Partly the case. BBQ is attributed to low income who could only afford poor cuts of meat and found that slow cooking made it more tender. Smoking it gave it more flavor. Sauces came later. That is, you can put a tasty sauce on poor cut of meat that isn't slow cooked and it isn't BBQ.FangKC wrote:If I recall, the practice of using flavored sauces in BBQ originally developed among poor people seeking to improve the experience of cooking with lower-quality meat. It was all they could afford, and they were not the best cuts. So those cooking them hoped to make them more palatable by slathering them with tasty sauces. Over time, that element was expanded to include sauces in the cooking of all types of meat.
And BBQ was likely influenced by native Americans (North and South) who slow cooked meat in deep pits for thousands of years.
Yeah I know, I'm getting carried away with downplaying sauce as a role but I do like sauce and love to experiment with it. Just expressing the case (maybe overstating) for those who think sauce is secondary as I agree.
Another KC debate... grilling vs BBQ'ing. Most other BBQ cities don't know the difference, KC purists do. Leave it for the BBQ thread I guess.