A simple search for bbq grills brings up a seemingly endless array of items to choose from. There are countless brands, styles, add-ons, and tools that it is almost an impossible task to even look at all of them, let alone choose the one that will be the best for you. In this article, we’ll ignore all of that and instead learn a little about the fascinating history of barbecuing in the USA and in the world.
Barbecuing is definitely one of the most worldwide cooking styles; the food is cooked by applying heat from underneath, and the cooking equipment used ranges from a pit and a stick in the ground to a simple bbq unit to fancy products that take up half a backyard.
In the Americas, there was a people called the Arawak. They were the indigenous people of the West Indies whom Christopher Columbus met after his fateful voyage. The Arawak roasted their meat on a wooden structure, which was then called “barbacoa” in Spanish. It wasn’t for a few centuries later that the word came to also refer to the type of food cooked on the wooden framework. Now, the word barbecue also refers to the style of cooking that is found on every corner in the Southeastern United States. Many of the fiercely protected recipes from this area of the States require days of preparation, and you’d be hard-pressed to find one that doesn’t at least call for an overnight marinade. Slow cooking is a key element, and the temperature will rarely, if ever, be above 275 degrees Fahrenheit.