Barbecue, also known as barbeque or BBQ, has been part of this country's diet for centuries, perhaps since Native Americans began cooking their meat over open fires. Today, barbecued meats typically cook over indirect low heat, under cover, and are often infused with smoke for many hours. Wood chips, chunks, or logs add flavor. Hickory and oak woods are favorites, while mesquite and pecan provide a stronger smoky flavor and apple or cherry wood are more subtle.

Sauces have a significant impact on how meat tastes. North Americans and the French began talking about them in the 17th century, but Heinz was first to mass-produce the product, in 1948. Marinades contribute flavor as they promote moistness, and rubs—combinations of herbs, seasonings, and sugars—also add sweet or savory flavor to barbecued meats, whether spread on meat before or during cooking.

With the sheer number of combinations available, it is easy to see why there are so many variations of barbecue across the country—and an equal number of opportunities to personalize recipes to taste, as well as dietary constraints.

The Carolinas offer a variety of tempting flavors, with pork as the preferred meat to barbecue. North Carolinians favor vinegar-based sauce that is often infused with pepper, while South Carolina's bases range from vinegar, to black pepper, to mustard and tomato. The latter's mustard-based barbecue sauce may have its roots in cuisine that German settlers brought to the state, during the 1700s.

Classic Kansas City barbecue sauce is thick, tomatoey and reddish brown—and most often used on pork ribs. Early Kansas City BBQ lovers imported their sauce from Memphis, to what is now the historic 18th and Vine District. Restaurateur Arthur Bryant added molasses, and Gates and Sons added more of the sweet stuff by the mid-1940s. KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce, developed by local child psychologist, Rich Davis, in the 1970s, put the city's barbecue tradition on the national map.

In Texas, residents like tomato-based sauces seasoned with chilies and cumin, easy on the sweetness. They often choose beef, particularly brisket, over other meats. "Texans cook their brisket longer than other places do (for 12 – 14 hours) and they cook off most of the fat," says Karen Adler, president/owner of Pig Out Publications, Inc., and one half of the nationally renowned BBQ Queens. "It's fork-tender and doesn't even need sauce on it."

Memphis barbecue lovers, on the other hand, favor mild, sweet barbecue sauce or dry rubs on their ribs and plenty of "pulled" or chopped pork sandwiches. "In Tennessee," says William C. Morris, PhD, professor and extension specialist in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Tennessee, "we use a lot of pork and mostly a tomato-based barbecue sauce."

What about BBQ enthusiasts in other areas of the country? Kentuckians prefer mutton and pork shoulder with a sauce that may be mild and tomato based, peppery and hot, or "black"—with Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, black pepper, allspice, garlic, onion, and a touch of brown sugar. Arkansans combine a tomato base, vinegar, pepper and molasses, while Wisconsin residents like smoky and spicy BBQ. In Alabama, mustard and vinegar provide the base and roasted/smoked chili peppers add heat. And Georgia's barbecue sauce features ketchup with garlic, onion, black pepper, brown sugar, and sometimes a little bourbon.

(If you're ready to start smoking up some barbecue of your own, be sure to check the list of basic sauces and spice rubs on the last page of this article.)

Adjusting for health

Along with such fatty, salty, and sugary ingredients come words of caution from nutritional experts across the country. Whereas our ancestors likely consumed large portions of these foods, balanced with rigorous exercise, our sedentary lifestyles make it more difficult to process such ingredients today. In fact, research has shown that maintaining similar diets without physical activity may increase our rates of diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.