Barbecue—noun or verb?

When I have flipped channels and can't find something to watch, the default channel is HGTV. It is on to make background noise while I sew, work on the computer and sometimes read. But something has been bothering me lately. With spring weather in full bloom, the house-hunting couples tend to say something like, "There is room on this deck for a barbecue."

What do they mean?  In the South a barbecue usually means a sandwich (noun) or an event (also noun) What these people mean is a grill—an apparatus on which to cook barbecue.  I think this is a Southern difference of opinion. Maybe these guys are from the West Coast.

What do you say in your house if you want to cook meat, outside, over charcoal or gas?  Well it turns out, that the term barbecue is usually misused. According to Wikipedia.com, "Barbecue is a method and apparatus for cooking meat, poultry, and occasionally fish with the heat and hot smoke of a fire, smoking wood, compressed wood pellets, or hot coals of charcoal. Typically, to grill is to cook in this manner quickly, while barbecue is typically a much slower method utilizing less heat than grilling, attended to over an extended period of several hours. 

It seems the term can refer to the meat, the apparatus, or to the party. The term is also used as a verb for the act of cooking food in this manner. And, these terms can have regional variations."  You bet!  Right here next door to Memphis, we should have the say-so on these terms. Memphis has long been famous for its barbecue, pork that is. Texas has the trump on barbecued beef. Memphis in May is gearing up as we speak.

Everything has trends. When I was a little girl, most of my friends' parents had a built-in barbecue pit on their patios or in their backyard. I thought that was so cool. In my 20s, I frequently used a small Hibachi grill, just big enough for two steaks or four hamburgers. In fact, one of my best dates was had sitting around the tiny Hibachi, cooking steaks in the outside of my apartment complex. 

Then the trend turned to gas grills, which were hard to light. I still fear an explosion. And now there are grills that cost about as much as a good used car, green eggs, and more. My son is in love with his new smoker which looks like a bank safe.  We haven't even talked about fire pits yet. But those are not really for cooking, are they?


Well, at my house a barbecue is still a sandwich, a grill is what you cook on, and I'm still waiting on the party.