This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
In the South, barbecue isn’t a backyard cookout, and it isn’t burgers on the grill. It’s meat cooked low and slow over wood or coals, for hours, until it falls apart on its own. What kind of meat, what you put on it, and how it’s cooked depends a lot on where you’re standing. Here’s where Southern barbecue came from and how it split into the regional styles people still argue over.
Where the word comes from
The word barbecue most likely comes from barbacoa, a term that Spanish colonizers adopted from the Taíno people of the Caribbean. It described a wooden frame used to cook meat slowly over a fire, and it first appeared in print in Spanish in 1526. The word and the method traveled into the South, a region full of pigs.
Pork became the meat of Southern barbecue for practical reasons. Pigs were cheap, they could forage for their own food, and a single hog fed a crowd. For most of the South’s history, beef was a luxury and pork was everyday, and outside of Texas, that’s still true. When somebody in the Carolinas or Georgia says barbecue, they mean pork.
Who did the cooking
You can’t tell the story of Southern barbecue honestly without the people who did the work. Like much of traditional Southern food, for generations, tending the pit all night and running the cooking fell to enslaved African Americans, and after emancipation, to Black pitmasters who were paid almost nothing.
The barbecue we know came out of African, Native American, Spanish, and other European cooking blended over a couple of hundred years at those pits. Those cooks made the food famous, but they rarely got the credit.
Does Georgia barbecue have a style?
Georgia doesn’t get talked about as its own style the way the Carolinas or Texas do, but ask most rural Georgians, and they’ll tell you barbecue means pulled pork, often already mixed with the sauce. That sauce is sweeter and tomato-based, and if there’s a rub involved, it’s pretty simple.
I’m not even counting Atlanta because there’s such a mish-mash of different barbecue types there. When I was growing up, anywhere we went that served barbecue served it the same way: finely chopped pulled pork cooked with the sweet sauce right on it. That’s still how I prefer my barbecue today. Largely because that’s also the way my Granny made it. My Oven-Pulled Pork is the Georgia version I grew up on.
And in Georgia, the sides matter just about as much as the meat. We want Brunswick stew, potato salad, cole slaw, baked beans, collards, and mac and cheese. Maybe some hoecakes or just a piece of white bread. And don’t even think about not serving banana pudding and peach cobbler at your BBQ joint in Georgia. There would probably be a revolt.
Creamy Mac and Cheese (No Egg)
1 hour 10 minutes
Southern Baked Beans with Bacon
2 hours 10 minutes
Old-Fashioned Green Beans
50 minutes
Pineapple Coleslaw
15 minutes
The Carolinas
The Carolinas have a strong claim to be barbecue’s heartland, and North Carolina alone splits into two camps. In the eastern part of the state, the tradition is whole hog, meaning the entire pig is cooked over coals, then chopped and dressed with a thin sauce of vinegar, salt, and red pepper. No tomato anywhere near it. Head west toward Lexington and the Piedmont, and the cut narrows to pork shoulder, with a little ketchup stirred into the vinegar. They call it dip.
South Carolina has its own signature, a bright yellow, mustard-based sauce often called Carolina Gold. It’s usually credited to the German settlers who farmed the state’s midlands hundreds of years ago. Either way, you’ll find it tossed with chopped pork from Columbia to Charleston.
Southern Banana Pudding
45 minutes
This is the best Southern Banana Pudding made with a rich, creamy homemade pudding and topped with whipped cream. It’s no-bake and easy!
Those Memphis ribs
Memphis made its name on pork ribs, served one of two ways. Wet ribs come mopped with a sweet, tomato-based sauce. Dry ribs get a spice rub and no sauce, just the rub and the smoke. The city loves pulled pork shoulder, too, piled on a bun and topped with slaw. If ribs are what you’re after, my Oven Baked Ribs in Foil turn out tender without a smoker, and you can finish them wet or dry.
Related 📖 ➡️ Southern Sides and Salads: Tips and Secrets
Texas and brisket
Texas is the big exception to the pork rule. This is beef country, and i, smoked for hours over post oak until the fat softens and the outside forms a dark, peppery bark. Central Texas barbecue grew out of the German and Czech meat markets that opened across the region in the 1800s, where butchers smoked the cuts that didn’t sell and served them on butcher paper.
The seasoning is famously simple: salt and black pepper. My Oven-Roasted Brisket is made in the oven rather than in a pit, but it gives you the same fork-tender beef, just minus the smoke.
Easy Southern Peach Cobbler
1 hour 20 minutes
Southern Peach Cobbler is easy to make and the BEST recipe. We use fresh or frozen peaches and an easy crust. You’ll love this one!
Alabama and Kentucky
A couple of styles are smaller but worth knowing. In North Alabama, smoked chicken is dipped in a tangy white sauce made with mayonnaise, vinegar, and black pepper. Bob Gibson started serving it at his Decatur restaurant in 1925, and four generations later, his family is still at it. It looks strange the first time, and then you taste it on smoked chicken, and you get it. My friend Stacey over at Southern Bite has you covered with a great recipe for Alabama White Sauce.
Western Kentucky does something almost nobody else does: mutton. Around Owensboro, sheep were once far more common than cattle, and barbecued mutton stuck, kept alive by big community church picnics. It comes with a thin, Worcestershire-spiked sauce the locals just call dip. If you’ve only ever had pork and beef, it’s worth seeking out.
A few sauces and the leftovers
You don’t need a pit to bring some of this home. For sauce, my Homemade BBQ Sauce is a sweet, tomato-based recipe that works on just about anything, and if your people like heat, there’s a Spicy Barbecue Sauce too. When peaches are in season, the Peach Barbecue Sauce is hard to beat on pork or chicken.
Got leftover pulled pork? Turn it into Pulled Pork Nachos or a BBQ Pork Pizza the next night. And whatever region you choose to try, save room for some good old-fashioned Southern Banana Pudding.
However you load your plate, that’s part of the fun. Pick a region, fire up the oven or grill, and feed your people.
Sources
- Word origins: Tasting Table
- North Carolina: Our State
- South Carolina mustard sauce: SCBarbeque.com
- Texas: Chowhound
- Alabama white sauce: Encyclopedia of Alabama
- Kentucky mutton: Visit Owensboro
- Brunswick stew: New Georgia Encyclopedia
If you make this recipe, please leave a comment and ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below!
Join Southern Food and Fun Community group
and Southern Potluck group!
And please follow us on social media:
