"Only smoking is proper barbecuing." Discuss

[RobinC]

Possibly not but then you are getting an american interpretation of BBQ - you can't tell an Aussie that his gas grilling isn't BBQing.

[Pecker]

I did a bit of research on this last year, and I made quite a few notes.

Here's what I came up with. Pull up a chair.

Two things here, barbecuing and smoking. I think it’s a good idea to look at it both ways, to see if barbecuing is smoking, and whether smoking is barbecuing.

Barbecues

Barbecue definitions:

Oxford English Dictionary (the world’s premier English language dictionary):
• meal or gathering at which meat, fish, or other food is cooked out of doors on a rack over an open fire or on a special appliance: in the evening there was a barbecue [as modifier]: a barbecue area

• a rack or appliance used for the preparation of food at a barbecue: food was placed to sizzle on the barbecue

• [mass noun] North American food cooked on a barbecue: all the barbecue he could eat
Webster’s Dictionary (the premier American reference):

• to roast or broil on a rack or a revolving spit, over or before a source of heat (as hot coals)

Okay so linguistically, there’s no link in our current language between barbecuing and smoking. When people across the English speaking world say ‘barbecue’, the vast majority of them do not mean smoking.

Conclusion - when most people say 'barbecue', and what dictionaries define as 'barbecue', it's not smoking.

Etymology

The word ‘barbecue’ is thought to come from ‘barbacoa’ a form of cooking developed in the Caribbean, which involved cooking a whole sheep over an open fire, or in a pit covered with leaves, or steamed. Both the flavour and preserving of the meat was achieved through seasoning with a spice made from the leaves of the cassava plant, not through smoke.

Various forms of barbecue:

South Africa – Braai, an open grill.
Mediterranean – Souvlaki, an open grill.
Asia/Arabia – Kabob (kebab), meat cooked on skewers over an open grill.
South America – Asado, an open grill.
Australia – Barbecue almost always on a hot plate, or over an open grill.

It’s just a personal opinion, but I think it’s perhaps a just a little bit much to tell the South Africans, Argentineans, Greeks and Australians that they’re not really barbecuing.

Traditionally, these cultures have used charcoal instead of wood for over two thousand years, and more. There are many reasons for this, but one is to avoid adding an unwanted smokey flavour to food.

Finally, when people wheel out their Weber, disposable barbecue, or whatever, statistically the vast majority use charcoal, and only a very few add wood chips, or any other form of smoke.

So, it’s pretty clear that to say you’re not barbecuing unless you’re smoking is a complete non-starter. It is not supported by usage, tradition, or common practice. The original word didn’t mean smoking, the current definition in the English language (both dictionary and common usage) don’t mean smoking, and most ‘barbecue’ traditions around the world don’t involve smoking.

Smoking

Smoking food has been common in many cultures for thousands of years. It’s been used to preserve food and alter its flavour by people all over the planet. We have smoked cheeses, smoked fish (like kippers), paprika, and smoked pork products, like some bacons, hams, etc.

In almost all of these cases, making smokey bacon, kippers, paprika or smoked cheese, the process is never called barbecuing, and never has been.

In most cultures which practice smoking some foods, they also have a quite separate tradition of barbecuing over open fires, and the two have often traditionally only rarely had anything to do with each other.

For example, a Spanish barbecue is usually an open, masonry type, which has grown up alongside, but completely separate to the production of smoked paprika. In Great Britain the tradition of smoking kippers and pork grew up alongside but completely separately to the tradition of roasting – originally on a spit over/next to an open fire.
In other words, traditionally, smoking and barbecuing have usually been quite different things, often co-existing quite separately within a culture.

Using smoke to add flavour when barbecuing.

However, it’s true to say that barbecues have sometimes added smoke to food, almost always by using wood as the fuel source, or putting wood chips or pieces on the charcoal being used on an open grill, but occasionally with a closed oven to trap the smoke for a more smokey flavour. But looked at in terms of different styles of barbecue across the world, and the numbers of people barbecuing in different ways, it’s fair to say that adding smoke in a closed environment when barbecuing is very much a minority activity.

So where does the tradition of cooking slowly over smoke as a barbecue come from?

The tradition is thought to have started with the ‘cattle drives’ of the late 19th Century. You couldn’t feed a bunch of hungry cowboys nothing, and you couldn’t afford to feed them prime sirloin steak every night, so the bosses would give them cheap cuts of meat, like brisket, or ribs of pork (left over after the main cuts had been removed) which they had to cook slowly. There is some debate about this - see below.

