10. Everything on the grill has a long, thin tail.
9. To avoid burning, chicken breasts are covered in Coppertone.
8. The "cole slaw" is just mayonnaise and lawn trimmings
7. The three-legged race is won by a three-legged guy.
6. Every couple minutes, the cook drops his pants and flips himself with the spatula.
5. Host tells you the burgers are 20% beef and 80% critter.
4. The steaks have been sitting in marinade sauce all night, and so has your Uncle Earl.
3. You have to sign a legal waiver before you eat the potato salad.
2. Things seem tense between your hosts, Frank and Kathie Lee.
1. The guests all have grill marks on their foreheads.
Top Ten Things You Don't Want To Hear at Your Family Barbecue
David Letterman, June 30, 2000
10. I got the idea for this recipe from watching Survivor.
9. Which do you want first, kids, ice cream or the name of your real father?
8. I made the potato salad three weeks ago, so it's naturally red, white and blue.
7. Somebody keep the cops busy while dad buries the knife.
6. It's me, Aunt Susan - you remember me from last year as Uncle Jeff.
5. And now cousin Dave will show us slides of his quintuple bypass.
4. If you don't wash your hands, it gives the burgers more flavor.
3. By the way, your wife is an excellent kisser.
2. Pick up your pants, Grandpa - that's not how you put out a barbecue.
1. Dude, that firecracker really did a number on your eye.
One of the first definitions of barbecue appears in Samuel Johnson's dictionary in 1755. It says:
to ba'rbecue. A term used in the West-Indies for dressing a hog whole; which, being split to the backbone, is laid flat upon a large gridiron, raised about two foot above a charcoal fire, with which it is surrounded.
Johnson then quotes a poem by Alexander Pope from his Satire on the Second Book of Homer written in the 1730s:
Oldfield, with more than harpy throat endu'd, Cries, send me, gods, a whole hog barbecu'd. Pope
What kind of pitmaster are you?
Barbecue Purists. These hard core traditionalists preach the traditions of barbecue and cook only in a hand dug trench with wood embers. They always make their own rubs, mops, and sauces from scratch. Not many of them left.
Barbecue Modernists. These folks say they are serious about tradition, but they use metal cookers with charcoal for fuel. Many even purchase rubs and sauces. Most of the revisionists trying to redefine the word barbecue are also modernists, but they think they are purists.
Barbecue Post Modernists. These crazed radicals, Meathead among them, use digital thermometers, thermostats, the Texas Crutch, wood pellets, injections, and some even use gas or electric cookers. We respect tradition, but are not afraid to innovate. We like to make great tasting food any way we can. We think food is fun and there should be no rules in the back yard, in the kitchen, or in the bedroom.
An accurate and thorough definition of the word barbecue that will hopefully shut up the revisionists who keep trying to redefine the word by telling people that barbecue and grilling are different.
Barbecue is probably the world's oldest cooking method and that is beyond dispute (see my article on The Story of Barbecue). Everything else about barbecue is controversial and in some quarters likely to start a fight.
Folks can't even agree on how it is spelled. Is it Barbecue, Barbeque, Barbaque, BBQ, B-B-Que, Bar-B-Q, Bar-B-Que, or Bar-B-Cue? (Linguists and historians generally agree that the proper spelling is barbecue and that other spellings are colloquial.)
Some folks think barbecue is hamburgers on the hibachi. Others say no, that's grilling, not barbecue. Some say barbecue is only pork. Some say it is only beef. The Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS), which sanctions hundreds of competitions, says it's both, and chicken, too. Others think it is only whole hog. North Carolina is riven in two parts over the definition, and their neighbors in South Carolina aren't even allowed to enter the debate.
Just what the heck is barbecue, anyway? There are many legitimate definitions, verb, noun, and adjective. One definition just will not do the job. Especially the one used by KCBS. In this day and age, when the word has hundreds of years of use across many cultures. Before I go there let me put on my flak jacket, because there are fundamentalists among us who think of barbecue as a religion, and they will not be pleased with this enterprise.
