Customer Reviews

Savage Barbecue: Race, Culture, and the Invention of America's First Food

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As a history buff and BBQ cook, this book is a bust. It has no index and misses so much real history of barbecue that it is not of much interest to those that slow cook meats and appreciate the stories of smoke and time.
It is the first book on BBQ that has totally disappointed me. History of any subject needs a couple of anchors and to write about BBQ and leave out Kansas City, the Carolina's and any mention of meats is a failure of focus.
This is not a food lovers book, nor is it an easy read, and it is not a book you will talk about very long. You really have to work to get any meat out of this book.

My problem with this text is that it presumes to know a little too much about the reader. it weirdly takes for granted that we all hold some popular notion of barbecue as some sort of blood thirsty, cannibalistic, barbarian ritual.

But there's a method to the madness of this book - if it's not already clear to the books reader before reaching the final page, this book is really nothing more than a moan and groan essay over the evil white European explorers of the 1600s and forward. It would fare well in Berkley if eating meat there weren't so blasphemous.

A very academic read, perfect for a 1970s navel contemplation encounter group.

In Savage Barbecue, Andrew Warnes looks at the history of what he calls the first American food. He takes us back to Columbus' first meetings with the natives of Hispaniola in order to present a historical context for the etymology of the word Barbecue. He explores the various iterations of the spelling ranging from barbacoa, which described the wood structure used to cook over the fire to the modern spelling of barbecue, which today entails not only the act of cooking over the fire but the specific regional variants that have developed. Warnes illustrates that throughout its history the term and the act of barbecue is related to violence, whether real or imagined, and that this concept is still present today and plays a part of the ritual that is reenacted every time we light a barbecue grill and place beef, pork, or fish on it. Warnes does a commendable job of examining the history of one of the most popular food forms in the United States and around the world. What Warnes does is present a complete and clear analysis of how and why barbecue has taken on a mystique and history that sees it as the American cooking style. Warnes has constructed a very informative treatise on this popular cooking form that both makes the reader appreciate the historical ramifications, while at the same time providing a different view of barbecue that would not normally be revealed to the average person who walks into their local BBQ establishment. Warnes' careful analysis of the act of cooking on a grill transports the reader to another time and place in which they can come to understand and sympathize with the people who actually prepare these meals. It provides a strong and necessary view of the act of barbecuing that will make you look at preparing a meal on a grill in a more subdued and introspective way.

Savage Barbecue: Race, Culture, and the Invention of America's First Food

Barbecue is an art form that either produces great praise or great fights. Savage Barbecue reveals all the regional pride and local traditions as well as a history of the politics and taste of pulled pork and beef ribs.