It is certainly evident that from the beginning, man has cooked meat over open fires as well as in pits of various forms. The ancient Hebrews used an alter which was used for religious ritual sacrifice as well as for a cooking device for the animal sacrificed, thus providing meat for the priesthood. Homer's Iliad describes outdoor roasting and spitting of various animals. One of modern America's favorite view and recreation of the dark ages is that of the king's court feasts with spit cooked meat. However, despite these and numerous other evidences of similar cooking styles, it was not until the Spanish landed in America that the word "barbacoa", meaning a framework on which to store or hang items, was associated with the smoking of meat. The natives of the Caribbean hung meat on a wooden rack to dry while the smoke kept away insects and help preserve the meat.
It is a fact that many of those natives were taken for slaves and many eventually were placed in servitude on plantations in the southern portion of the emerging nation of the United States. This is where the concept of taking poorer quality cuts of meat and slow cooking them to make them tender was developed as the better portions of the animal were always reserved for the white master. It is then also not surprising that much of today's barbecue owes its existence to those individuals who continued the cooking traditions handed down from their ancestors and were eventually rediscovered in the twentieth century and now enjoy tremendous popularity.
Modern barbecue has many forms, from rapid cooking of meats and vegetables over hot charcoal (attributed to Henry Ford), to the slow smoking of meats that have been sugar and or salt cured, to the Hawaiian pit type method of roasting pig or the Texas style spit cooked steer. These forms of cooking, though very different, are all known collectively as barbecue. Therefore, it must be concluded that the barbecue of today has become more than a method of preserving or cooking meat, but a social event that involves some form of outdoor cooking, probably with sweet savored woods, and produces meat and vegetable that satisfies the palate and brings us close to our ancestors in spirit. There seems to be no satisfaction like presenting the final work of art as dressed and prepared. Those who taste modern barbecue are as thankful as the ancients must have been as they thanked their God for that which they received.