Barbecue sauce

Barbecue sauce(also abbreviated asBBQ sauce) is asauceused as amarinade,basting,condiment, or topping formeatcooked in thebarbecuecooking style, includingpork,beef, andchicken. It is a ubiquitous condiment in theSouthern United Statesand is used on many other foods as well.
Ingredients vary, but most includevinegarortomato paste(or a combination) as a base, as well asliquid smoke,onion powder,spicessuch asmustardandblack pepper, andsweetenerssuch assugarormolasses.
Some place the origin of barbecue sauce at the formation of the firstAmerican colonies in the 17th century.References to the sauce start occurring in bothEnglishandFrenchliterature over the next two hundred years.South Carolinamustardsauce, a type of barbecue sauce, can be traced toGermansettlers in the 18th century.
Early homemade barbecue sauces were made with vinegar, salt, and pepper. Sugar,ketchup, andWorcestershire saucestarted to be used in the 1920s, but after World War II, the quantity of sugar and the number of ingredients increased dramatically.
The Georgia Barbecue Sauce Company ofAtlantaadvertised an early commercially produced barbecue sauce in 1909.Heinzwas the first major company to sell bottled barbecue sauce in 1940. Soon afterward,General Foodsintroduced "Open Pit".Kraft Foodsonly entered the market in around 1960, but with heavy advertising, succeeded in becoming the market leader.Kraft also started making cooking oils with bags of spice attached, supplying another market entrance of barbecue sauce.
Different geographical regions have allegiances to their particular styles and variations of barbecue sauce.
Most American barbecue sauces can trace their roots to a sauce common in the eastern regions ofNorth CarolinaandSouth Carolina.The simplest and the earliest, it was popularized by enslaved Africans who also advanced the development of American barbecue, and originally was made withvinegar, groundblack pepper, and hotchili pepperflakes. It is used as a "mopping" sauce to baste the meat while it is cooking and as a dipping sauce when it is served. "Thin, spicy, and vinegar based," it penetrates the meat and cuts the fats in the mouth, with a noticeably tarter flavor than most other barbecue sauces.
InLexingtonand the Piedmont areas of western North Carolina, the sauce is often called a dip. It is similar to the East Carolina sauce with the addition oftomato paste,tomato sauce, orketchup.
Part of South Carolina is known for its yellow barbecue sauces made primarily of yellowmustard,vinegar,sugarandspices. This sauce is most common in a belt fromColumbiatoCharleston.
Similar to the Western Carolina style, but using molasses as a sweetener and with additional spices. It is usually served as a dipping sauce, as Memphis-style barbecue is typically adry rub.
Thick, reddish-brown, tomato-based, and made with sugar, vinegar, andspices. It evolved from the Western Carolina– and Memphis-style sauces but is thicker and sweeter and does not penetrate the meat as much as it sits on the surface.
Typical commercial barbecue sauce is based on the Kansas City style.
In some of the older, more traditional restaurants, the sauces are heavily seasoned withcumin,chili peppersorchili powder,black pepper, and freshonion, while using lesstomatoand sugar. They are medium thick and often resemble a thin tomato soup.They penetrate the meat easily rather than sit on top. Bottled barbecue sauces from Texas are often different from those used in the same restaurants because they do not contain meat drippings.
North Alabama is known for its distinctive white sauce, amayonnaise-based sauce that also includes apple cider vinegar, sugar, salt, and black pepper, which is used predominantly on chicken and pork.
Other sauces sometimes used for barbeque includemojo,mumbo sauce, andsatay sauce.