These fundamentalists have fomented a wrongheaded revisionist movement whose goal is to narrow the definition of barbecue to something like this: "Barbecue is meat roasted low and slow with wood smoke." Everything else, they say, "is just grilling".
The revisionists forget that many of the finest barbecue shrines in Texas and Memphis cook hot and fast, over direct heat. Then there's the fabled Dreamland BBQ in Tuscaloosa, where they cook over an open hickory pit at 600F and a rack of spareribs is done in less than an hour. You tell the Crimson Tide legions that they are not eating barbecue. Not me.
In Memphis, Corky's and a few other revered restaurants cook with only charcoal briquets, no wood. Most of the best commercial pitstops in the US now use gas ovens and just toss a few logs into the flames for flavor. In many of the best places in the Carolinas, they don't even bother with wood.
To support their arguments, the revisionists cite the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 9, Chapter III, Part 319, Subpart C, Section 319.80, revised 1/1/1985 issued by the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service. It says "Barbecued meats, such as product labeled 'Beef Barbecue' or 'Barbecued Pork' shall be cooked by the direct action of dry heat resulting from the burning of hard wood or the hot coals therefrom for a sufficient period to assume the usual characteristics of a barbecued article, which include the formation of a brown crust on the surface and the rendering of surface fat. The product may be basted with a sauce during the cooking process. The weight of barbecued meat shall not exceed 70 percent of the weight of the fresh uncooked meat."
The problem with relying on this is that this is a definition used by the Feds to control the labeling of products for sale in interstate commerce, usually pre-cooked meats peddled in grocery stores. Now read it again carefully. Rendering of surface fat? Brown crust on chicken thighs? Direct action of dry heat in an offset smoker with a water pan? Do your ribs weigh less than 70% of the raw product when you serve them? Therefrom?
Now I ask you, why do so many of my barbecue buddies, fierce individualists who are none too fond of the government getting into their lives, blindly accept this goofy definition as gospel? Why does the esteemed Kansas City Barbecue Society (KCBS) disseminated this as the definition of record? KCBS needs to dissociate itself from the Code of Federal Regulations and broaden its definition in order to encourage all kinds of healthy delicious barbecue. They need to stop circulating this nonsense!
Revisionists may be shocked to know that their favorite method of cooking has more in common with a New England Clam Bake than it does with Southern open pit barbecue.
Among the many formal definitions, the one that may come closest to the truth is the definition given by Barry Foy in his hilarious new book, The Devil's Food Dictionary: A Pioneering Culinary Reference Work Consisting Entirely of Lies: "One or another of several approaches to cooking one or another type of food, usually meat except when it is something else, which make use of one or another cooking technique that most often involves smoke, though not always, and in which a sauce of one sort or another plays either an essential, a prominent, or a negligible role. Barbecue has a nearly fanatical following in North America, particularly in the southern United States, where it carries a lore rich in history, culture, and the sort of factionalism that often leads to gunplay."
As for the revisionists who keep telling the media that there is a difference between barbecue and grilling, I say: Cut it out! Barbecue around the world is far too complex and wonderful to be oversimplified like that. If you need a term to describe your favorite cooking method permit me to suggest "low and slow barbecue" or the correct name, "smoke roasting". If you don't like it, create a new one, but quit trying to redefine a perfectly good word used by millions for centuries.
The fact is that linguists and semanticists determine the definitions of words, and history and common usage are important parts of the process. A handful of revisionists cannot undo hundreds of years of history and the way millions of people use a word.
Seriously, though, below is an attempt to organize the various uses and definitions in a more meaningful, historically accurate, multicultural, inclusive form than ever before.
Barbecue (verb)
A method of cooking.
