What are Authentic Burnt Ends ? - past & present

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75441

expansion on traditions and taboos in BBQ

WineMaster said:

A-Men Brother Bob.

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The one in about beans right?

cmcadams said:

Sorry, but I'm not going to put a disclaimer on every dish I do that says it may also be done another way, or someone did it differently before. And putting cut up point back on the smoker isn't simulating anything; it's allowing them to become burnt ends on their own. What's simulated about that?

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Its funny how people go from point a to g when there is only a point a-c.

What is simulated about it is in your quote. "putting cut up point back on the smoker isn't simulating anything; it's allowing them to become burnt ends on their own."

IT CAME FROM THE SMOKER! Had it been done traditionally there would be no need to create a bark. However, the side facing the meat internal, needs a bark, so it must be made. Orginal BE just fell off. End of story.


As said before and tirelessly true burndt ends happen naturally.

I think what some people object to is how the words "real" "True," "original" "traditional," and may place a negative linguistic pall on those that are not true, original, or traditional. Thereby when one barely mentions it some people assume we are dissing another's work. "Simulated" also causes problems.

No one asked anyone anywhere to place a disclaimer on their burnt ends either specifying what or how they were made. Not me.

The origin of this thread was due to a misunderstanding by an original and brief comment I made, represented by the first line of this thread in black and the associated picture that made it appear I was criticizing the original poster. Brethen folklore took it even further when another poster claimed specifically that in the thread. Cliques being cliques and we have a situation where people take sides and so forth.

There is NO shame, as I clearly stated (by indicating my preference for rebaked or resmoked points cubed and sauced like the original poster gave) in simulated burnt ends. There is nothing tainted about it either. A pizza was first cooked in a wood burning oven. Those made in contemporary ovens are still pizzas. The taste is so different that its important to specify in the case you actually MAKE wood fired pizzas. Whereas it is Not important to claim you are making an electric pizza. LOL

Q talk is for the masses from what I understand. So any yahoo crossing by needs to know there are two kinds of burnt ends (in regards to HOW they are done; Original and Simulated.

I received a humorous email today where someone took exception and claimed to be eating ""burnt ends" at Arthurs like this for 40 years - thereby making a claim due to his seemingly lengthy time on earth as proof this style is "original." The person could not see beyond their limited historical experience.

The term "burnt ends" or "irreegulars" or even "regulars" dates back to the slave, share cropping and later migrant worker period where this stuff was served out the back of the meat markets as a undesirable product. This was during a period of little if any refrigeration and when markets smoked meat to preserve it or in the case of beef let it last a little longer. Thus these scraps were sliced off, the well to do buyer was given the gray meat out the front door and the burnt ends went out the back.

As BBQ became something to get OUTSIDE of the meat market, BE were also placed in a sauce pots and collected until enough of it was able to make sandwiches. Afterward I am sure someone came up with the natural conclusion that you could throw it in a broiler or hot smoker and do something like the delicious things we make now.

Assuming I or anyone else is "dissing" someone's work by showing an alternative method or even indicating the historical differeneses of mock burnt ends versus real ones is simply a strawman. The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.

Common foods that fall into the same kind of confusion as bbq often does are: Barbecoa (where someone insist it is made of certian meats when regional differences are not taken into consideration) and also Chineese Food (which is so highly Americanized to our pallettes that is far and away entirely different from true Chineese food which crosses so many regions and dynasties its hard to make heads or tails out of WHATS WHAT. Oh-- chowder and Chili too.