Talk:Regional variations of barbecue

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Regional variations of barbecue article.
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[edit] In regards to naming conventions:

Forcing barbeque styles into state names forces this article into an artificial naming scheme that does not accurately reflect the names in most widespread use. A quick review of the web for other sites that discuss barbecue styles shows that two cities in particular, Memphis and Kansas City, are almost always referred to by the name of the city, not the name of the state. Like any good encyclopedia article, this article should attempt to accurately describe the most common styles, and should refer to them by the names that readers are likely to see or hear in articles, documentaries, etc.--Sppence 01:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missouri

In the far southeast corner of Missouri, especially in the bootheel, barbeque is much different from the rest of the state. Just as this area considers itself Southern as opposed to Midwestern, the cooking barbeque styles are very different. It is heavily influenced by Memphis style (roughly 100 miles away). Beef barbeque is even made fun of in this area. Most places that are more notorious for ribs (i.e. Dexter Barbeque [Dexter, MO] and Strawberry's [Holcolmb, MO]) are all dry rub. A barbeque sandwich is almost always chopped, never just pulled. A true Southeast Missouri example is Bill's Barbeque (Kennett, MO). However, what may be the signature sign of Bootheel Barbeque is pork steaks. People from all around the area flock to this area to get pork steaks. The ideal example of this is Strawberry's BBQ in Holcolmb. 146.95.18.236 21:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)RJB

[edit] Kansas City

The style "Kansas City" should remain separate from "Missouri". Prior to finding this article, I'd seen no other references to KC style as "Missouri". The separation of KC style from the state of Missouri is not intended as regions vs cities vs states arguement, nor does it have anything to do with Kansas City having many barbecue joints on both sides of the KS/MO line, but rather a reflection of the most common naming convention in other books, articles, etc about barbecue. A quick review of the first 30 Google results each for "barbecue styles" and for "barbecue regional styles" yeilded only 2 pages (this was one) which even mentioned "Missouri" as a sytle (the other actually listed Missouri as having two styles, "Kansas City", and "St. Louis"). Most documentaries, books, and articles I've seen on the subject of barbeque also refer to the style as "Kansas City". No book I was able to find for sale online mentioned a "Missouri" style.--Sppence 01:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I also agree Kansas City shoudl remain seperate. Quite honestly, this article also fails to point out that in the U.S. there are generally 4 main regions for BQ: Kansas City, Memphis, Texas, and Carolinas. (Carolina style-BBQ). I removed a part of the Kansas City BBQ section that says sauce is always served on the side. This is untrue as Oklahoma Joe's and various other resturants serve sauce on top of the meat. And of curse if you ask them to at Bryant's they can put the other sauce on there before its served.68.25.130.156 Kcuello (talk) 14:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Memphis / Tennessee

Perhaps someone with significant knowledge of Memphis style should consider separating this into its own style. The majority of barbeque articles, websites, documentaries, etc. that I've seen refer to Memphis as its own style.--Sppence 01:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The Memphis section lists a lot of restaurants, and I've personally eaten in nearly all of them (I know, primary research and all, but you can't eat books!). We should probably remove any establishment that's not been reviewed by three or more national or international press outlets, which would leave us with Rendezvous, Cozy Corner, Payne's, Interstate, Neely's, and (whether it's considered corporate/suburban or not, which it is) Corky's. Restaurants that have opened in the last 15 years or are basically vanity boutique catering operations of multi-contest winning BBQ teams should be listed in either the Yellow Pages or a separate article on BBQ contests.Bridgman 11:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming conventions

I've started an article on Kansas City barbecue so it can offer more detail. So that our naming conventions I was wondering if folks had an opinion on the article name (e.g., Kansas City barbecue or Kansas City-style barbecue or something else) --Americasroof 13:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Georgia

It looks to me like the Georgia section of the article is getting pretty long. Someone with better knowledge of the region than I should probably give it an objective review and reconsider the inclusion of anything, well, non-encyclopedic. If all (or at least a significant portion) of it is kosher, then it may be time to spawn off a "main article" on Georgia-style barbecue. For pointers on this, I highly suggest seeing the section and main article on Kansas City-style barbecue. Either way, the section on Georgia in this article should be pared down, if it gets it's own article or not. Anyone feel up to the task? --Reverend Loki 20:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)


Removed two statements in this section which were out of tone with the encyclopedic nature of the article. (One interjectory statement regarding barbecue in Atlanta, and one self-aggrandizing statement (a user stating that his own homemade barbecue was among "the most famous" in Georgia) 69.73.11.225 00:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BBQ noun vs. verb

I think that there needs to be a single page that describes the specific cuisine of American BBQ. I am not saying that American BBQ is the only "real" BBQ, I am saying that it is a distinct topic. Maybe the title of the article should be American BBQ - and only contain mention of hot smoked slow cooked meats. The topic of BBQ should stay as a general page about cooking outdoors and having a party. In the US most people also say we are having a BBQ this weekend and have no intent on slow cooking a hunk of pork(this drives BBQ purists crazy..try it some time).

