salt, and vinegar." In
1884, the Telegraph and Messenger of Macon, Georgia, described the
sauce of noted barbecue cook Berry Eubanks of Columbus as, "made
of homemade butter, seasoned with red pepper from the garden and
apple vinegar."
Similar descriptions can
be found of sauces in Kentucky and the Carolinas, too. Sweeteners -
be they brown sugar, molasses, or honey - were notably absent from
any 19th-century formulas.
Based on these
descriptions, could one conclude that the eastern North
Carolina–style sauce - which consists of vinegar, salt, black and
red peppers, and not a trace of sugar - is the closest to the
original? I'll let readers decide for themselves; that's not an
argument I want to get in the middle of.
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