Barbacoa - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Barbacoa is a form of cooking meat that originated in the Caribbean with the Taíno

Taíno people

The Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is thought that the seafaring Taínos are relatives of the Arawak people of South America...

people, from which the term "barbecue" derives. In contemporary Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

it generally refers to meat

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

s or a whole sheep slow-cooked over an open fire, or more traditionally, in a hole dug in the ground covered with maguey leaves, although the interpretation is loose, and in the present day and in some cases may refer to meat steamed until tender.

Origins

Barbacoa de cabeza
Cabeza
Cabeza, sometimes cabeça, is a Spanish word meaning "head". In Mexican cuisine, it is used to describe the meat from a roasted head of a cow, served as a taco or burrito filling....

is a specialty of slow cooked cow head that arose in the ranching lands of northern Mexico after the Spanish conquest. Except for cochinita pibil
Cochinita pibil
Cochinita pibil is a traditional Mexican slow-roasted pork dish from the Yucatán Península. Preparation of traditional cochinita or puerco pibil involves marinating the meat in strongly acidic citrus juice, coloring it with annatto seed, and roasting the meat while it is wrapped in banana...

, one of the common characteristics of Mexican

Mexico

barbacoa is that marinades are not used and sauces are not applied until the meat is fully cooked (for examples of Mexican marinades, see carne de chango
Carne de chango
Carne de chango is a lime-marinated, smoke-cured cut of pork loin principally seen in the Catemaco region of the state of Veracruz in Mexico....

and carne al pastor). Pork

Pork

Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....

cooked in this manner is generally referred to as carnitas
Carnitas
Carnitas, literally "little meats", is a type of braised or roasted pork in Mexican cuisine.Pork carnitas is traditionally made using the heavily marbled, rich 'boston butt' or 'picnic ham' cuts of pork...

rather than barbacoa.

Throughout Mexico

Mexico

, from pre-Mexican times to the present, barbacoa (the name derives from the Caribbean indigenous Taino

Taíno people

barabicu) was the original Mexican barbecue

Barbecue

Barbecue or barbeque , used chiefly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia is a method and apparatus for cooking meat, poultry and occasionally fish with the heat and hot smoke of a fire, smoking wood, or hot coals of...

, utilizing the many and varied moles

Mole (sauce)

Mole is the generic name for a number of sauces used in Mexican cuisine, as well as for dishes based on these sauces...

(from Nahuatl

Nahuatl

Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...

molli) and salsa
Salsa (sauce)
Salsa may refer to any type of sauce. In American English, it usually refers to the spicy, often tomato based, hot sauces typical of Mexican and Central American cuisine, particularly those used as dips. In British English, the word typically refers to salsa cruda, which is common in Mexican ,...

de molcajete
Molcajete
A molcajete is a stone tool, the traditional Mexican version of the mortar and pestle tool, similar to the South American batan used for grinding various food products...

, which were the first barbecue sauces. Game, turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, and fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

along with beans and other side dishes were slow cooked together in a pit for many hours. Following the introduction of cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

, domestic pig

Domestic pig

The domestic pig is a domesticated animal that traces its ancestry to the wild boar, and is considered a subspecies of the wild boar or a distinct species in its own right. It is likely the wild boar was domesticated as early as 13,000 BC in the Tigris River basin...

s, goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

s, sheep, and chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

s by the Spanish, the meat of these animals was cooked utilizing the traditional indigenous barbacoa style of cooking.

"Barbacoa" actually has its origins in all the countries that Tainos and other Indian populations inhabited, not just Mexico. The Tainos themselves were pre-Columbian Indians located throughout the Caribbean and which some believe included the Arawak Indians who especially dominated the most leaward Caribbean islands themselves.

The Arawak were first and foremost those who historically used the green and fire resistant flexible limbs of the hanging branches of the giant Bearded Fig Tree (Los Barbadoes) to cook meats and fish over an open fire while first marinating their foods in tropical herbs and spices found naturally throughout the southern islands to South America. Unlike latter variations, the original and most authentic "Barbacoa" used herbs and spices, such as island prepared "cassareep" (derived from the root of the cassava plant), not only to enhance the natural flavors of meats, fish and vegetables, but preserve their cooked foods from spoiling in the heat of the tropics. The Arawak Indians called their preparations "Barbacoa," accordingly, as these methods proved to be a boon of protection for keeping their foods from prematurely spoiling.