(1) Low and Slow Barbecue or Smoke Roasting. A method of cooking involving roasting food, in a closed oven or in open air, indoors or out, in the presence of smoke, usually created by the combustion of hardwood, but other sources of smoke are occasionally used including tea and herbs. Most often applied to meat (including poultry or seafood), but often applied to vegetables and other foods. Heat is transferred mostly by convection and temperatures at the same level of the meat are usually in the 200-300F range. The American Dictionary of the English Language By Noah Webster, 4th Edition, 1830, calls it a verb: "To dress and roast a hog whole; to roast any animal whole."
Example: "Tonight I'm going to barbecue that damn dog iffen he don't shut up."
(a) Spit Barbecue or Spit Roasting. Probably the oldest method of barbecue. Meat, usually whole animals, are impaled with a sword or spear and rotated above or near a heat source and smoke. Some devices rotate the meat with a hand crank while modern rotisseries use a motor or other mechanical aid.
Example: "For his wedding to Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII had many whole beeves spit roasted for hours."
(b) Barbacoa. The AmerIndian method of cooking from which the word barbecue gets its name was done by suspending the food, usually fish, several feet above or around burning wood or coals on an open air rack so it cooks slowly and is exposed to smoke. Today, the term barbacoa is used almost exclusively in Mexico to describe a closed pit cooking technique, see Mexican Barbecue below.
Example: According to his diaries, on May 17, 1540, Spanish explorer shared a barbacoa near present day Salisbury, NC, with the natives. They had corn and small dogs. According to etymologist Michael Quinion, William Dampier, in his New Voyage Round the World of 1699, used the word in English for the first time to describe a raised wooden sleeping platform that protected Indians from snakes: "And lay there all night, upon our Borbecu’s, or frames of Sticks, raised about 3 foot from the Ground." This same design was used for smoke roasting meats and storing food.
(c) Open Pit Barbecue. A radiation method of smoke cooking derived from barbecoa probably by slaves in the Southern part of what is now the United States. They typically dug long pits in the dirt approximately 3' wide and 3' deep, burned hardwood down to coals in the bottom, put green saplings across the top, and laid meat on top of the crossmembers. The meat was basted with water, vinegar, and spices to keep it from burning. Eventually the saplings were replaced by metal gridirons, and the pits were built with stones or bricks above ground.
Example: "I don't care if your family has been cooking whole animals over a pit, Mr. Gianopolis, the health department won't let you cook like that for your restaurant."
(d) Closed Pit Barbecue. Roasting in an enclosed oven or a mostly enclosed oven which can take many forms around the world, listed in approximate chronological order:
1) Mexican Barbacoa. The meat is wrapped in agave leaves or aluminum foil, laid in a pit with hot coals, and covered with dirt.
Example: "Honey, where did you bury the barbecue?"
2) Indian Tandoori Cooking. Tandoors in India were originally clay ovens that were heated with coals, the meat inserted, and then sealed. Modern tandoors ar similar to the Japanese Kamado and the American Big Green Egg.
Example: "Is that your best price for the barbecue?"
3) Greek Arni Kleftiko. Barbecue historian Dr. Howard Taylor tells the story: "According to legend, thieves living in the mountains would steal a sheep, burn wood in a small cave till the area was hot, butcher and dress the lamb, wrap it in leaves or cloth, put it in the cave, close it with a boulder, seal it with clay around the rock, and let the meat cook for four or more hours. The lamb was seasoned with lemon, garlic, salt, onion, oregano, olive oil, and other spices. Sometimes, vegetables were cooked with the lamb. Modern Greeks sometimes follow this procedure for a party."
Example:"After the wedding, we'll have an arni kleftko barbecue with lots of music by Abba."
4) Hawaiian Imu. Hot rocks line an underground pit, the meat is wrapped in leaves and/or wet cloth, laid on the rocks, and buried by covering the pit with dirt or sand.
Example: "It is a Hawaiian state law that all tourists attend an imu and dance the hula."
5) New Zealand Hangi. Ditto.
Example: "If you don't like lamb, skip the hangi."
6) New England Clam Bake. Clams, corn, and other foods are wrapped in wet seaweed and buried in a sand pit.
