Brits and BBQ

This weekend I went to a wedding.  It was lovely.  The bride was radiant.  The groom was the proper amount of emotional.  The flowers, the food, the decor.  All of it was perfection.  I tend to not get too excited about weddings, but this one was especially good.  The bride is the daughter of the first friend I made when I moved out here 12 years ago, and her groom is a delightful man from England.  

Going to a wedding that was half British was a treat.  The British do not mess around when it comes to wedding.  They dress like it's prom night, completing their ensembles with whimsical, colorful fascinators that truly made me grin.  Having grown accustomed to the rather blase way we do weddings in America and considering my love for all things British Isles, I enjoyed being a part of this celebration more than my little Midwest heart can explain.  

All that said, I would be remiss if I didn't take just a small shot at British cuisine.  I don't get it at all, and frankly, I'm not a fan.  To be fair, I'm not even remotely an adventurous eater, and my palette is very, very limited.  Still, they pick such strange body parts to eat.  Kidney pie and black pudding and haggis.  All of it is simply too much for me to comprehend.  You can imagine my relief, then, when the bride announced that we'd be feasting on the groom's favorite food:  BBQ.  

What a feast it was, too!  Pulled pork as far as the eye can see.  Beans.  Chicken.  All of it smelling like heaven on earth.  As much as I loved the buffet line, it was the bunch of British guys behind me that truly captured my attention.  They had no idea what anything was, and I felt it my American duty to talk them through each delicacy.  Pulled pork and chicken were easy to describe.  Where I got tripped up was trying to, on the fly, explain baked beans and coleslaw.  My brain drew a complete blank, having spent my whole life eating them with great relish and never having the sense to ask what exactly I was eating.  Oh, I mumbled something about brown sugar and cabbage, but I know I didn't do the food justice.  

Then came the true test of my cuisine knowledge:  the multiple bottles of BBQ sauce at the end of the table.  Being called to task to explain the nuances of the different sauces was more than I could handle.  The best I could do was tell them that Carolina BBQ sauce is more mustardy.  I also warned them that the Texas sauce would be very spicy, which they seemed to appreciate.  However, I couldn't take credit for knowing that because the bottle said "very spicy."  

In the end, I watched them all gobble up their food with what appeared to be indifference, which in Britain is usually a sign of happiness.  My eyes rolled back happily with every savory bite, which in Britain is probably a sign of insanity.  Thank God we were in America.  The last thing I need is to get committed for loving BBQ.