Adaptations

In the U.S., barbacoa is often prepared with parts from the head of a cow, such as the cheeks. In northern Mexico, barbacoa is also sometimes made with the head of a cow, but more often it is prepared with goat meat

Goat meat

Goat meat is the meat of the domestic goat . It is often called chevon or mutton when the meat comes from adults, and cabrito or kid when from young animals...

or cabrito. In central Mexico, the meat of choice is lamb

Domestic sheep

Sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries...

, and in the Yucatan

Yucatán

Yucatán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Yucatán is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 106 municipalities and its capital city is Mérida....

their traditional version, cochinita pibil
Cochinita pibil
Cochinita pibil is a traditional Mexican slow-roasted pork dish from the Yucatán Península. Preparation of traditional cochinita or puerco pibil involves marinating the meat in strongly acidic citrus juice, coloring it with annatto seed, and roasting the meat while it is wrapped in banana...

(pit-style pork) is prepared with pork.

Barbacoa was later adopted into the cuisine of the southwestern United States by way of Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, which had formerly been a part of northern Mexico

Mexico

. The word transformed in time to "barbecue", together with many other words related to ranching and Tex-Mex

Tex-Mex cuisine

"Tex-Mex" is a term used to describe a regional American cuisine that blends food products available in the United States and the culinary creations of Mexican-Americans influenced by the cuisines of Mexico. The cuisine has spread from border states such as Texas and those in the Southwestern...

cowboy

Cowboy

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...

(vaquero

Cowboy

) (buckaroo) life. Considered a specialty meat, some meat markets only sell barbacoa on weekends or holidays in certain parts of south Texas and in all of Mexico. Barbacoa is also popular in Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, as there are many Mexican immigrants living there who have introduced this dish. Barbacoa is also well known in Honduras.
Another version;
Pachuca, Hidalgo-given that Actopan fair is present as a central theme, barbecue is appropriate to refer to this topic, albeit briefly about his origins.

Looking for multiple fonts, I found that Bernal Díaz del Castillo, in the 16th century, when he visited the Maya of Yucatan, saw a few indigenous ethnic group, take a delicious delicacy of a few holes that had been made in the land. Although the source does not say what kind of animals I was preparing barbecue, is good to remember that the Yucatan Peninsula is known as the land of the pheasant, venison. This means that, apart from these two species of animals, also had other wild source own region.

However, another source found most interesting: it is said that the Mayans called barbecue in his native tongue baalbak kab, words baal "cover", bak "meat" and "Earth" kab. Meat which cover below of the land in its preparation. The author says the saucer became Maya the Taíno of Haiti, the Caribbean, and that when it comes to this place in the so-called discovery of America received Christopher Columbus with this dish. Some years ago, the master Ramón Cruces Carvajal, chronicler of Texcoco, Mexico State, wrote the book "Gifts of Mexico to the world", where mention that some of these gifts are chocolate (chocolate), Turkey (huezolotl), gum (tzictl), Mexican calendars and, of course, barbecue. Also interesting is that the Mayans hundreds of years ago already used stones on Al rojo vivo, which made a plate and it placed the KAB BAALBAK or barbecue, horneaba as is done now.

Traditions

A traditional Mexican

Mexico

way of eating barbacoa is having it served on a warm soft taco

Taco

A taco is a traditional Mexican dish composed of a corn or wheat tortilla folded or rolled around a filling. A taco can be made with a variety of fillings, including beef, chicken, seafood, vegetables and cheese, allowing for great versatility and variety...

style corn

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

tortilla

Tortilla

In Mexico and Central America, a tortilla is a type of thin, unleavened flat bread, made from finely ground maize...

with guacamole

Guacamole

Guacamole , is an avocado-based dip that originated in Mexico. It is traditionally made by mashing ripe avocados with a molcajete with sea salt. Some recipes call for limited tomato, spicy Asian spices such as white onion, lime juice, and/or additional seasonings.-History:Guacamole was made by...

and salsa for added flavor; the meat or the tacos are often served in the banana leaves they were cooked in. It is also eaten with onions, diced cilantro and a squirt of lime juice.

