Cooking Contests: Barbecue

The origins of competition barbecue in the United States are as futilely sought and almost as frequently debated as the site of the “first” barbecue. Like barbecue itself, barbecue competitions are a simple concept that likely evolved in multiple locations, at multiple times, whenever one person said to another, “My barbecue is better than yours.”

Indeed, many cultures celebrate the slaughter of an animal with a festival or feast. There are doubtless many material and social reasons for this phenomenon. Practically speaking, beasts are large and feed many people. The hours, and sometimes days, it takes to slowly roast an animal demand many hands to tend the meat and many more to eat the finished product. In days before refrigeration and especially in tropical climates such as Papua New Guinea or the Philippines, animal slaughter demanded immediate cooking and consumption, as meat would quickly begin to spoil, necessitating large gatherings. In cooler climates, of course, meat could be preserved by drying or salting. But beyond these material reasons, meat is a high-status, celebratory, and celebrated food. Whether celebrating the sacrifice of the animal as early as ancient times, the passage of the spirit of the animal, as in some tribal traditions, or man’s accomplishment in slaying a beast, as in a bullfight, roasting meat brings people together.