A history of the barbecue

As soon as we get a bit of sun in the UK, we whip out the barbecue and start cooking up a storm, but the barbecue is much more usually associated with countries like Australia and the USA than it is the UK. However, it is not known who the first person to invent barbecue cooking was, or where he or she came from, and this has led many nations to stake a claim to be the originators of the barbecue.

Origin

Of course, meat has been cooked over a fire ever since the human race first discovered fire, so in one sense we could say that barbecuing was invented back in the early Stone Age by our early ancestors, but actual ‘barbecuing’ as we know it today came in much later and is of arguable origin.

In later centuries, cooks would hang meat above large fires, allowing them to slowly cook as the smoke of the fire flavoured and preserved them. This could be seen as another early kind of barbecue, but it is not exactly the kind with which we are familiar in the modern world, where meat is cooked over a charcoal grill.

Etymology

The word ‘barbecue’ is a much disputed one. Everyone from the Spanish to the Taino people have been credited with coining the word, but no one has ever been able to get to the bottom of exactly who came up with the word, or which language influenced its invention.

We do know that it was first introduced to the UK in the 1600, by an explorer named William Dampier, He travelled the world and brought us many new words, including ‘barbecue’ and ‘avocado’, so it would appear that it was a word inspired by somewhere overseas.

Modern barbecues

The first modern barbecues are thought to have taken place in Florida and the Caribbean, where they were held by the Taino people settled there. They took place in the 18th Century and were very similar to the outdoor food and fun parties that we call barbecues today.

The barbecue quickly caught on in the American Deep South where it was used to cook up cheap meats quickly and flavourfully. In the main, it was used to cook pork, and barbecued hog roasts were often used to celebrate special events.

World domination

When the American Civil war was over, a number of Southerners settled in the North and they took the tradition of barbecue with them, sharing recipes and grilling techniques with their neighbours. Barbecue restaurants began to open across the USA and a tradition was born.

It was not until the 1950s that the barbecue cooking method spread from the U.S. to other parts of the world. By the 1960s, they were a staple way of cooking in Europe and Australia, as well as the USA and were something of an event for UK residents, who made the simple act of cooking outdoors into an annual party for the family.