Origin of the word BBQ?
Richard Periut
I've heard various stories, some too incredible to put here, about the
origin of the word BBQ.
Any thoughts?
R
--
Existence; That which was, is, and will be; that which is infinite,
eternal, and substance...
PENMART01
>I've heard various stories, some too incredible to put here, about the
>origin of the word BBQ.
Hehehe. . . .
BBQ
Function: abbreviation
barbecue
© 2001 by Merriam-Webster
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Sheldon
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"Life would be devoid of all meaning were it without tribulation."
Richard Periut
I did a google search, and only came up with an anecdote regarding the
word's origin: coa being the stick used by the indigenous people of the
Caribbean for a stick they used to use, to plant seeds with. Barba I
guess means cooking.
Someone told me that it had to do with the remains of one of the Spanish
ships that had crashed, and its name was similar to barbacoa. So it came
to fashion that since they used the ship's wood to build their fires for
cooking, they should of named it after the ship.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
R
Richard Periut
R
augie wrote:
> In a previous post, rpe...@nj.rrDOTcom says...
>
> ||
> ||
> ||
> || I've heard various stories, some too incredible to put here, about the
> || origin of the word BBQ.
> ||
> || Any thoughts?
>
> Yes. The word is barbecue. (Some use barbeque)
PENMART01
>I know there is some connection to Barbacoa, the spanish name for it.
>
>I did a google search, and only came up with an anecdote regarding the
>word's origin: coa being the stick used by the indigenous people of the
>Caribbean for a stick they used to use, to plant seeds with. Barba I
>guess means cooking.
>
>Someone told me that it had to do with the remains of one of the Spanish
>ships that had crashed, and its name was similar to barbacoa. So it came
>to fashion that since they used the ship's wood to build their fires for
>cooking, they should of named it after the ship.
>
>Any thoughts are appreciated.
About the 6th time I posted this. . . .
Encyclopædia Britannica
barbecue
an outdoor meal, usually a form of social entertainment, at which meats, fish,
or fowl, along with vegetables, are roasted over a wood or charcoal fire. The
term also denotes the grill or stone-lined pit for cooking such a meal, or the
food itself, particularly the strips of meat.
The word “barbecue” came into English via the Spanish, who adopted the term
from the Arawak Indians of the Caribbean, to whom the barbacoa was a grating of
green wood upon which strips of meat were placed to cook or to dry over a slow
fire.
Barbecuing is popular throughout the United States, especially in the South,
where pork is the favoured meat, and in the Southwest, where beef predominates.
Other foods barbecued are lamb or kid, chicken, sausages, and, along the Gulf
and Atlantic coasts, seafood. Basting and marinating sauces also reflect
regional tastes, vinegar-based sauces in the Carolinas, tomato-based in the
West and Midwest, and the spiciest versions in the Southwest.
To cite this page:
"barbecue" Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium
Service.<http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=13452>
[Accessed April 23, 2003].
X-No-archive: yes
say BBQ was invented by cowhands of the Bar-BQ ranch.
Thats a BQ with a line over it, which is how they branded their
cattle.
Even if it is a tall tale, and I am not convinced it is, it's also a
charming way of explaining why BBQ and barbeque are popular
alternatives.
BTW, BBQ afficinados will say TRUE BBQ is what most people called
smoking meat, where meat is cooked at low temperature over a long
period of time using indirect heat with wood being used to give meat
flavor. Cooking meat over direct heat is what they call grilling or
roasting.
On Wed, 23 Apr 2003 00:37:38 GMT, Richard Periut <rpe...@nj.rrDOTcom>
wrote:
Bruce
wrote:
>I've heard various stories, some too incredible to put here, about the
>origin of the word BBQ.
>
>Any thoughts?
>
>R
This is the best documented version I've read.
http://www.lazyq.com/history.html
Bruce
Richard Periut
exist already, when the Spaniards sailed their ships into the Caribbean,
then I would have to bet the origin of barbecue stems from them. Then
again, we have to make sure the word did not exist in the English
language before that.
R
PENMART01
>That may have some truths to it, but if the word Barbecue did in fact
>exist already, when the Spaniards sailed their ships into the Caribbean,
>then I would have to bet the origin of barbecue stems from them. Then
>again, we have to make sure the word did not exist in the English
>language before that.