Example: "Am I an old fart if my ringtone is 'This was a real nice clambake, And we all had a real good time,' from Carousel by Rogers & Hammerstein?"
7) Bean Hole Cooking. Developed by the Penobscot Indians of Maine, they dug a large hole, lined it with rocks, heated them with burning logs thrown in the hole, placed a clay pot with beans in it into the hole, and covered the hole with dirt.
Example: Nah, I'm not going there. Write your own example.
8) American Competition Barbecue in which the food is usually cooked by indirect heat from charcoal and smoke from hardwood in well insulated steel ovens with precise temperature and smoke control usually by constricting airflow.
Example: "Nowadays, if you want to win a competition dedicated to upholding the traditions of Southern American cooking you have to barbecue with a stainless steel thermostat controlled auger feed electronic ignition extruded pellet cooker."
(2) Grilling or Char-Broiling. Cooking with direct heat radiation above or below a flame or heat source, usually at temperatures of 300F or more. The act of cooking qwith a barbecue device. The food may be covered by a lid or not. This is the definition that most people use around the world. According to etymologist Michael Quinlon, the first example of the verb is in a work by Aphra Behn in 1690: "Let’s barbicu this fat rogue," showing that the word was known well enough by then to be used figuratively.
Example: "Tonight I'm going to barbecue that damn parakeet iffen he don't shut up."
(a) Asado. The traditional method of grilling in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and other Latin American countries.
Example: "Man, now I need a new bolas. That idiot new gaucho from Buenos Aires forgot to take them off the ostrich before he put it on the asado."
(b) Yakiniku. The traditional Japanese method of grilling small pieces of meat and vegetables on a gridiron.
Example: "At the last Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters game I sat in the bleachers and bought squid cooked on a Yakiniku from the vendors. Great stuff and great game. They really clobbered the Hiroshima Toyo Carp."
(c) Satay. Satay is marinated grilled meat cooked on a barbecue in many Southeast Asian, especially Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
Example. "My favorite part of chicken Satay is the peanut sauce. Do they have jelly sauce too?"
Barbecue (noun)
A cooking device, food cooked with barbecue methods or equipment, a cookout, a restaurant, a beautiful woman (slang).
(1) A Cooking Device. A wide range of outdoor cooking devices made with a variety of materials from steel to brick whose heat sources can include wood, charcoal, gas, and electricity are commonly called barbecues. There are hundreds of such devices manufactured around the world. Also called a "barbie" in Australia.
Example: "Honey, our Smokey Joe barbecue finally fell apart. Why don't we spring for a real Weber kettle barbecue?Example: "Maybe Santa will bring me Or better still, how about a cast iron barbecue with Michelin tires?"
Example: "Yessir, Mr. restaurant owner, with our Plug-N-Play Electric Barbecue you don't even need a chef, and you can still hang a sign that says 'barbecue' in front of your restaurant."
(2) Food Cooked by Barbecue Methods or Equipment. In many places barbecue is something to eat.
Example: Presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a speech at a Sunday barbecue in Eau Claire, WI on 8/24/2008. He began his remarks by saying: "There was a debate about whether technically this could be called a barbecue. Because my theory is that if there's no barbecue, it's not a barbecue. It's a cookout." Perhaps realizing that he might have offended the organizers or taken on an issue too hot to handle, he ended his speech with a politically correct pivot: "Let's go get a bratwurst!"
(a) Chinese BBQ. Chinese BBQ is usually marinated pork loin, ribs, or duck roasted by hanging in an oven. Although it used to be smoked centuries ago, hardly anybody smokes it anymore. Some restaurants use charcoal, but most use gas nowadays. Fundamentalists are outraged at the idea that this could be called barbecue. Unfortunately for them, some historians argue convincingly that the Chinese invented barbecue. Also called char siu.
Example. "You no like eels, Mister Meathead. Have some barbecue ribs instead. Velly popular."
(b) Korean BBQ. Korean BBQ is usually thin cut marinated beef, and it is typically grilled by the diners on an as needed basis over a hibachi in the center of the table.
