Who Cooks and Serves At Your July 4th Barbecue

Here is part two of the history of July 4th food and culture that I started yesterday. Using a wide range of sources, including oral histories, traditional archival materials, and images I maintain that knowledge of who cooks and serves food and what and where on eats is a good indicator of one's social position and status. I'm a guy who loves to cook and serve food at home and at barbecues away from home. It's always amazing to see how both men and women respond to that aspect of my personality as strange, admirable, and praiseworthy. My wife educated me about the reality that people take women for granted when they perform the same task that our society as defined as a women's responsibility. Similarly I note who the employees at restaurants, cafeterias, or catered events are. I note their gender, ethnicity, and indicators of their power. Often we the public treat such employees like Ralph Ellison's character the invisible man or woman.  I wondered Who cooked and served the food at the collective July 4th barbecues that had become a tradition in many North American rural communities after the end of the American Revolution and English colonial status? In communities with enslaved Africans, slaves ran the barbecue pits and served the food and drink. In communities without slaves, free local men and women of different ethnic origins who had developed reputations performed the task. Traveler John James (1785 –1851) description of a 19th century July 4th country barbecue near Louisville, Kentucky tells us, “Fifty cooks or more” with no ethnic description provided, “moved to and fro as they plied their trade; waiters of all qualities,” says James, perhaps an indicator of ethnic, class, and gender equality here, “were disposing the dishes, the glasses, and the punch-bowls, amid vat[s] filled with rich wines. . . . [T]he roasted viands [food] perfume the air, and all appearances conspire to predict the speedy commencement of a banquet such as may suit the vigorous appetite of American woodsmen.” Today we North Americans tend to do our July 4th barbecuing with family and a few invited friends from the same class and ethnic group. I argue that diversity exist around the evening fireworks ritual of the July 4th celebration more so than the breaking of bread and consumption of sumptuous barbecue and side dishes. 

My Barbecue Stories with Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=barbecue


Barbecue sauce music video—a must see! http://filmshare.info/view/812/the-bbq-song/