Nothing says summer like charred meats! What do you call this style of cooking, barbecue, BBQ, or a cookout? We’ve always just said grill. As in, c’mon over and we’ll grill. To me, BBQ is a type of food, and a cookout is a party. Do you prefer gas or charcoal? Ever done a pit or spit? Do you do everything on the grill including sides and desserts? What’s your favorite thing to grill, Deadsplinters?
…I grew up calling it barbecue because that’s what the thing the coals went in was called…so the food was barbecued food…or barbecue…or BBQ
…but then I learned technically what we had was a barbecue grill (no lid) & a barbecue with a lid could also be an oven…so roasted food could also be barbecued
…or smoked…which seemed like it all was if you used wood to make the coals but turned out to be a bit more nuanced
…then I found out that BBQ pits were what a spit-roast wanted to be when it grew up
…& now I don’t mind what it’s called so long as I get some?
I think people in the South here tend to be a little more pedantic about using the correct terms. But I agree with you, just hand me a plate.
Always BBQ where I grew up. A generic catchall.
Now there are different styles we just add the style as an adjective like Southern BBQ or Korean BBQ for example. The only one that is different is Tandoori.
I don’t eat much Indian food. Is tandoori sort of like pit cooking?
It’s usually a clay oven dug into a pit which cooks use to bake yogurt marinated chicken or veggies at high temps. Very tasty.
I’ll have to try that. I’ve mentioned that I’m not an adventurous eater but I should expand my culinary horizons.
…a tandoor oven is kind of what one of those big green egg BBQs (or the other one I forget the name of) does…but without the vents, iirc…so either only open at the top or pretty much closed
…can be very efficient in terms of what you can cook with how much fuel…plus tasty?
Interesting, we use an Egg.
I’m with you on this one. If you make it on a grill or bbq pit, it’s BBQ. Good enough.
Grill is the tool, barbecue is the food technique. IMO.
Yes, bbq ribs on the grill. None for me though thanks.
I am team Ellie on this “Grill is the tool, barbecue is the food technique”. I go through gas grills about every 2 years so buy a cheap one & then figure out the hot spots. I tend to marinate chicken and it takes a toll on the grills and components and I am not the best about cleaning other than burning off the stuck stuff. My favorites are kalbi ribs, Korean or teriyaki chicken thighs, salmon (skin side down only), and asparagus. My sister used to have an imu at her place for luaus so we could cook a whole pig and some turkeys for the parties. It is a lot of work and takes a long time to cook but it comes out incredible.
Wow, the traditional Hawaiian cooking would be very cool.
Here’s a good explainer…
That is a lot of work! We have a Hawaiian restaurant I get take out from occasionally. I’m not sure how they cook their pork. I always get the tofu, sticky rice, and macaroni salad. They’re Hawaiian but it’s in the city so they can’t possibly be cooking it authentically.
It’s actually really easy to cheat for the pork with a crockpot & liquid smoke.
Around here?
1. The cooking surface is the grill. It can be a portable grill or if you are high-falutin’, you may have a permanent emplacement built in your backyard. That means you fancy, but your skills had best be up to snuff.
2. When you use the cooking surface, you are grilling.
3. The end product is called barbeque, barbecue, or abbreviated as BBQ.
4. That is also the adjective applied to the end product to indicate cooking methodology and specific dish. Barbecue chicken, barbecue ribs. Those must in fact involve some form of barbecue sauce if you state they are barbecue. Generally that occurs during the cooking process, but I have enjoyed barbecue where the sauce was applied post-cooking. The process of producing barbecue can be called barbecuing, but only if you are, in fact, producing barbecue. Example: I’m barbecuing me some spare ribs.
5. If you’re tossing hamburgers or hotdogs on the grill, then you are grilling. At no point is this process referred to as barbecue. Even if you place barbecue sauce out to allow people to put it on their hamburgers or hotdogs as a condiment, you are still not producing barbecue.
Do you consider brisket to be barbecue? It’s usually done in a smoker and doesn’t have a sauce. I have no dog in the fight but I know Texans in particular who are adamant about the subject!
I do not. Smoking is smoking, not barbecuing. Two different cooking methods. It is possible to smoke meats which are then placed on a grill and barbecued.
However, I also do not acknowledge the existence of Texas, so that may constitute a blind spot on my part.
I prefer brisket to ribs, never really got the appeal of them, but I agree with you that it isn’t really bbq. I’ll never admit that to any Texans though. I need my teeth to eat that brisket.
Grill gets complicated because it also refers to the flat top where stuff get fried, like a grilled cheese. The oldstyle bar and grills served stuff like hamburgers and sausages cooked on flattop grills, not cookers with bars and open flame.
There’s the annoying habit of some people to try to make everyday language into computer code, and it just doesn’t work that way.
And you can get a flat top surface for your outdoor grill or campfire. I even had an attachment for my indoor wood burning stove many houses ago. It had both a grate and flat top. We used it a lot.
Burnt meat is one of my favorite things.
I am eating less and less meat all the time. But not because I don’t like the flavor.
been a few years since ive wheeled my little coal grill out of the shed for some bbq
used to be we’d invite a neighbour or 2 plus kids over couple times per summer at least for a couple beers some chow and an excuse to let the kids go nuts where we dont really have to pay attention to them too much :p
nowadays…all the cool neighbours moved away…or aged out of existence…and the daughter spends her free time at the boyfriends place….really not much point to having a bbq for two…one of whom wont eat meat
*sigh*
welp on the upside…..means i dont have to bankrupt myself buying a pile of meat
“Barbecue” is meat slow-cooked over charcoal and/or wood, usually with a dry rub, and then dressed with a particular style sauce.
“Grilling” is anything else you can do on an outdoor grill, and can include any fuel type.
This is from growing up in the Kansas City area, and they are particular.
Here in Idaho, I have a gas grill, so I always “grill” something. I don’t “barbecue”.
Kansas City knows barbecue!
You can grill fish and veggies too!
oh we used to….but only having a little grill…and needing to keep one side of it meatfree…really slows things down
grilled salmon is plenty nice tho
It’s my go to meal.