A Very Brief History of the Four Types of Barbeque Found In the USA

There are generally considered to be four types of barbeque in the country and they, by and large, are broken down by the type of sauce use in basting and also as a finish sauce, used when the barbeque is being served. Those four, in order of historical emergence, are Vinegar and Pepper, Mustard, Light Tomato and Heavy Tomato. And while there is always disagreement on the varieties of preparation, such as whether one should use a dry rub or a wet rub and various other culinary arguments, all of the many sauces used in America generally will fall into one of those four basic groups.

North and South Carolina share three of the four types of barbeque sauce that Americans normally use. But only South Carolina is the home of all four.

The "original" barbeque sauce, dating back hundreds (yes, hundreds) of years is Vinegar and Pepper, the first and simplest of the four. It is found on the coastal plains of both North and South Carolina and to a slight degree in Virginia and Georgia.

The second (in order of historic evolution) of the four sauces is the one that is distinct to South Carolina and the one that people most often think of as South Carolina style - Mustard Sauce. That sauce is the product of the large German heritage found in South Carolina.

Starting in the 1730s and continuing into the 1750s, the British colony of South Carolina encouraged, recruited, and even paid the ocean passage for thousands of German families so they could take up residence in South Carolina. They were a hard working, sturdy and resourceful people who were given to an intensive family-farm type of agriculture, as opposed to the plantation system favored by the English settlers. Those German families were given land grants up the Santee, Congaree, Broad and Saluda Rivers as they came in successive waves over a twenty plus year migration. Those rivers all flow into each other and fall from the South Carolina upcountry to the low country. The simplified map on the home page of the Carolina Q Cup (carolinaQcup.com) shows the location of mustard sauce in South Carolina.