[edit] Naming Establishments

Should we really name various BBQ establishments? Most seem to be more opinion or advertisement than being actually noteworthy. Bcostley 01:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Pulled pork

It seems that the current version of the article on Pulled pork is exclusively about North Carolina BBQ. While there are other regional versions of pulled pork, it seems like if the Pulled pork article was re-written to reflect a broader perspective, it would be duplicative of regional differences in this article. This article seems to be much more well developed and can probably replace the pulled pork article. Thoughts? Toddstreat1 16:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

There's a lot more to barbeque than pulled pork, so this page shouldn't be eliminated. If you were to make pulled pork a redirect, it should probably redirect to barbeque rather than to this page.Warren Dew 21:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking.Toddstreat1 22:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This would be more acurately divided into two articles.

Only the section relating specifically to American barbecue deals with barbecuing (which is a verb, specifically meaning the 'slow cooking of meat with dry heat'.) The international section seems to reflect any sort of popular, localized variant on grilling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.42.181.142 (talk) 21:43, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] North Carolina

It's a common belief that North Carolina only has 2 types of BBQ. However, a more studied gourmand would know that NC has several regional variations, including a mountain-style BBQ that's smokier in flavor and tends to use much thicker Tennessee-style sauces and a southern variation that's much like South Carolina's mustard-based BBQ. Beyond this, there are dozens of individual variations and interpretations on the 2 more well-known themes. There's a version of "Eastern" NC BBQ that tends to be more widely found in the Triad area that has a mushier, more liquid consistency (Eastern BBQ tends to be extremely tender, relying on the tenderness to make it "feel" juicy).

Frankly, if one were so inclined, one could write a big article just on North Carolina BBQ. 5minutes 14:16, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Texas Section

I have added a Texas section to the main barbecue article, and added my text to the Texas section of this article, and did delete one short paragraph of the original author's text. (My addition begins with "In most of the world outside of the American South," and runs to the end of the Texas section) I did not want to completely replace the original author's text with mine as there is some really good info in it, but I believe my breakdown of the four Texas barbecue styles is more concise, better organized, and gives a more concrete understanding of the ingredients, techniques, and culural origins of each of the four styles. Obviously there is still some redundancy in our information that I would like to clean up in the future, but would like to collaborate with the original author.Mmyers1976 (talk) 20:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I looked over the original author of the Texas section's text, and while full of information interesting to serious Texas barbecue afficionados, it did not have broader encyclopedic interest. The section needed to be pared down to a short breakdown of the four main styles of Texas barbecue, briefly mentioning their different ethnic origins, meats and woods used, and serving style. Too many of the other sections have just become rambling narratives of minutia about sub-sub-sub-varieties of barbecue and reminiscences of favorite barbecue joints. In line with what Jacksinterweb has said about the article as a whole, I wanted to at least clean up the section on the barbecue I know a lot about and can provide a printed primary source for. I apologize to the person whose writing I deleted, and encourage him/her to contact me and maybe we can find a way to incorporate some of the information from the original textMmyers1976 (talk) 20:56, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BBQ in USA sections

