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Barbecue is one of the ancient styles of cooking where one makes use of fire and smoke to cook food over a grill. With the invention of barbecue as a method of cooking back in the 14h century, it got most of us to believe that barbecue sauce was perhaps discovered around the same time. Well, that’s not true. Barbecue sauce was invented centuries later when people felt a need to slathered their dishes with tantalising sauces that would enrich it with extra flavours. Before we dig into the history, let’s look at how it’s made. Barbecue sauce is a well-known smoky sauce that is used as a marinade, basting, condiment in the culinary world. It is now a ubiquitous sauce that imparts a smoky, earthy and rustic flavours to dishes like chicken, beef or pork roasted over charcoal. It is whipped up with usual ingredients like vinegar, sugar, tomato paste and mayonnaise, which is further smoked with liquid smoke and flavoured with aromatic seasoning.
History of this piquant sauce:
The origin of barbecue sauce dates back to the time when the American colonies were first set up in the 17th century. This led to the use of references of this sweet and spicy sauce in French and English literature over the next two hundred years. The first variety of the sauce was known as South Carolina mustard sauce, which can be traced back to German settlers in the 18th century. Initially, barbecue sauces were made of just a handful of ingredients such as vinegar, salt and pepper. In the 1920s, sugar, ketchup and Worcestershire sauce started to be used during its preparation. After world war two, the quantity of sugar and the number of ingredients increased dramatically. An early commercially produced barbecue sauce was advertised by the Georgia Barbecue Sauce Company of Atlanta in 1909. Heinz, an American food processing company, was the first one to sell bottled barbecue sauce in 1940. In the wake of innovation, many companies begin to enter the market after this. In the 1960s, Kraft food entered the market and with heavy advertising, they succeeded in becoming the market leader at that time. At present, every country has their own variety of barbecue sauce. Each one differs from the other in terms of taste, flavour and cooking technique.
It’s the barbecue season so gear up yourself to whip up this sauce with everything you have in your pantry. Click here to check out a recipe.
