subject: The Origins Of Barbecue Sauce: Atlantis [print this page] Atlantis, according to some experts, was the most ancient of all the civilizations on earth, and the most advanced. According to legend, thousands of years before the first Egyptians started cultivating the Nile delta, the people of Atlantis had already developed language, astronomy, agriculture, and the culinary arts to level only achieved in the last century or so. Unfortunately, Atlantis disappeared beneath the seas before the beginnings of written history. Many historians believe the survivors of the disaster that befell Atlantis, were the founders of our modern world.
Recent research has determined that the ancient Minoans, from the Island of Crete, may in fact be the direct descendants of the Atlanteans. The Minoan civilization thrived and prospered, for millennia before the dawn of history, and was destroyed overnight by some un-as-yet explained cataclysm. Many scholars believe that when Plato wrote of Atlantis, it was actually Minos.
Gnossos was the capital, and in the ruins of this city, fragments of frescos have been found, depicting servants roasting a bull on a spit, and mixing a vat of what is speculated to be barbecue sauce. The bull, to them, was a sacred animal, and every spring they would sacrifice one to ensure their prosperity. The animal was dispatched with one slit of the throat, and the drained blood was then mixed with wine, tomatoes, paprika, vinegar, and sugar. This "barbecue sauce" was then spread onto the spitted and cooking remains of the bull. Because their religion required that each and every citizen must partake of the blood of the bull, barbecue sauce was an ingenious way to stretch the amount of bull's blood, and of course, make it much more palatable.
After the destruction of their mighty empire, the surviving Minoans then dispersed to all corners of the globe. It can't just be coincidence that soon after this emigration, the budding civilizations of China, Japan, Egypt and Greece, as well as the distant Aztec and Mayans were all developing their own ancient versions of barbeque sauce, using indigenous vegetables, spices, and alcoholic beverages. Research indicates that wherever there was a sacrifice, there was almost assuredly barbecue sauce, the Aztecs taking it to an extreme to gruesome to mention.
Our knowledge of the ancients is increasing, and as more archeological discoveries are being made, someday, like ancient Troy, Atlantis will step from the fog of mythology, into the light of fact. Until then, the founders of modern culture, and the invention of barbecue sauce will remain a tantalizing mystery.