Somewhere along the line this article has grown into a mish mash of stories about BBQ restaurants, cook offs, reviews, etc etc. Along with that it seems to lose any semblance to what the article is about, Regional Variations, NOT EVERY variation; so chcocked full of OR, POV, spam, fanciful conjecture and total lack of sources (not to mention of every possible violation of MOS) that the article is useless and confusing collection of misinformation. Every town, restaurant and cook has their own spin on BBQ but they can't all be included. Can we get some consensus to whittle this mess down to what the article is about, and keep a sharper focus on just the major styles? Jacksinterweb (talk) 15:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I was pretty surprised to find myself having to be the first to create a references section on a page that was already so long. There is a lot of extraneous information in this article - look at Florida section talking about alligator-stuffed ravioli. I'm working to clean up the Texas section. Waiting for the original author of the section to weigh in, and if he/she doesn't soon, I'll go ahead and pare it down soon. As a fellow Houstonian, feel free to keep me honest. I can't say I know that much about barbecue outside of Texas, but I think a lot of the regional differences between the southeastern state's styles (and different styles within each state) are not significant enough to justify the length devoted to describing them. These minor differences need to be more succintly described. I agree, too, that all the mention of different restaurants is unnecessary. I can understand maybe naming one restaurant that is most famous for a particular style, but it really isn't that helpful, and though there are several restaurants I could name which are representative of the Texas styles, I chose not to name them for this reason.Mmyers1976 (talk) 20:28, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
The scope of this particular article is VERY narrow. Not every variation needs to be listed. Restaurants already have their individual articles, and so should most regional cuisines (if they don't, they could). I know it hurts regional pride to accept the fact that what they think is unique to their state or city is in reality just a local twist to one of the four major styles: Carolina, Memphis, Kansas City or Texas (misnomer for Central Tx BBQ). The sauce may be tangier in Tucson, sweeter in Omaha, saltier in Seattle,etc etc, but they are still descendants of the big four. Remember, this article is not trying to describe every piece of bbq made in the USA, articles already exist that do that (or can be written). Jacksinterweb (talk) 22:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
So do you think my breakdown of Texas barbecue into 4 styles is too much? My rationale for doing so is the styles all have different roots. Only one (East Texas style) is a local twist of another style (Southeastern pulled pork). At least South Texas barbacoa, and germanic Central Texas meat market are not part of the southern barbecue lineage. If you think a treatment of the 4 different Texas styles needs its own article, I am open-minded to discussing the pros and cons.Mmyers1976 (talk) 22:34, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Florida Section Rewrite

I completely rewrote the Florida section, as it was very much lacking. It started out talking about grilling seafood, not barbecuing, and did not discuss the fact that Florida, especially the northern area, continues the southeastern pulled pork tradition. I also researched Newberry's Backyard BBQ, which the original author claimed without citation to be "one of the finest barbecue restaurants in the nation", and found that it is a fairly new restaurant (est. 1998). I found no review of the restaurant in a respected national publication, and therefore can only conclude that the mention of this restaurant is a biased endorsement by either someone associated with the restaurant or someone who really likes it. In either case, such opinion does not belong in an encyclopedia. I also added discussion of the Cuban roasted pork shoulder tradition in Dade County and surrounding areas.Mmyers1976 (talk) 21:54, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oceania and South Pacific?

Why does this article have both headings? Perhaps they should be merged to reduce confusion and to clean up the page a bit, though I don't know which should be used. Zephonith (talk) 09:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Europe

Why is there no information about europe? BBQ is very popular in many european countries like germany or greece. - 81.173.191.92 (talk) 21:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm not sure why we have any of these other headings for barbecue outside the Americas. It's really gotten out of hand. The term "barbecue" most likely comes from the Taino Indian term "barbacoa" which originated in the West Indies, and was applied by European explorers and settlers to a method of cooking common to the indigenous cultures they encountered. The method was used to cook the livestock that the Europeans brought over with them, especially swine. As European settlement spread across the mainland continent, the term and traditions continued to morph as they were influenced by and absorbed other cooking traditions. So that makes "barbecue" really a North American phenomenon, and regional variations should deal with those variations that arose from that tradition. Now of course barbecue may have been brought back to the old world and become popular there, just as Indian food was brought back to England and is now popular there, but if you were talking about variations in Indian cooking, you would confine yourself to comparing vegetarian southern Indian vs northern meat-based Indian, etc, not digress at length about the various brands of tinned curry beef available at Tesco. Also, the term "barbecue" may now be applied to popular backyard grilling in other countries, but that is just a borrowed word, not a faithfully derived cooking style. I don't think you'd include in a discussion of German regional food variations a discussion of American hamburgers just because the word is German. Also, there are many styles of cooking that are similar to barbecuing and thus could have the name applied. It's no wonder, pretty much every culture started out cooking meat directly over burning wood back in paleolithic times. But to say yakiniku or robatayaki are types of "barbecue" is culturally arrogant. Really, this article needs to be pared down to only discuss regional variations in the uniquely Caribbean-North American culinary tradition of barbecue.Mmyers1976 (talk) 19:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)