THIS week, we’re lighting the barbecue! I know this will summon the cumulus clouds like flies to a dropped jam jar, but we have to have a go, don’t we?

It’s off to the USA this week. We’re nothing if not globetrotters, are we?

One can level many accusations at the feet of the Americans. Their rather vulgar, overexuberant politics, their mangling of the mother tongue, and their often quite staggering ignorance of anything anywhere else on the planet.

I remember a diner waitress being absolutely astonished that I knew where her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama was, while at the same time not knowing there was one right here in the UK! These are silly generalisations, of course.

Every American I know personally is utterly charming, kind, and possessed of an infectious sense of cheerfulness and confidence I could only dream of.

And we must not be too snobby about their food, either. Because beneath the layers of melted ‘American’ white cheese (one of the world’s most truly horrid products, along with our processed turkey nuggets and the stomach-churning Swedish ‘delicacy’ surströmming, which I advise you Google immediately – we all have skeletons in our culinary closets!) there lurks a great, vibrant cuisine.

Based on influences from Native American tribes, the European settlers, the African-Americans and the Latin influences from the south, the US has brought us many classics like Oysters Rockefeller, Lobster Newburg, Caesar Salad, the chili con carne, the classic hamburger, clam chowder, Devils Food Cake and many, many more.

But where the US excels is in its love of barbecued food. In the southern states, and generally across the vast Midwest, the art of curing, salting or marinading meats and then cooking them gently for hours in sweet woodsmoke, BBQ is practically a dominant religion.

Chains of restaurants specialise in nothing but smoky ribs, juicy fall-off-the-bone chicken or fragrant shredded pork, and at home, most families will have some form of domestic barbecue, from a simple halved oil drum to incredible state-of-the-art barbecue stations, where the flames and the meat never touch – you set the wood to smoulder in one part, and the heat and smoke lightly and longingly envelop the meat in a separate compartment, where the juices are collected and lovingly basted over and over.

We, by comparison, tend to limit ourselves to more plain fare, and rarely go beyond pushing sausages or burgers around, or perhaps pieces of lightly-marinaded chicken or steak. And even then it’s done on the wallop, so we let the meat down on our part of the deal.

The key to proper US-style barbecue is in the quality of the meat, the sauce or marinade, and in the length of cooking. Slow and low is the rule.

And we can work round this, using a combination of the domestic oven and our trusty garden barbecue. Now, in the UK we should have no trouble regarding the meat.

Any decent local butcher will be more than happy to suggest the best cuts for a slow, lingering BBQ. Right now, fortunately, the vogue is for proper, ethically and traditionally-raised nicely fat animals, so everything from your pork chops to your chicken drumsticks should taste amazing even before you get to grips with the marinade.

And I have just the sauce for you. It’s sweet, sticky and smoky, but miles away from the refined sugar and liquid smoke-flavoured squirty bottles on the supermarket shelves.

It serves as both marinade and garnish sauce, and makes even a bacon sandwich sing!

It takes half a day to make, and freezes brilliantly. But if the weather holds, I can’t see you having much left, to be honest.

Go easy on the chili if you prefer a milder sauce. Now, fetch your stars ‘n’ stripes oven gloves, crank up the Hank Williams and let’s get smoky. Aprons on!

For the sauce:

2 large onions, finely chopped

6 cloves garlic, minced

4 rashers streaky smoked bacon, shredded

3 tbsps olive oil

2 tins peeled plum tomatoes

10 tbsps tomato puree

350ml cider or red wine vinegar

250g unrefined light muscovado sugar

4 tbsps chili flakes

4tsp celery salt

6 tbsps Worcestershire sauce

2 tbsps American yellow mustard (Regular Dijon will do)

4 tsp smoked paprika

4 tbsps chipotle chilis ‘in adobo’ (available in some stores or online)

Large splash of US bourbon or whiskey

To test the sauce:

Your choice of pork spare ribs or chicken joints

Method:

Sweat the onions very gently in the olive oil until they are completely soft, then add the garlic.

Stir for a few minutes, then add the bacon, turn up the heat and sizzle until the bacon is golden.

Add the rest of the ingredients and bring the sauce to a simmer, then cook slowly for a couple of hours, allowing the sauce to reduce gently.

You should have a sweet, intoxicating, thick sauce.

Stir in a glug of bourbon, cook for a further 15 minutes, and chill in an appropriate container.

You can now use the sauce as a dip, a ketchup or a marinade, or all three.

To use the sauce as a marinade, slather a few tablespoons over your chosen cuts of meat and allow the flavours to sink in for a few hours in the fridge, then roast slowly in a medium oven, basting frequently, until the sauce starts to caramelise and become sticky.

If you want the real deal, light the barbecue and finish the meat on the grill, basting with a little more sauce, but you can finish them in the oven, making sure the meat is cooked through and the sauce reduced and almost crunchy in parts.

Serve with the appropriate garnishes of fresh coleslaw, crunchy fries or potato wedges, and maybe some barbecued sweetcorn.

Many drink beer; I prefer a nice big new world red.