Alabama White Sauce

Alabama white sauce — a tangy, peppery, mayonnaise-and-vinegar-based sauce invented by Robert "Big Bob" Gibson at Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur, Alabama in 1925 — is the most iconoclastic barbecue sauce in America. It is white. It is mayonnaise-based. It is applied to smoked chicken by dunking the entire bird into a vat of the sauce immediately after it comes off the smoker. The sauce violates every convention of American barbecue sauce (no tomato, no sweetness, no red colour) and yet it has survived for a century in one of the most tradition-bound food cultures in the country because it works — the tangy, peppery, creamy sauce is an extraordinary complement to smoked poultry.

A thin, creamy, pale sauce: mayonnaise, cider vinegar, lemon juice, prepared horseradish, black pepper, cayenne, salt, and sometimes a splash of apple juice. The consistency should be thin enough to pour and dip — thinner than mayonnaise, thicker than vinegar sauce. The flavour should be tangy (vinegar/lemon), creamy (mayo), sharp (horseradish), and peppery (black and cayenne). It should taste bright, acidic, and cooling rather than rich and heavy.

On smoked chicken. As a slaw dressing. As a dipping sauce. The sauce's brightness and acidity want rich, smoky, fatty companions.