Savage barbecue : race, culture, and the invention of America's first food / Andrew Warnes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Warnes, Andrew, 1974-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Barbecuing--United States--History.

Barbecuing.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

xii, 206 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Athens, Ga. : University of Georgia Press, [2008]

Summary:

And, especially in the American South, it can cause intense debate and stir regional pride. Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that the roots of this food tradition are often misunderstood. In Savage Barbecue, Andrew Warnes traces what he calls America's first food through early transatlantic literature and culture.

Barbecue, says Warnes, is an invented tradition. Much like Thanksgiving, it has close associations with frontier mythologies of ruggedness and relaxation. Starting with Columbus's journals in 1492, Warnes shows how the perception of barbecue evolve from Spanish colonists' first fateful encounter with natives roasting iguanas and fish over fires on the beaches of Cuba. European colonists linked the new food to a savagery they perceived in American Indians, ensnaring barbecue in a growing web of racist attitudes about the New World. Warnes also unearths barbecue's etymological origins, including the early form barbacoa; its coincidental similarity to barbaric reinforced emerging stereotypes.

Barbecue, as it arose in early transatlantic culture, had less to do with actual native practices than with a European desire to define those practices as barbaric. The word barbecue retains an element of violence that can be seen in our culture to this day.

Contents:

1 From Barbacoa to Barbecue: An Invented Etymology 12

2 London Broil 50

3 Pit Barbecue Present and Past 88

4 Barbecue between the Lines 137.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-199) and index.

ISBN:

9780820328966

0820328960

9780820331096

0820331090

OCLC:

181602028