Author All Fired Up Over Barbecue

When George Washington lost his first election for a seat in the House of Burgesses, there was a reason, says Steven Raichlen.

"He didn't provide refreshments (at the polls) and refreshments meant--barbecue."

Raichlen, it might be said, took his cues from Washington's oversight. Despite a string of successful cookbooks on other topics, barbecue has brought Raichlen the kind of celebrity that lands you gigs on public television, more cookbooks and appearances each year at the Food & Wine Magazine Classic at Aspen, Colo., where he gives one of the more user-friendly demonstrations.

"What's amazing about barbecue," he says, "is how deeply embedded it is in the American social fabric." Raichlen defines barbecue as "live fire cooking."

American barbecue, he says in his book, differed in its "deliberate and controlled use of smoke and spices as flavorings and in the use of a pit and raised grate for the food." One of the first references to barbecue was an early law in Virginia banning the "discharge of firearms" at barbecues, which often became wild and woolly affairs with alcohol consumption.

The history of barbecue is a revealing look at how America has grown and changed. First, he says, it was a social activity for wealthy plantation owners. In 1784, notes Raichlen in his cookbook, Lawrence Butler, an Englishman visiting America, wrote to friends, "I am continually at Balls & Barbecues." After George Washington laid the cornerstone of the Capitol in 1793, the assembled group, which included Washington, dined on a barbecued 500-pound ox.

From the backyard venue of the wealthy, it was a natural leap to political fund-raiser. William Henry Harrison attracted 30,000 voters to one colossal barbecue in Virginia.

Because the slaves were often the cooks at the barbecue, says Raichlen, it followed that after the Civil War, when many of them moved north, barbecue moved north with them. What once was a community activity, says Raichlen, became an individual experience, as people began opening barbecue restaurants.

There were two advances that led to barbecuing as we know it now.

Henry Ford, with a little help from friend Thomas Edison, used wood scraps from his car factory to make charcoal. The first customers for the newly minted briquette were mostly blacksmiths.

The second advance came from a metal worker named George Stephen, who worked for a company called Weber Brothers Metal Works. Frustrated with flat grills, Stephen fashioned two metal bowls into the kettle grill. It allowed indirect cooking with a vent system for airflow. But if everything is in the timing, Stephen was really successful, says Raichlen, "because of the movement to the suburbs," where it became an American pastime.

In true American spirit, competition began to spring up, furthering the cause, says Raichlen. But it was food essayist Calvin Trillin "who gave barbecue a serious audience of foodies. About 25 years ago, it became a cult food."

The gas grill, says Raichlen, added another dimension to the art of barbecue. "It made it chic," he says, even though some people still swear by their charcoal grill.

Back in the days when people traveled less, the fight over who had the best barbecue sauce was strictly regional. The fight moved nationwide with the advent of chains bringing "Memphis-style" barbecue, for instance, to the folks in Montana, but eventually the food became so generic that even non-barbecue restaurants were serving barbecued ribs to the masses.

"The chain restaurants took it to a common-denominator level," he says, blurring the regional distinctions. If you want the authentic version, he says, you have to seek it out in its place of origin. "Barbecue remains profoundly regional," he says, "and that's a good thing."

(Contact Marty Meitus of the Rocky Mountain News at www.rockymountainnews.com.)