Of those whom eat pork, who doesn’t like a pulled pork sandwich? It’s a staple of modern day American cuisine, particularly in the South. The literal phrase “pulled pork” arose sometime in the 1970s out of Tennessee, but its roots within the US were planted when settlers first arrived on land. Early Spanish settlers brought pigs and their cooking methods with them – most notably barbacoa. I’ll save you the labor of translating… it means barbecue in English. The Spanish invented the word but not the cooking method. The word barbacoa was derived from the Taino word barbakoa, which means “a framework of sticks”. The Taino are indigenous to the West Indies and are a source of many original cooking methods – and many other cultural traditions. Early Spanish settlers brought many of these indigenous traditions back to Europe. Despite America’s proximity to the Caribbean and Central and South America, many cultural traditions created by indigenous people of these regions first made their way to the states by way of Europe.
While many Americans immediately associate barbecue with the Southeast United States and traditions like college football tailgates and Memorial Day cookouts – clearly, the ancient cooking method is far from original to this region. The Taino, indigenous to the West Indies, during pre-Hispanic times, were the first people to utilize the barbecue cooking method.
What is barbecue?
Many modern day bbq outposts cook their meat in way that’s not too different from that of the Taino. Slowly cooking large cuts of meat outdoors over an open flame is barbecue. Today, there’s many different methods and devices that would fall under the umbrella of barbecue- like outdoors grills and convection ovens – but the concept is the same as it was thousands of years ago.
Especially because I made barbecue pork using a modern day device – an oven – it’s important to understand and respect where the method originated. If we label something incorrectly for long enough, eventually that will become the norm. Using an oven to make barbecue isn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s not the only and certainly not the most traditional way. To many, barbecue has become whitewashed. The fact that I assume people associate it with the Southeast United States and traditions like football tailgates and holiday cookouts gives that concept credence. The traditions of indigenous people like that of the Taino, have been marred by a dark history ever since the first European settlers arrived in places like the West Indies. Along the same line, barbecue’s place in American culture and cuisine is an essential part of Black History. The James Beard Award winning author Adrian Miller dissects this at great length in his book, Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue.


If I could cook a pork roast over an open flame, I absolutely would. But, the kitchen in my 750 square foot apartment isn’t conducive to that, so the oven has to suffice. My method for cooking a pork butt roast is pretty simple. I rub it thoroughly with a spice mix, sear it, add a few additional flavors, and then I let the oven and the meat do the rest. Most of the flavor comes from the pork, specifically the fat. I then encapsulating it in a dutch oven and cook it at a moderately low heat for a little over 3 hours. This yields a tender, moist, and flavorful pork roast that can be utilized in a myriad of ways, like a Pulled BBQ Pork Sandwich.