Barbecue Debate to be Renewed Sunday at Manassas Museum

MANASSAS, VA — If you loooove barbeque, or BBQ, or barbecue (cue immediate debates), and if you often find yourself in deep discussions as to whether North Carolina eastern-style, vinegar-based barbecue is superior to its Kentucky ketchup-based counterpart, you really want to be at the Manassas Museum Sunday afternoon.

That's where from 1-3 p.m. at 9101 Prince William Street, author Joseph R. Haynes of Fredericksburg will be talking about and taking questions about his recently released book "Virginia Barbecue: A History."

In the book, Haynes makes his case that the birth of barbecue was not in Kentucky, North Carolina or even Texas but right here in Virginia.

Wow, as Virginia Living pointed out in September, writing that Haynes, "is poised to stoke the fires (and potentially the ires) of barbecue connoisseurs throughout the South with the publication last week of his new book. . ."

Haynes' take is that barbeque began with native Virginian Powhatan tribes and took off in the colonial era before spreading outside the Commonwealth.

He also asserts that Virginia's vinegar-based BBQ is the real deal, and that North Carolina more or less wrongly takes credit for it.

Whoa.

Image via City of Manassas