Barbecue: origins and regional variations

Today I'm going to talk about an interesting topic that many people probably don't know. This post will deal with the different ways people use barbecues in order to roast meat in some countries. I'll also add a bit of history about the etimology of the word.

• The origins of barbecue (etimology)

The origins of the word "barbecue" are not completely clear. It is said that "barbecue" derives from the word barabicu found in the language of the Timucua of Florida( you can see this region in the picture below) and the Taíno people of the Caribbean, which entered European languages in the form barbacoa. This word is translated into English as sacred fire hole. This word describes a grill for cooking meat, consisting of a wooden platform which rests on sticks. You can see in the right picture below a pit smoker, which was the basis for roasting meat in old times.

This word, "barbacoa", and the technique it implies, moved from the Caribbean to other countries which had other languages and cultures, and these languages (Spanish, French, English, etc) adopted that word, modifying it. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "barbacoa" was used in English for the first time in 1697.

• Variations of the word "barbecue" in English.

We all know that "barbecue" is the most common spelling in English, although we can find regional variations, such as: barbeque, bar-b-q or bbq. In the United States, depending on the area, "barbecue" involves different kinds of meat to be roasted.

• Regional variations of barbecue: there are several factors that make "barbecue" to be different depending on the region we are. For example, factors like the type of meat used, the different sauces or the techniques used for roasting meat. I'll only discuss some variations, concretely, those which are more interesting.

• The barbecue in UK.

Barbecuing in the UK is an activity usually done in the garden. Most popular are range-style barbecues, with wheels to facilitate moving them. Permanent brick barbecues are also common, although they tend to be more expensive. In recent times, people in such countries like the US, the UK and Ireland are organizing barbecue competitions. Some of these barbecue competitions also allow teams from Ireland and the UK to compete against each other. These competitions are a borrow from those of the US. You can see, in the following video, the way people is organized in a competition of this kind, in Tennessee, US:

The most common foods cooked on a British barbecue are chicken, hamburguers, sausages, etc. Barbecue in the UK is also influenced by traditional English, Scottish and Welsh cuisines. Overall, British barbecue is a mixture of American, Australian and Mediterranean styles. In the image below, you can see the typical permanent brick barbecue:

• The barbecue in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Brazil.

These countries are very similar when talking about barbecue: they share the same system, called Asado. Asado is a technique for cooking cuts of meat, usually beef along with other kinds of meat, which are cooked on a grill, or open fire. There are slight variations among these regions, mainly related to the usage of different ingredients. In the picture below, you can see a typical Asado Argentino.

• The barbecue in South Africa.

The inhabitants of South Africa have an specific name for barbecue: this is braai, an abbreviation of braaivleis, the Afrikaans word for saying "meat grill". The word braai is very popular in South Africa, and it refers to a technique which is identical to that of the English barbecue. So we could say that the only difference between braai and the English barbecue is found in the name. As a curiosity, in South Africa people don't say wood for the barbecue; they say braaiwood. In the picture below, you can see a braai.

• The barbecue in Korea.

In Korea, we find a popular dish (called bulgogi) made by using a similar technique to barbecue. Bulgogi literally means "fire meat" in Korean, what refers to the technique employed to cook this dish, technique which consists of placing the meat over an open flame. Nowadays, bulgogi is served in barbecue restaurants in South Korea. You can see this dish in the picture below.

There are many other styles of barbecue in the world! Which of them would you like to taste?