Pit barbecue is a method and/or apparatus for
barbecue
Barbecue or barbeque (informally BBQ in the UK, US, and Canada, barbie in Australia and braai in South Africa) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that use live fire and smoke t ...
cooking
meat
Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...
and
root vegetable
Root vegetables are underground plant parts eaten by humans as food. Although botany distinguishes true roots (such as taproots and tuberous roots) from non-roots (such as bulbs, corms, rhizomes, and tubers, although some contain both hypocotyl a ...
s buried below ground.
Indigenous peoples around the world used
earth ovens for thousands of years. In modern times the term and activity is often associated with the
Eastern Seaboard, the "
barbecue belt",
colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 a ...
California in the
United States and
Mexico. The meats usually barbecued in a pit in these contexts are
beef,
pork, and
goat.
California
Throughout the
New World the
indigenous peoples of the Americas cooked in the earth for millennia. The original use of buried cooking in pits in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
was done by the
Native Americans for thousands of years, including by the
tribes of California.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries eras, when the territory became Spanish
Las Californias and then Mexican
Alta California
Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain, formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but ...
, the
Missions
Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to:
Organised activities Religion
* Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity
*Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...
and
ranchos of California
The Spanish and Mexican governments made many concessions and land grants in Alta California (now known as California) and Baja California from 1775 to 1846. The Spanish Concessions of land were made to retired soldiers as an inducement for ...
had large
cattle herds for
hides and
tallow use and
export. At the end of the culling and
leather tanning season large pit barbecues cooked the remaining meat. In the early days of California statehood after 1850 the
Californio
Californio (plural Californios) is a term used to designate a Hispanic Californian, especially those descended from Spanish and Mexican settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries. California's Spanish-speaking community has resided there sinc ...
s continued the outdoor cooking tradition for
fiestas.
Traditional Californian pit barbecuing is not done often in contemporary times, due to needing space and labor to dig a pit, significant firewood requirements, and air quality concerns. However, in 2007 the 'Culinary Historians of Southern California' recreated an ''Early California pit barbecue'' on the grounds of the Mexican
Rancho San Jose, at the
Ygnacio Palomares Adobe
The Ygnacio Palomares Adobe, also known as Adobe de Palomares, is a one-story adobe brick structure in Pomona, California, built between 1850 and 1855 as a residence for Don Ygnacio Palomares. It was abandoned in the 1880s and was left to the e ...
in
Pomona
Pomona may refer to:
Places Argentina
* Pomona, Río Negro
Australia
* Pomona, Queensland, Australia, a town in the Shire of Noosa
* Pomona, New South Wales, Australia
Belize
* Pomona, Belize, a municipality in Stann Creek District
Mexico ...
. It required burning hundreds of pounds of wood in the pit over the preceding night, then lowering cloth-wrapped, marinated meat into the resulting pit of coals and covering everything with earth. After cooking all night, participants pronounced the results "incredibly tender, deeply smoky meat." A traditional ''
Horno'' was used for baking.
The
Santa Maria Style BBQ
Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnigh ...
, originally from the
Central Coast of California
The Central Coast is an area of California, roughly spanning the coastal region between Point Mugu and Monterey Bay. It lies northwest of Los Angeles County and south of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and includes the rugged, undeveloped ...
, uses a portable 'towed' trailer version frequently seen at
farmers market
A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or ...
s.
Eastern seaboard
Pit barbecuing is also popular along the
Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. The buried version of the
New England clam bake is one example. In
Maryland it is done at large "
bull roast A bull roast is a meal where beef, typically not an entire bull, is roasted over an open pit barbecue and then sliced up and served. It is similar in concept to a pig roast. The meat at a bull roast is sometimes pit beef and is often accompanied by ...
s" in the summer season and "Bull & Oyster Roasts" in colder months. Maryland-style
pit beef
Pit beef is a dish of roast beef prepared over a charcoal fire, commonly using top round cuts of beef. The cooked roast is sliced thinly and often served on a Kaiser roll, accompanied by tiger sauce (horseradish and mayonnaise) and sliced raw ...
is not barbecue cookery in the strictest sense. Instead, it is typically cooked quickly over charcoal. The meat is typically served rare with a strong
horseradish sauce as the condiment.
Southern-style pit barbecue
Across the '' "
barbecue belt" '' of the United States, pit barbecue can also refer to an enclosed, above-ground "pit" such as a
horno or outdoor
pizza oven. The method of cooking the meat is slowly, using various hardwoods to flavor the meat. This breaks down the connective tissue in the meats, producing a tender product. The types of meat cooked in this fashion include both beef and pork.
["A Sociology of Rib Joints" by P. D. Holley and D. E. Wright, Jr., ]
See also
*
Kalua
*
Fire pit
A fire pit or a fire hole can vary from a pit dug in the ground to an elaborate gas burning structure of stone, brick, and metal. The defining feature of fire pits is that they are designed to contain fire and prevent it from spreading.
Some rece ...
*
Earth oven
*
Category index - Earth ovens
*
Category index - Barbecues
*
List of ovens
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pit Barbecue
Barbecue
Earth oven
Native American cuisine