Barbecue: A HistoryTimMiller. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

Abstract

Barbecue: A History Tim Miller. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.Barbecue: A History by Tim Miller is an interesting addition to Rowman & Littlefield's excellent The Meals Series, which is edited by Ken Albala and discusses various aspects of breakfast, lunch, and dinner -three daily rituals that most of us take for granted- in the context of everyday life and culture. As it turns out, the history of barbecuing is almost as messy as eating a plate of barbecued spare ribs.There are two traditional methods of barbecuing, which Miller defines - firstly, by cooking the meat in a pit at temperatures for many hours and, secondly, by grilling the meat over a naked flame for perhaps only a few minutes. Furthermore, many people categorize anything that has been smothered in barbecue sauce also as barbecue. As far as the history of barbecuing in the USA is concerned, the low and slow method of barbecuing is most popular in the South where it originated during the time of slavery, while flame grilling is most popular in the North and is linked to nineteenth-century cowboy culture. Traditionally, barbecues were highly sociable occasions that were usually held outdoors and often involved very large groups of people.Tim Miller discusses the most popular types of meat to barbecue-pork, beef, chicken, and mutton-as well as some regional delicacies, such as armadillo (yuck!). One advantage of barbecuing the low and slow way is that even the cheapest and toughest cuts of meat can taste good if they are cooked correctly. He also talks about barbecue sauces (pointing out that some purists will not serve them because they don't think they are necessary) and the most popular side dishes to eat with barbecued meat, including potato salad and corn on the cob. In my opinion, this section of the book should read more like a traditional recipe book than it does. However, because recipes published after 1928 are still protected by copyright in the USA, Miller was unable to transcribe them verbatim and had to describe them instead. This makes taste testing some of the more interesting-sounding dishes and sauces for oneself virtually impossible. While admittedly it is a history book and not a cookbook, giving the reader this extra opportunity might have been a lot of fun.The author traces the evolution of barbecue restaurants in North America from one-of-a-kind primitive shacks where the customers would eat their barbecued meat by the side of the road, to national chains of identical restaurants such as Famous Dave's, which has 188 restaurants in thirty-four American states and one Canadian province. …