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Barbecue sauce
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Barbecue sauce (also abbreviated BBQ sauce) is a liquid flavoring sauce or condiment ranging from watery to quite thick. 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 ribs and chicken.[1] On rarer occasions, 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 smokey 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.
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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.[4]
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.[5] Kraft Foods also started making cooking oils with bags of spices attached, supplying another market entrance of barbecue sauce.[6]
Many restaurants have speciality barbecue sauces.
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.[7] Mexican salsa can also used as a base for barbecue sauces.
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.
The U.S. has a wide variety of differing barbecue sauce tastes:
- Memphis - The center of Southern pork barbecue, Memphis sauces occupy the middle ground between other styles. Based on tomatoes, vinegar, brown sugar and spices, but not too thick, these blends provide moderate amounts of sweet, heat, and tang, with a lot of flavor.[8][9]
- Kansas City – thick, reddish-brown, tomato-based with molasses[10]
- 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)[11]
- 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
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.
- ^ Michelle Moran, The Gourmet Retailer (2005-03-01). Category Analysis: Condiments. Retrieved on 2006-11-01.
- ^ DeWitt and Gerlach (2001). Barbecue Inferno: Cooking with Chile Peppers on the Grill, 24. ISBN 1-58008-154-1.
- ^ Bob Garner (1996). North Carolina Barbecue: Flavored by Time, 160. ISBN 0-89587-152-1.
- ^ Lake E. High, Jr.. A Very Brief History of the Four Types of Barbeque Found In the USA (HTML). Associated Content. Retrieved on 2006-10-10.
- ^ A Market Evaluation of Barbecue Sauces (PDF). Retrieved on 2006-10-11.
- ^ Bruce Bjorkman (1996). The Great Barbecue Companion: Mops, Sops, Sauces, and Rubs, 112. ISBN 0-89594-806-0.
- ^ Essortment barbecue sauce recipes. Retrieved on 2006-10-11.
- ^ Memphis Style Barbecue
- ^ Memphis Style Barbecue Sauce
- ^ Different Regional Styles of Barbeque Sauce Converge in the Midwest (HTML 4.01). Associated Content (June 28, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-10-10.
- ^ Barbeque joints can be found across state (HTML). Gwinett Daily Post (November 11, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-11-16.