Etymology

The Arawak Indian evidence in fact predates all of the later references of the word which wrongly claim the origin of the word Barbacoa comes directly from the mainland Taino Indians, citing the following as a reference that goes into some detail but strangely cannot account for the Arawak derivation, and in fact oddly never mentions them or the real derviation of "Barbacoa from the word Los Barbados... or Barbados, which is self-evident, besides being historically accurate.

Nonetheless, these claim that: "Pero tomemos el vocablo barbacoa, cuyo origen arauco

Arauco

Arauco or Araucanía may refer to:* Arauco, Chile, a city and municipality in Arauco Province, Chile* Arauco Province, a province in the Biobío Region of Chile* Arauco, Argentina, a town in Arauco Department, Argentina...

(específicamente, taíno) es conocido gracias a las descripciones de Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo en su Historia natural y general de las Indias, quien testimonia dos de sus acepciones".
"But when we take the term 'barbacoa', which originates from arauco (specifically, the taíno language), it's known thanks to the writings of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo in his 'Natural and General History of the Indians', who described two of its meanings."

On the other hand, the derivation of 'barbacoa' from 'barba(do)' is quite straightforward if assumed to be Basque - the language and ethnicity of large numbers of Spanish crew members: barba(do)-ko-a means literally 'that(-a) [food] of/from (-ko) [the] barba(do)', a formation totally analogous to that of another well-known Basque dish 'marmitako(a)', 'that [food] from [the] marmite [= a large metal cooking pot]'

Venues

The large food court of the tianguis
Tianguis
A tianguis is an open air market or bazaar that is traditionally held on certain market days in a town or city neighborhood in Mexico and Central America. This bazaar tradition has its roots well into the pre-Hispanic period and continues in many cases essentially unchanged into the present day....

(public market) of Chiconcuac

Chiconcuac de Juárez

Chiconcuac de Juárez, typically referred to simply as Chiconcuac, is a town and municipio in the state of Mexico, approximately 10 kilometers north of Texcoco de Mora. The name Chiconcuac derives from the Aztec word Chicome Coatl, “Seven snakes”, which was a date on the Aztec calendar...

in the state of Mexico, outside of Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, seats hundreds of diners who are served barbacoa de borrego (mutton barbecue) and other regional specialties by dozens of open-air restaurants.

Restaurante Arroyo

Restaurante Arroyo

Restaurante Arroyo is the world's largest single Mexican restaurant, located in the Tlalpan area of Mexico City. The restaurant has seating for 2,200 patrons in 9 dining rooms and parking for 600 cars...

, the world's largest Mexican restaurant, located in the Tlalpan

Tlalpan

Tlalpan is one of the sixteen administrative boroughs of the Federal District of Mexico City. It is the largest borough, with over eighty percent under conservation as forest and other ecologically sensitive area. The rest, almost all of it on the northern edge, has been urban since the mid 20th...

district of Mexico City, is principally famous for its pit-roasted barbacoa de borrego and consomme
Consommé
In cooking, a consommé is a type of clear soup made from richly flavored stock or bouillon that has been clarified usually through a fining process involving egg protein. It usually requires an advanced knowledge of cooking and past experience to create a high quality consommé...

de borrego, soup made from the drippings of the roasting lamb and sheep.

Across the México-Pachuca highway there are many barbacoa stands at the road's side serving drivers. Pachuca

Pachuca

Pachuca, formally Pachuca de Soto is the capital of the Mexican state of Hidalgo. It is located in the south-central part of the state. Pachuca de Soto is also the name of the municipality of which the city serves as municipal seat...

is widely known as the homeland of barbacoa.
The meat traditionally comes from the inside of a cow's cheek or jaw.

Chipotle Mexican Grill

Chipotle Mexican Grill

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. is a chain of restaurants in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada specializing in burritos and tacos, founded by Steve Ells in 1993 and based in Denver, Colorado...

in the United States, Canada and the UK is also a well-known restaurant that serves barbacoa.

Origins

Adaptations

Traditions

Etymology

Venues

See also