Back to BBQ Beginnings?

Posted by Dr. Tom Hanchett, staff historian on November 2 2009

Our New South BBQ bus tour this weekend features not one but two restaurants that give a taste of BBQ's beginnings.

Some scholars trace barbecue back to Mexican barbacoa. In this traditional cooking method, coals are placed in a pit, then damp cactus leaves are layered on, then meat, then more cactus leaves. Everything is covered, and the meat steams in the warm damp, creating a very tender dish.

At Cocina Latina, 5135 Albemarle Road in Charlotte, we'll meet Fausta Salvatierra and her sons who began cooking barbacoa on weekends about four years ago. They use lamb, the favorite in their home state of Hidalgo. It's become so popular that barbacoa now graces the menu seven days a week.

A different explanation of BBQ's origins traces it to the Taino Indians in the Caribbean, first described by Christopher Columbus in 1492. The Taino cooked their meat on raised platforms of sticks made of pimenta wood.

We'll visit Leanda Pereira at Taste of the Caribbean, 3117 N. Sharon- Amity. Recently arrived from Trinidad, she makes jerk BBQ with a rub that she blends by hand. The key ingredient? Pimenta seeds.

Which is the true origin of barbecue? Come along on the tour, and put the evidence to your own taste-test.

Tricia Childress, food writer for Creative Loafing and Johnson & Wales professor, joins me to help lead 2 bus tours: one scheduled for 6pm Friday and the other at 11am on Saturday. We'll travel Charlotte's new ethnic suburbs and further explore how in the last two decades, the once-isolated South has become a magnet for newcomers - many bringing their own wonderful ways of cooking 'cue.

This is the fourth year for this popular event, and in addition to those mentioned above, we'll try Vietnamese BBQ at Ben Thanh, and Salvadoran papusas at El Pulgarcito.

Cost is $30 for Museum members and $35 for non members; includes meal, transportation and program. Seating is limited - for reservations call 704-333-1887 ext. 501 or email us at rsvp@museumofthenewsouth.org.