So, whilst ‘grilling/roasting’ (kebabs, roast beef) and ‘smoking’ (kippers) had been around for thousands of years, the marrying of cooking over an enclosed fire, and adding wood as a flavour, is a little over a hundred years old, and exclusively American. In history thee have been one or two exceptions, but they have no link to the American tradition of 'barbecuing'.

Not surprisingly, the idea that “If you’re not smoking in an enclosed smoking oven, then it’s not proper barbecuing” is an American invention, and a very new one at that. It’s an idea which ignores the original Caribbean barbecue, as well as barbecuing techniques from across the world, and throughout history.

Let’s bring this all together.

It’s most accurate to say:

1 - Smoking, in itself, isn’t barbecuing. It’s quite possible to smoke without barbecuing; indeed that’s traditionally almost always been the case.

2 – Barbecuing traditionally has only rarely involved smoking, and most cultures which ‘barbecue’ today, whether it’s a braai, an asado, kebabs, or an Australian barbecue, don’t smoke their food.

3 – Smokey flavour can be added using a barbecue.

4 - It is possible to say that "Only smoking is proper barbecuing" if you only take the very recent American definition, and ignore just about every other form of barbecue, including the tradition where the word barbecue was taken.

In conclusion, it’s completely inaccurate to say that only smoking is proper barbecuing. It’s more accurate to say almost the exact opposite; that smoking usually isn’t barbecuing, but that smoking is a technique which can be applied to barbecuing if required.

Steve W

[The Social Smokers]

Thanks for this! Everyday's a school day

[Pecker]

Thanks for this! Everyday's a school day

It is for me - I'm a teacher.

BTW, since I first researched/wrote the above I've found a little more about American barbecuing tradition, and it's not completely accurate, in that before the cattle drives there were similar cooking practices to those used in barbecuing, used to cook cheap, tough pieces of meat. Nonetheless, the overall point remains the same, which is this – we’ve been cooking over open fires for thousands of years, and we’ve been smoking for thousands of years, but this ‘only smoking is barbecuing’ is a relatively recent American invention.

Here's a strange tangent. If you accept that only smoking is proper barbecuing, then you can only accept that if you accept the origins of the term in American usage. But if you do that, and take a purist approach to it, something else becomes true.

You can't barbecue chicken!

Chickens were not cooked in this way in any of the American traditions, because they didn't need to. By definition, barbecuing was a money-saver. In that case you would never smoke a chicken for several hours, if you could save fuel by roasting it for 90 minutes, or by jointing it and grilling it for 30-40 minutes.

The same can be said of any meat which could be cooked more quickly than by smoking it.

So any insistence that you not use the term 'barbecue' if you're not smoking, must insist that smoking a chicken is not proper barbecuing either.

Steve W

[joker smoker]

Q. If you cook a burger on a gas grill in the kitchen is it BBQ?
Q. If you cook a burger on a grill outdoors does it then become BBQ?
Q. If you cook a brisket indoors with a gas oven and serve it with BBQ sauce is it BBQ?
Q. If you cook a brisket outdoors with wood and / or charcoal and serve it without BBQ sauce is it BBQ?
Q. If you cook a brisket indoors with wood and / or charcoal and serve it without BBQ sauce is it BBQ?
Having answered these questions correctly you should be able to define what is ''proper'' BBQ.
That is BBQ as a noun. As a verb that may be a totally different question...or answer!

[London Irish]

That is BBQ as a noun. As a verb that may be a totally different question...or answer!

And there in my humble opinion could lay the answer...everyone tends to use the noun correctly too many people tend to use the verb incorrectly....

[Pecker]

Q. If you cook a burger on a gas grill in the kitchen is it BBQ?
Q. If you cook a burger on a grill outdoors does it then become BBQ?
Q. If you cook a brisket indoors with a gas oven and serve it with BBQ sauce is it BBQ?
Q. If you cook a brisket outdoors with wood and / or charcoal and serve it without BBQ sauce is it BBQ?
Q. If you cook a brisket indoors with wood and / or charcoal and serve it without BBQ sauce is it BBQ?
Having answered these questions correctly you should be able to define what is ''proper'' BBQ.
That is BBQ as a noun. As a verb that may be a totally different question...or answer!

Top points, which go to underline the whole debate, for me.

If we understand how the English language, or any living language works, you have to say 'maybe...sometimes' to most of those, because we use our language in a flexible way.

There are two terms of which we need to be aware, here - high redfinition and low redefinition. The former is when we re-define a word, setting the bar very high, and something can only be described by the word if it fits a very exacting definition. Low redfinition is the opposite, where you take a word and tryto make the definition so loose that just about anything can fit.

