Page 33 - JAN2020 BBQNEWS Digital Issue

bbq history
B&B Charcoal
Georgia, The Original State of Barbecue.
By: Ed Reilly, bbqologist
That is a very bold statement but as they say facts are facts. In the competitive world of ‘cue this claim could be considered a capital offence, a boldfaced barbecue blasphemy. However, in the immortal words of the legendary Georgian and Baseball Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean, “It ain’t bragging if you can do it.”
1st BBQ recorded in archeology; The Bilbo Mounds, Savannah GA 3500 BC
One thousand years before the Great
Pyramids were built the Archaic Indians
of coastal Georgia were building large
shell structures known now as the Bilbo
Mounds. Over 5,000 years ago (3,500
BC) Native Americans lived on these
mounds in raised wooden platform
houses or pile dwellings near the mouth
of the Savannah River. They cooked and
stored their food on similar raised
wooden platforms called ‘barbacoa’. In
1939 Antonio Waring found the ancient
remains of a barbacoa describing it as
“small wooden post fragments, about
3.5 cm in diameter, vertical in direction
and penetrating the underlying clay
were encountered within the base of
the shell mound”. Barbacoa is a Native
American word first described by
Christopher Columbus when he en-
countered a group of Indigenous Americans cooking fish and iguanas off the shores of Cuba. They used a raised wooden rack allowing low heat and smoke to prepare the food. This was a totally unique style of food preparation, vastly differ- ent from any known method the Europeans had ever seen be- fore. “Barbecue” is the English adaptation of the Spanish word “barbacoa”. This cooking method has only been found in North & South America and the Bilbo mound site is the earliest known physical example to exist. The first archaeo- logical record of a barbecue is found in the state of Georgia.
1st BBQ possible using pork or beef in North America; San Miguel de Guadalupe in GA 1526
The Spanish were the first to explore and colonize the New World including what is now the United States. The first Eu- ropean colony in the United States was founded in 1526 called San Miguel de Gualdape by Spanish explorer Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon. It was located on the coast of Georgia, and only lasted about four months. A fleet of six ships carry- ing 600 passengers and crew, including craftsman, farmers, women, children and the first enslaved Africans were among the first American colonists. Their supplies included horses, cows, sheep, and pigs which represented the first livestock to reach the shores of North America. Lake High, the author of
South Carolina Barbecue points out the two necessary items needed for barbecue are pork and a low and slow smoky fire.
JANUARY 2020
BarbecueNews.com - 33
Photo Courtesy of artist Dean Quigley
He placed the first probable occurrence of ‘pork and pit’ in South Carolina at the colony of Santa Elena founded in 1566. However, the Georgia colony of San Miguel de Gualdape was clearly the first possible location and was founded 40 years earlier. The first possible oc- currence of barbecue pork or beef is in the state of Georgia.
1st BBQ recorded in North American; Hernando de Soto expedition, Macon Georgia 1539
May 1539 Hernando De Soto landed with over 600 men, 200 horses and a large heard of pigs in what is now Tampa Bay, Florida. He was the first Eu- ropean to explore the southeastern United States. Upon his arrival his ex- pedition immediately encountered hos-
tile Native Americans due their previous bad experiences with other Spaniards. However, once De Soto crossed into Georgia the Native Americans openly welcomed him because they had not yet been exposed to the brutality of the Spaniards. As a token of De Soto’s appreciation, he presented the Chief a breeding pairs of pigs. Based on De Soto’s diary the primary way Native Americans cooked large animals are on barbacoas. Then on March 25 1540 just south on Macon, Georgia De Soto reached a river island with a barbacoa filled with smoking turkey and deer. The Indigenous Americans had been scared away and De Soto and his men sat and en- joyed the barbecued lunch. The first written record of barbe- cue in the United States (and the first barbecue road trip) is in the state of Georgia.
1st BBQ image in North American, Le Moyne at Ft Caro- line Sapelo Sound, Georgia 1564
Jacques Le Moyne was part of Jean Ribault’s failed French colony of Ft Caroline off the coast of Georgia in 1564. The previous location of Ft Caroline was believed to be near Jack- sonville Fl, but recent archaeological discoveries now place it near Darien Georgia. Le Moyne drew pictures of the plants, people, and animals he observed in the New World and were published by Theodore de Bry in 1591. One of Le Moyne pic-