The barbecue season has been kind to me so far – nothing worse than a couple of minor burns and a few hundred mosquito bites. The house, miraculously, is still intact. We haven’t had to call the fire service or go to the emergency room, and I count this as a success. It is a risky business, but it is part of the summer ritual, and it must be done.
Since the beginning of recorded time, and probably long before, the barbecue has been an out-of-control male fire celebration. Men are supposed to have this mystical relationship with fire because their ancestors ran in the hunt, and every successful hunt ended with an outdoor roast. Even today, in less developed parts of the world, like Outer Mongolia and Texas, you can still see whole animals roasted over a fire pit while men stand around and give advice, just as they did on the shores of the Mediterranean thousands of years ago.
More than half of all outdoor grills these days run on gas, which takes most of the fun and all of the risk out of it. The equipment for grilling has become more and more elaborate. The most extreme barbecue setup I ever saw had a huge grill set in a polished granite surround, which also included an oven, a refrigerator, a control panel of electronic timers and temperature gauges, an electric rotating spit, and a wet bar. The whole thing cost about as much as a small car. It's a long way from putting a piece of meat on a stick and holding it over the fire, although the results are much the same. Even the more mundane grills on sale at the local hardware store have become big, complicated, and expensive. I can't decide whether these fancy devices are intended to enhance men's cooking skills, to compensate for the lack of them, or simply to distract attention from the food.
Barbecue cuisine has come a long way from its savage beginnings. The barbarian barbecue chefs of yesteryear had no gourmet cookbooks with fanciful recipes for Luau Pork or Yucatan Grilled Rockfish. They even had to cook their meat without mesquite or vine cuttings. But I'd be willing to bet that their blackened barbecued treats tasted exactly the same as they do today.
We have a simple kettle grill, which is a pleasure to use although, of course, hazardous. But burning is what barbecue is all about – burning your fingers, the food, the trees, the deck, the whole neighborhood. Nothing equals that dramatic moment when the charcoal is soaked in lighter fuel, and you shut your eyes and throw the match across the deck and up it goes, WHOOSH, like the distant impact of a twenty-five pound artillery shell.
That's how we get the real outdoor flavor into our food – the flavor of smoke and soot, and careless flying insects, and the high, sharp aftertaste of lighter fluid. I can pass on two valuable tips from my years of grilling experience. Number one: don't worry about your eyebrows – they will grow back. Number two: always have an edible backup in case your conflagration gets out of hand. Microwave frozen burgers are ideal, especially with a nice seasoning of spicy barbecue sauce.
Copyright: David Bouchier
