Barbecue spaghetti is a dish from

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

, that combines

spaghetti Spaghetti () is a long, thin, solid, cylindrical pasta.spaghetti
Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridg ...

with a sauce made from shredded smoked pork or

pulled pork Pulled pork is an American barbecue dish, more specifically a dish of the Southern U.S., based on shredded barbecued pork shoulder. It is typically slow-smoked over wood (usually outdoors); indoor variations use a slow cooker. The meat is th ...

, vegetables, and barbecue sauce. It is served as a side dish in some Memphis barbecue restaurants. ''Southern Living'' called the dish iconic and "perhaps the city's most unusual creation". ''HuffPost'' called it "a Memphis staple".

Preparation and serving

Barbecue spaghetti can be made with pulled pork or shredded smoked pork. The sauce is "half marinara and half barbecue sauce", sometimes with onions and peppers included, and is simmered before adding the pork; the consistency is close to that of barbecue sauce. The spaghetti is cooked until soft, then tossed in the hot sauce. This dish is served as a side and sometimes as a main course.

History

The dish was invented by former railroad cook Brady Vincent, who opened a barbecue restaurant called Brady and Lil's. In 1980 Frank and Hazel Vernon bought the restaurant and renamed it The Bar-B-Q Shop. Vincent also taught the recipe for barbecue spaghetti to Jim Neely, who opened Interstate Bar-B-Q in the late 1970s; Interstate modified the sauce recipe adding the "extra back flap meat" from a rack of ribs and cooking it in a pot with peppers and onions. State Park restaurant in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, serves a "Memphis BBQ spaghetti" that uses pulled pork in a marinara that uses a barbecue sauce as its base.

Similar dishes

According to

John Shelton Reed John Shelton Reed (born 1942) is an American sociologist and essayist, author or editor of 23 books, most of them dealing with the contemporary American South. Reed has also written for a variety of non-academic publications such as ''The Wall Str ...

, "Barbecue spaghetti is to spaghetti Bolognese as

Cincinnati chili Cincinnati chili (or Cincinnati-style chili) is a Mediterranean-spiced meat sauce used as a topping for spaghetti or hot dogs ("coneys"); both dishes were developed by immigrant restaurateurs in the 1920s. In 2013, ''Smithsonian'' named one ...

is to the Tex-Mex variety".

Filipino spaghetti Filipino spaghetti is a Filipino adaptation of Italian spaghetti with Bolognese sauce. It has a distinctively sweet sauce, usually made from tomato sauce sweetened with brown sugar and banana ketchup. It is typically topped with sliced hot do ...

is spaghetti sauced with

banana ketchup Banana ketchup (or banana sauce) is a popular Philippine fruit ketchup condiment made from banana, sugar, vinegar, and spices. Its natural color is brownish-yellow but it is often dyed red to resemble tomato ketchup. Banana ketchup was first p ...

and topped with hot dogs.

References

{{reflist, 30em Barbecue Cuisine of the Southern United States Memphis, Tennessee Spaghetti dishes American pork dishes American pasta dishes Tennessee cuisine

Preparation and serving

History

Similar dishes

See also

References