Stumping and Eating: Alabama Barbecue

White BBQ sauce on apple brined chicken, recipes below  

Voters in Alabama and Mississippi vote in the Republican presidential primary tomorrow. The candidates have been out stumping and eating across both states trying to connect with voters. Northerners Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have their work cut out trying to gain the trust of Southern voters. I'd suggest a crash course on barbecue in both states. Two places local party activists in Alabama will bring candidates to our Big Bob's Barbecue and Dreamland Barbecue. Here is a great discussion of both sauce and barbecue I found in the Alabama State WPA Records and stories generated for the America Eats Project during the Great Depression. In Alabama no barbecue was considered done unless the meat was “saturated with blistering sauces.” Cooks repeatedly basted the barbecuing meat for hours until it was an “aromatic brown,” Good barbecue in short is meat cooked slowly and frequently basted. What is unique about Alabama is the states trade mark white mayonnaise based barbecue sauce that Big Bob Gibson created in Decatur, Alabama. The story goes that in 1925, Gibson started selling barbecue out of his backyard and the demand for his product eventually led to start of a family owned barbecue restaurant that is still open today. Attached is a link to several Alabama white barbecue sauce recipes followed by an oral history Big Bob’s barbecue on video.

Alabama barbecue sauce recipes: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/cat/2015/

Dreamland Barbecue: http://topics.al.com/tag/Dreamland%20Bar-B-Que/index.html

Video Oral history Big Bob’s Barbecue:

http://www.southernbbqtrail.com/big_bob_gibsons_slideshow/big_bob_gibson.shtml

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food