Who Invented the Barbeque?

It’s one of history’s greatest mysteries: who invented the barbeque? Where, and why, and when was it invented? It seems that everybody wants a piece of the world’s favorite slow-cooked meat process.

One of the reasons it is hard to tell exactly who invented the barbeque is because people have been cooking meat over fire for as long as people have been cooking meat.

What is known for certain is that in the late 1800s, American cowboys were doing an early version of barbeque. Barbecue’s association with the American west is no accident.

• Long Western cattle drives and camp-outs in the middle of nowhere led to plenty of time for slow-cooking and experimentation with flavors.

• When you consider the fact that the cowboys usually lived on tough, stringy meat while out on the drives, it makes sense that they would develop the habit of letting the meat get tender over the fire for hours and hours of the day.

Barbeque is usually defined as the process of using fire to slow-cook meat; but, it also involves the use of smoke and special seasonings to add the signature flavor everyone knows and loves.

Other Words for Barbeque

The cowboy word "barbeque" doesn’t tell the whole story of who invented the word "barbeque." The word “barbeque” itself has uncertain origins:

• Some people claim it refers to a Native American word, “barbacoa,” that translated roughly to “meat smoking apparatus.”
• Others trace it back to the French expression “Barbe a queue” which means “whiskers to tail.” (That seems to be a coincidence more than any sort of logical connection, but linguistic history certainly has seen stranger things).