Example: "You put slaw on your barbecue, I put kimchi. Both cabbage. Same thing."
(c) Mongolian Barbecue is actually Taiwanese, not Mongolian. It is meats and vegetables stir fried on an iron griddle.
Example: "At our restaurant you can cook this barbecue beef yourself in two minutes and we can still charge you as much as if our chef had done the cooking."
(d) Carolina Barbecue. In much of the Carolinas barbecue is defined as chopped pork, usually from a whole hog or pork shoulder, often cooked with gas, usually served on a hamburger bun, often topped with coleslaw. And often the slaw is made with ketchup. In many places they insist that barbecue can be made only from whole hog, and if you use only the shoulder it is not barbecue. Whole hog is often served up at a "pig pickin" where you can slide up to the carcass and pick off what you want. Both sides usually agree that ribs are not barbecue. Chicken? Don't make them laugh.
Example: "Let's go git some barbecue at the pig pickin' at the church."
(e) Packaged Barbecue Meat. The US Federal government regulates labeling of food products for sale in interstate commerce, including pre-cooked meats sold in grocery stores. According to the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 9, Chapter III, Part 319, Subpart C, Section 319.80, revised 1/1/1985 issued by the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service "Barbecued meats, such as product labeled 'Beef Barbecue' or 'Barbecued Pork' shall be cooked by the direct action of dry heat resulting from the burning of hard wood or the hot coals therefrom for a sufficient period to assume the usual characteristics of a barbecued article, which include the formation of a brown crust on the surface and the rendering of surface fat. The product may be basted with a sauce during the cooking process. The weight of barbecued meat shall not exceed 70 percent of the weight of the fresh uncooked meat."
Example: "Would you like to sample our new barbecue in a tub, sir?"
(3) A Cookout. A social event centered around an outdoor meal or picnic at which food that was cooked outdoors is served. It doesn't even have to include meat. That's the broadest, and by far the most common definition, and it has been used in this context since the 1600s. In 1769 George Washington wrote in his diary that he "went up to Alexandria to a barbicue". Colonials cooked everything from squirrels to venison at their barbicue parties. In 1860 newly elected Texas Governor Sam Houston was the featured speaker at the "Great American Barbecue" in Austin thrown by the American Party, to which all Texas citizens were invited for free. Thousands showed up. At these events meat was usually cooked directly over coals in dirt pits dug in the ground, not a steel tube with a digital thermostat. Today, a barbecue can include any food cooked over an open flame or coals, such as chicken, fish, or even vegetables. Sometimes the food is even wrapped in foil and never touches the flame.
Example: "At the Fourth of July barbecue we'll be cooking ribs, steaks, hamburgers, hot dogs, and marshmallows. Anything we can fit on the grill."
(a) Santa Maria Barbecue. Named after Santa Maria, California, this is an event at which food is cooked over an open uncovered charcoal or hardwood flame. The food is suspended on a grate than can be raised or lowered with a pulley and crank to control the cooking temperature. The substrate is usually tri-tip (beef sirloin), but can also include everything from clams to artichokes. Beef is always served rare at a Santa Maria Barbecue.
Example. "Like, let's go to the barbecue, man, and afterwards, let's see if the chicks want to go surfing."
(b) Kentucky Barbecue. An event in Kentucky at which burgoo is served. Burgoo is a complex savory stew that is cooked in a large cast iron cauldron over an open flame.
Example: "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and barbecue bubble." Paraphrased from Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1, by William Shakespeare.
(c) Sheboygan Fry Outs. In the days before smoke detectors, the German settlers in Wisconsin liked to cook bratwurst sausages on the indoor stovetop in a frypan. So when they cooked in the backyard, it became a "fry out" or an "outdoor fry". The term has extended to refer to all sorts of outdoor cooking.
Example: "Sure is hot today, honey. Get the brats and a pan and I'll set up a fry out."
