Barbecue isn’t just a way to cook food—it’s a social gathering that has brought people together for centuries. Grilling is a hobby that requires skill and patience. Making sure to have the right equipment is important. Sally Feldman, in her book “The Backyard Barbecue Cookbook” says the first thing a cook needs to know is how to correctly pre-cook using charcoal. Some meats require marinade, which is the next step. Fire is a dangerous beast, and controlling the temperature of it is necessary. Searing the meat allows moisture to be retained if done right. After learning the essentials, the cook can then move on to other grilling techniques such as smoking. Before getting ahead of ourselves however, it is best to take a look at the history of …show more content…
The caveman’s hunter and gatherer hunting style meant that a source would be needed to cook the food they gathered. A brilliant ancestor of ours discovered that holding meat directly over an open flame for an extended period of time “cooked” the meat. Most likely, cavemen stumbled upon animals that had been killed in forest fires. After scavenging the meat, they found it more tasty and easier to digest than the raw food. Unfortunately it is impossible to pinpoint exactly where this cooking method was first used. Anthropologists have never come to an agreement on when our earliest ancestors first learned to “cook” and prepare food. Current estimates place the advent of cooking anywhere between 2 million and 300,000 years ago—a pretty wide range. Later on, the first indigenous tribes Christopher Columbus encountered on the island he named Hispaniola had developed a unique method for cooking meat over an indirect flame, created using green wood to keep the food (and wood) from burning. Reports indicate that the Spanish referred to this new style of cooking as “barbacoa”: the original barbecue. As the Spanish explorers who followed Columbus turned their expeditions north, they brought the cooking technique with them. In 1540, close to present-day Tupelo, Mississippi, the Chickasaw tribe, in the presence of explorer …show more content…
During the Republic’s earliest years, Americans held barbecues on the 4th of July not only to celebrate their independence, but to also strengthen their community’s democratic values. The backyard style of grilling as we know it, though, is much more recent. Up until the 1940s, grilling normally only happened at campsites and picnics. After World War II, as the middle class began to move to the suburbs, backyard grilling caught on, becoming all the rage by the 1950s. In 1952, a man from chicago named George Stephen grew tired of the standard flat, open brazier styled grills which were popular at the time. When he inherited part control of Weber Bros Metal Spinning Company; which was a harbor buoy factory, he came up with an idea. He took a buoy and cut it in half. Next, he put a grate on the top of the bottom half. Then, he used the top as a lid and cut vents in it for cooling purposes. This led to the creation of the Weber Grill. The release of the first Weber kettle grill in 1952 started a revolution in outdoor cooking, and the unmistakable silhouette of this backyard favorite has become synonymous with charcoal grilling. Contrary to popular belief, there is a difference between grilling and barbecuing. It can confusing to