Continued from Page 1

Then There Was
Hot Smoking

However, the knowledge of curing meat had preceded them. Native Americans were already drying and smoking meat and fish, usually without salt, because it was a scarce commodity. Their method entailed long periods of smoking at temperatures well below 90 degrees. Cold smoking deposits bactericides and further dries the meat preventing bacteria and enzymes the opportunity to survive and multiply.

Barbecuing Comes
To The Americas

Because there was a scarcity of salt and plenty of pigs, the pioneers of the Carolinas were forced to cook the whole hog, rather than smoke and preserve it. Their method, adapted from the indigenous Indians, was to build a frame of wood with wooden cross members to support the hog and cook it at a low temperature 180-220 for two major reasons. First, and foremost, if the heat got too high, the frame would burn and break, and the whole hog would drop, unceremoniously, into the ashes. Secondly, if the temperature of the coals was too hot, the outside of the hog would burn before the inside could get done. Now, this just suited the lifestyle of the North Carolinians at that time. It didn't matter that it took 24 hours to cook a hog. They were richer in time than any thing except hogs.

Barbecue flourished in the backwoods, where time clocks ran a century slow. And eventually, it crept into towns and cities, but by the back door. Still, it was a flavor and texture, that once tasted, forever altered the taste buds and those exposed never forgot the experience. In the Southeast, you could always find barbecue and barbecuers. If you lacked the time and had the resources, a local Ol' baster would come out, construct a primitive pit and perform the chore for a pittance and grazing rights.

Coming Of Age Or
We Be Barbecue’n

When barbecue crossed the Mississippi River, it ceased to mean predominately pork. But meat was still cooked as it should be, around 200 degrees, over glowing embers in an open pit. In the 1950's, welders blossomed and welding shops sprung up like daisies on a new lawn. The ubiquitous 55 gal. drum was cut and welded into thousands of grill designs, the most common being sliced in half lengthwise and mounted on legs. This was fine for broiling ‘burgers and steaks and weiners, but required some knowledge and skill to barbecue with.

First of all, the coals were too close to the meat. Secondly, you couldn't easily replenish the coals without disturbing the meat. The experienced, put their coals on one end, near a small door and put the meat on the rest of the meat grate to barbecue. Many who know how to barbecue, built their own or had built for them, grills that kept the meat over the coals and allowed easy replenishment of the coals. The design usually allowed for bringing closer or separating further the coals and the meat, so that the fire grate could be brought up close for broiling and removed for barbecuing.

Then, somewhere out west, a dastardly deed was done. Somebody mounted a firebox on the end of a grill shaped like a sliced 55 gal. drum and gave birth to the notorious "sidewinder" cooker. Like its namesake the desert rattler, the design spread poison about the land. Because of this devious design, the smoke of wood burned in the firebox usually went right up to the top of the cooking chamber and harmlessly out the exhaust, misplaced at the top of the cooking chamber.

Continued on Page 3

Smoky's 5th basic position for really great barbecue'n.

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