Barbecuing

Barbecue or barbeque (informally BBQ or barby/barbies) is both a cooking method and an apparatus. Barbecuing is done slowly over low, indirect heat and the food is flavored by the smoking process, while grilling, a related process, is generally done quickly over moderate-to-high direct heat that hardly produces smoke.

The word "barbecue" when used as a noun can refer to: the cooking method itself, the meat cooked this way, the cooking apparatus used (the "barbecue grill" or simply "barbecue"), or to a type of social event featuring this type of cooking. The term is also used as a verb, i.e. "barbecuing" is usually done outdoors by smoking the meat over wood or charcoal. Restaurant barbecue may be cooked in large, specially-designed brick or metal ovens. Barbeque is practiced in many areas of the world and there are numerous regional variations.

The English word "barbecue" and its cognates in other languages come from the Spanish word barbacoa. Etymologists believe this to be derived from barabicu found in the language of the Arawak people of the Caribbean and the Timucua of Florida; it has entered some European languages in the form of barbacoa. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) traces the word to Haiti and translates it as a "framework of sticks set upon posts". Gonzalo Fernández De Oviedo y Valdés, a Spanish explorer, was the first to use the word "barbecoa" in print in Spain in 1526 in the Diccionario de la Lengua Española (2nd Edition) of the Real Academia Española. After Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492, the Spaniards apparently found native Haitians roasting meat over a grill consisting of a wooden framework resting on sticks above a fire. The flames and smoke rose and enveloped the meat, giving it a certain flavor. The same framework was also used as protection from nocturnal animal attacks.

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