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Virginia Barbecue: A History

8 Chapters
Over 100 photos and illustrations
288 Pages
Over 750 primary and secondary sources cited
Over 70,000 words

Virginia-style barbecue has deep roots in history that go back to the earliest colonial times when it was first developed through a collaboration between colonists and Powhatan Indians. The Virginian style of barbecue eventually spread all over the south to become what we call today southern barbecue.

The basic barbecue cooking technique is ancient. American barbecue innovations are not. This book focuses on southern barbecue but also traces the origins of several other styles of American barbecue including California barbecue, backyard barbecue and kitchen barbecue.

Here is a sample of what's inside -

• There are four regional styles of real, authentic Virginia barbecue today.
• Read the story of the fateful Vauxhall Island barbecue in 1869.
• Read about the Virginia barbecue served in other states such as Missouri, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Minnesota, Ohio.
• Read about the prominent 19th century American philologist James Trumbull who explained why the word barbecue is a "Virginian word." 
• The word barbecue was used as a noun in English literature years before the Oxford English Dictionary claims.
• An English version of the word barbecue was used as a verb in English literature 13 years earlier than the Oxford English Dictionary claims.
• White barbecue sauce wasn't invented in Alabama. It's been around for hundreds of years.
• Read about the origin of southern barbecue's basic sauce of oil, vinegar, salt, black pepper and red pepper.
• Discover why the often repeated myth that barbecue was first cooked in the Caribbean and migrated to the North American colonies is wrong and unfounded.
• Find out why California barbecue is so different from southern barbecue.
• Read about when and why backyard barbecues became popular.
• America's first barbecue club was established in Virginia centuries before the KCBS.
• Virginians were the first to barbecue meats over hickory wood using the southern barbecue cooking technique.
• The first barbecue restaurant in the United States is found in Virginia about 100 years before the first recorded North Carolina barbecue restaurant.
• In the 1830s, two groves of trees were planted on the U.S. Capitol building's grounds to be used for holding barbecues. One grove for the Democrats and one grove for the Whigs. The "Barbecue Trees" (as they were called) remained on the Capitol grounds until the 1870s.
• Read about the 19th century Virginia barbecue cook named Black Hawk who was so accomplished at his craft that he had an audience with the President.
• Read about the African-American barbecue cook from Virginia who was a veteran of the Civil War but fought to save lives rather than take them.

Brunswick Stew: A Virginia Tradition

With roots in Native American, African and European cooking traditions, Brunswick stew developed in colonial- and Federal-era Virginia, when squirrel was a necessary ingredient. By the nineteenth century, the mouthwatering delicacy had become an important part of politicking, celebrating and family gatherings. At the same time, it spread beyond Virginia into the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Drawing on historical and contemporary sources, author, award-winning barbecue cook and Brunswick stew expert Joe Haynes entertains with barbecue stew legend and lore, complete with recipes.

Seven Chapters, over 50 photos & illustrations, over 50,000 Words, over 475 primary & secondary source citations complete with authentic recipes and preparation techniques revealed.

Book Chapters

1. The Barbecue Stews
2. Virginia’s Food Traditions
3. Squirrel Soup
4. Barbecue Hash
5. Brunswick Stew
6. Burgoo
7. Recipes

Reviews -

"Joe Haynes adds to the scholarship of American barbecue with his remarkably well-researched book on Virginia barbecue. His work goes a long way toward putting the contributions of Virginia on the barbecue map.“

- Jim Shahin, Washington Post Barbecue Columnist

"I have been allowed sneak peaks into some portions of Joe Haynes' forthcoming book, and I assure you, if you love culinary history and barbecue, you will want this book!"

"Joe’s work is significant scholarship. This is American culinary history and ethnology at its finest, researched with passion and recited with love, humor and intelligence. Joe understands and appreciates the historical depth and cultural significance of these traditions.

He clearly sees and helps tease out the contributions of ancient English foodways and their adaptations to and adoptions of those of Native America, as well as the role of enslaved Africans and African Americans who often were the true masters of the barbecue and stewpot. He follows traditions as they spread and evolved through the southward and westward expansion of the nation."

- Dr. L. Daniel Mouer, Chief Archaeologist, Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology at Virginia Commonwealth University, retired, founder and former Vice President of the Culinary Historians of Virginia

"Keep an eye out for Joseph Haynes book on Virginia Barbecue. Joe is an excellent historian when it comes to digging up truly remarkable BBQ related information that seems to have slipped by his contemporaries. He makes a strong case that shouldn't have to be made for the legitimacy of Virginia 'Q."

- Eric Devlin, Editor in Chief of Smoke Signals Magazine

"I've lived most of my life in Virginia, and for a while nearly a half-century ago, my work took me to the back roads near Surry, Va. There I found country barbecue places and smokehouses that were run by families that had been around most of the century. I visited many of these places and talked to their owners about their barbecue. What I found was clearly Virginia barbecue, done the old way as it had been since at least the civil war." "While I have no definite proof, what I learned then is consistent with what you're finding now. I think you're right."

- Wayne Rash, Freelance Writer and Editor

"Is Virginia the true motherland of Southern barbecue? If you want to say it isn't, you should be prepared to go toe-to-toe—and footnote-to-footnote—with Joseph Haynes, author of Virginia Barbecue: A History. Across 236 exhaustively documented pages (another 42 of notes), Haynes lays out the historical foundations supporting his argument that “the only unbroken line of Southern barbecue history begins in Virginia.”

- Caroline Kettlewell, Virginia Living Magazine’s Smoke & Salt, October 2017


"If you like barbecue, then this is the book for you. If you don't like barbecue, but like history, then this is the book for you. If you are just interested in what barbecue is all about, then this is the book for you. Virginia Barbecue, A History, by native Virginian Joseph R. Haynes, is probably more of an encyclopedia of Virginia barbecue than a history."

- Wilford Kale, HRBooks contributor, The Daily Press