This will set forth the details of the American Barbecue Conjecture ("ABC").

The right margin describes related elements, including ABC pages, topic pages and source pages.

Background

This background material is not an essential part of the ABC but is given in order to establish the context of the essential part of the ABC.  Nevertheless, this background will be treated as an element of the ABC.

As used here, the word barbecue in the cooking sense means the cooking method in which fish and meat is cooked directly over coals.  In the modern sense, the barbecue cooking method means cooking at approximately the temperature of boiling water in the heat and smoke of wood coals.  This cooking method was well-known in Europe before 1200 A.D. and in most other regions of the world. 

Beginning in 1200 A.D., the use of iron pots in Europe became widespread, and Europeans discovered the ease and speed of using pots to boil meat, usually with vegetables and often with dumplings or pasta.  Iron also permitted cooks to construct permanent or semi-permanent cooking devices, so that cooking and heating could take place indoors.  Other cultures, such as the Chinese, saw a similar evolution in cooking methods away from cooking over direct heat.

By the beginning of the Renaissance in 1453, the barbecue cooking method had been all-but-forgotten and ignored for generations in Europe.

There are two corollary elements to the ABC.  First, before 1492, Spain had no variant of the word barbacoa.  Second, before 1492, Spain did not use the barbecue cooking method.

As a result, before they landed in the Caribbean, Columbus and his men had never known the word barbacoa and had never tasted meat cooked.

Based upon these background elements, the ABC may be described in six elements, as follows.

Elements of ABC

There are six key elements to the American Barbecue Conjecture, which are described as follows.

1.  Taino used word barbicu

In the pre-Columbian Caribbean, the Taino Native Americans had the word barbicu' (with its various spellings) to mean the cooking method or wooden structure which was erected over the cooking fire.

2.  Taino used cooking method

When Columbus arrived in the Caribbean in 1492, he discovered the Taino Native Americans cooking fish and wild game hung on a wooden structure over coals.

3.  Spain took word barbacoa

Columbus and the Spaniards incorporated the Taino word barbicu' into the Spanish word barbacoa, which entered the Spanish language.

4.  Spain took cooking method

Columbus and the Spaniards learned the barbecue method from the Taino Native Americans and returned to Europe with this “new” cooking method.

5.  English learned word from Spanish

Because the printing press had come into use and because word of the Spanish discovery spread quickly to Portugal, Italy and English, the word barbacoa spread from Spain to England, where it entered the English language as barbecue.

Perhaps the word in the English language originally meant a wooden structure that could be used as a bed.

It must be remembered that the first English exploration of the present-day United States did not occur until 1584, almost 100 years after Columbus first arrived in the Americas.  In fact, the Spanish colonized Florida in 1560, a generation before.  Therefore, the English had ample years to learn the word word barbecue and perhaps even the barbecue cooking method.  See an explanation of the first English exploration.  (The English first arrived at Roanoke Island, in present-day Eastern North Carolina, which is a location often claimed by barbecue veterans as the birthplace of authentic barbecue.)

Keep in mind that the English colonists may have learned the word barbecue and the cooking method from the Spanish after the English colonists arrived in North Carolina -- that is, in or after 1585.  For example, in the spring of 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh sent the first colony to North America:  108 persons in seven ships to colonize North Carolina.  The expedition stopped for re-provisioning in the Spanish West Indies.  During the colonists stay of about 30 days, the English purchased swine and other animals from the Spanish and shared banquets and other activities.  It is thus possible that the English learned the word barbecue and the cooking technique during this or similar interactions.  Id.

6.  English learned method from Spanish

In precisely the same way that the English learned the word barbecue from the Spanish, the English may have learned the barbecue cooking method.

In 1539, de Soto arrived in present-day Florida with swine, which escaped into the wild and prospered.  Within a generation, swine had quickly spread throughout the southeast.