The person who sang karaoke in the pub last night - are they a 'singer', or are you using the term too loosely. Most of us would say the bar is set too low there - the definition of a singer needs to be more precise, so this is an example of low redefinition. You're not a singer just because you sang once.

What if you murdered someone? Can you claim you're not a murderer if you only killed once? Most of us would say yes, and trying to say you're only a 'murderer' if you've made a habit of it is high redefinition.

So you can't say "If you only did XXX once you are/are not not a doer of it". It's different for every word, and the margins change as language develops.

But I think to say that only slow smoking is barbecuing is a case of high redefinition: it sets the bar too high, at the behest of a small minority of people, and for no good reason, whilst restricting the use of the term in a way most people who use the word wouldn't accept.

The word 'barbecue' belongs to everyone who speaks English, and a few 'pit masters' can't dictate to everyone else how they're allowed to use it. No offence to any pit masters present, who are all brilliant inmy book.

And there in my humble opinion could lay the answer...everyone tends to use the noun correctly too many people tend to use the verb incorrectly....

Only if you accept certain restrictions on the use of either noun or verb, restrictions which for most people would involve high redefinition of the word 'barbecue'.

Steve W

[Pecker]

Quoting this for a second time, with a question.

Q. If you cook a burger on a gas grill in the kitchen is it BBQ?
Q. If you cook a burger on a grill outdoors does it then become BBQ?
Q. If you cook a brisket indoors with a gas oven and serve it with BBQ sauce is it BBQ?
Q. If you cook a brisket outdoors with wood and / or charcoal and serve it without BBQ sauce is it BBQ?
Q. If you cook a brisket indoors with wood and / or charcoal and serve it without BBQ sauce is it BBQ?
Having answered these questions correctly you should be able to define what is ''proper'' BBQ.
That is BBQ as a noun. As a verb that may be a totally different question...or answer!

Q1. If I cook a rack of ribs for 4 hours on a low heat using charcoal briquettes and a few wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q2. If I do the same but leave off the wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q3. If I cut the rack into individual ribs and cook them slowly with wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q4. If I cut them into ribs and grill them with wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q5. If I cut the ribs up and cook them slowly for 4 hours with wood chips, is that barbecuing?

Steve W

[joker smoker]

Q1. If I cook a rack of ribs for 4 hours on a low heat using charcoal briquettes and a few wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q2. If I do the same but leave off the wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q3. If I cut the rack into individual ribs and cook them slowly with wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q4. If I cut them into ribs and grill them with wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q5. If I cut the ribs up and cook them slowly for 4 hours with wood chips, is that barbecuing?

Steve W
I would answer yes to all questions but as to whether or not the resulting ribs are BBQ,,,,WELL THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING IS IN THE EATING!

[Pecker]

Q1. If I cook a rack of ribs for 4 hours on a low heat using charcoal briquettes and a few wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q2. If I do the same but leave off the wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q3. If I cut the rack into individual ribs and cook them slowly with wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q4. If I cut them into ribs and grill them with wood chips, is that barbecuing?
Q5. If I cut the ribs up and cook them slowly for 4 hours with wood chips, is that barbecuing?

Steve W
I would answer yes to all questions but as to whether or not the resulting ribs are BBQ,,,,WELL THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING IS IN THE EATING!

Aye.

Just trying to focus on where different boundaries are.

There's a form here called "Low 'n' Slow (Smoking)".

Do some people believe it's only barbecue if it's low/slow, or only if it's smoked, or only if it's both low/slow AND smoked?

If you have delicious ribs with no smoke, is it barbecue?

Steve W





ps. Just noticed the following on the front page of this very site:

We love barbecue, it’s as simple as that.

Setup in 2008 by Toby Shea, a BBQ enthusiast of many years, the British BBQ Society is the primary barbecue forum in the UK. It is free to use and covers all aspects of barbecue, from grilling to low and slow, competitions to classes.

The mainstream barbecue culture in Britain has been far from prestigious. In other parts of the world, barbecue is synonymous with great food eaten in a great atmosphere, whether we’re talking Aussie barbies, South African Braais or American pits, BBQ food is revered around the world.

Well I think that's pretty clear as to what the term 'barbecue' means at this site, at least. It includes grilling, and it includes Aussie and South African barbecuing techniques, not just American ones.


I think we should tell the septics that we'll stop using 'barbecue' for grilling when they stop calling trousers 'pants'.


SW