(d) Braai. A cookout in South Africa is called a braai in the Afrikaans language, and it is as big a part of their culture as it is to ours. There is even an official holiday devoted to barbecue, National Braai Day, on September 24. The "Bring and Braai" is a popular sort of potluck at which the host provides the grill and the fuel and the guests bring the food, often boerewors (a coarsely ground sausage), sosaties (marinated mutton skewers), steaks, and lobster. Braavleis is barbecued meat. A typical side dish is pap, made from cornmeal, a bit like grits.
Example: In 2007 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu became the patron of National Braai Day. "This is something that can unite us. It is so proudly South African, so uniquely South African," he said. "There are so many things that are pulling us apart, this has a wonderful potential to bring us all together. We've shown the world a few things. Let's show them that ordinary activities like eating can unite people of different races, religions, sexes." And then he added short people, tall people, fat people, lean people."
(4) Barbecue. A restaurant that specializes in serving barbecued products.
Example: Let's go on down to Big Bill's Barbecue and watch the barbecue chef barbecue up some ribs and get a big juicy barbecue sandwich swimming in barbecue sauce.
(5) Barbecue (slang). Jazz slang for a beautiful woman. "Struttin' with Some Barbecue", the classic instrumental jazz tune by Lil Hardin Armstrong and her husband Louis Armstrong, does not refer to a promenade with a pulled pork sandwich. Click here for more information.
Example: "Mighty tasty barbecue you had at the Cotton Club last night, my brother."
Barbecue (adjective)
The flavor associated with food cooked with barbecue methods or equipment.
(1) Barbecue. A modifier used to describe any food cooked on a barbecue device.
Example: "I love barbecue endive!"
(2) Barbecue Sauce. Around the world there are a variety of sauces and bastes used in preparing barbecue whose flavors people describe as barbecue flavor. In the US their main ingredients are most commonly ketchup or tomato paste, vinegar, mustard, and sweeteners such as molasses, sugar, or corn syrup. In other countries they may include soy based sauces.
Example: "My girlfriend makes great barbecue by putting ribs in my slow cooker and then she dumps in two bottles of KC Masterpiece Barbecue Sauce."
(3) Barbecue Potato Chips, etc. Food scientists have created flavorings that simulate the flavors of barbecue foods and when they are applied to foods marketing people call it barbecue.
(4) Barbecue Singsong. In England there is another interesting variation on the barbecue cookout, the "barbecue singsong", where food is cooked outdoors, a social event occurs, and singing breaks out. In a classic episode of the BBC sitcom "Keeping Up Appearances", Season 3 Episode 3, Hyacinth and Richard hold a barbecue singsong. Hyacinth claims that the concept is a party game invented by Henry VIII. She alone appears to be the inventor of the "outdoor indoor luxury barbecue with finger buffet."
Example. "Hello Elizabeth and Emmett! Welcome to our barbecue with the unique sing for your supper speciality!"
Special Thanks to Dr. Howard Taylor whose input, advice, and historical expertise made this possible.
This page was revised 10/26/2009
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An accurate and thorough definition of the word barbecue that will hopefully shut up the revisionists who keep trying to redefine the word by telling people that barbecue and grilling are different.
: "One or another of several approaches to cooking one or another type of food, usually meat except when it is something else, which make use of one or another cooking technique that most often involves smoke, though not always, and in which a sauce of one sort or another plays either an essential, a prominent, or a negligible role. Barbecue has a nearly fanatical following in North America, particularly in the southern United States, where it carries a lore rich in history, culture, and the sort of factionalism that often leads to gunplay."
Product Reviews and Meathead's Hot Stuff Awards. Meathead's Hot Stuff Awards are highly recommended products that I have tested personally or that have been tested by reliable sources. Awards are based on features, quality, and value. Rest assured that when I recommend a product, it is really because I like it, not because someone has paid me to say so or because the company is an advertiser or sponsor. I purchase most products I review although occasionally suppliers send me samples.
With a $15 donation he'll send you a very cool embroidered iron-on patch.
or the 
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