Oxford Dictioary of English
barbecue
noun
a meal or gathering at which meat, fish, or other food is cooked out of doors
on a rack over an open fire or on a special appliance.
n a metal appliance used for the preparation of food at a barbecue, or a brick
fireplace containing such an appliance. n [MASS NOUN] N. Amer. food cooked in
such a way.
verb (barbecues, barbecued, barbecuing) [with OBJ.] cook (meat, fish, or other
food) on a barbecue.
<STRONG>—ORIGIN</STRONG> mid 17th cent.: from Spanish barbacoa, perhaps from
Arawak barbacoa 'wooden frame on posts'. The original sense was 'wooden
framework for sleeping on, or for storing meat or fish to be dried'.
Richard Periut
Tx,
R
Mike D wrote:
> Richard Periut <rpe...@nj.rrDOTcom> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>
>>I've heard various stories, some too incredible to put here, about the
>>origin of the word BBQ.
>>
>>Any thoughts?
>>
>>R
>
>
>
> From http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorb.htm
>
> Barbecue
>
> This American contribution to international cuisine actually originated in
> the Caribbean, and the word comes to us via Spanish from its Indian roots.
> The original sense of barbecue is that of a raised, wooden (later metal)
> framework used for either sleeping upon or curing meats. The Indians of
> Guiana called it a babracot and the Haitians a barbacoa. The Spanish
> evidently acquired the Haitian word and it came into English from the
> Spanish.
>
> The earliest English cite, used for a sleeping platform, is from 1697. By
> 1733 the word was being used for an open-air, social gathering featuring
> the grilling of meat.
>
> Barbecue has one false etymology that is commonly promulgated on the
> Internet and elsewhere. It is claimed that it comes from the French barbe
> (beard) and queue (tail); the idea being that an entire pig is roasted,
> from head, or beard, to tail. This is simply not true.
>
> Mike
Norman R. Brown
> I've heard various stories, some too incredible to put here, about the
> origin of the word BBQ.
>
> Any thoughts?
Here's the entire entry for the noun "barbecue" in the Unabridged Oxford
English Dictionary [the entry after each year is how the word was used
in that year, and gives the history, and example of use, of when the
word was first used in the English language, forward]:
barbecue (__________), n. Forms: 7 barbecu, 78 borbecu, 8 barbicue, 79
barbacue, 8 barbecue, (9 babracot).
[ad. Sp. barbacoa, a. Haitian barbacòa (E. B. Tylor) ‘a framework of
sticks set upon posts’; evidently the same as the babracot (? a French
spelling) of the Indians of Guyana, mentioned by Im Thurn. (The alleged
Fr. barbe à queue ‘beard to tail,’ is an absurd conjecture suggested
merely by the sound of the word.)]
1. A rude wooden framework, used in America for sleeping on, and for
supporting above a fire meat that is to be smoked or dried.
1697 W. Dampier Voy. (1699) I. 20 And lay there all night, upon our
Borbecu’s, or frames of Sticks, raised about 3 foot from the Ground.
Ibid. I. 86 His Couch or Barbecu of Sticks.
1879 J. W. Boddam-Whetham Roraima xiv. 155 For preservation, a barbecue
is erected, and the fish are smoked over a fire.
1883 E. F. Im Thurn Indians of Guiana ii. 47 Fires, above which were
babracots loaded with beef.
Ibid. xi. 248 A babracot is a stage of green sticks built over a fire on
which the meat is laid.
2. An iron frame for broiling very large joints.
1736 Bailey Househ. Dict. 347 When the belly side is..steady upon the
gridiron or barbecue, pour into the belly of the hog, etc.
3. A hog, ox, or other animal broiled or roasted whole; see also quot.
1861, and barbecue v. 2.
1764 Foote Patron i. i. (1774) 6, I am invited to dinner on a barbicu.
1825 Schuylkill Fishing Co. in Bibliographer Dec. (1881) 25/1 A fine
barbacue with spiced sauce.
1861 Tylor Anahuac iv. 95 A kid that had been cooked in a hole in the
ground, with embers upon it... This is called a ‘barbacoa’–a barbecue.
4. a. A large social entertainment, usually in the open air, at which
animals are roasted whole, and other provisions liberally supplied. Also
attrib. orig. U. S.
1733 B. Lynde Diary (1880) 138 Fair and hot; Browne, barbacue; hack
overset.
1809 W. Irving Knickerb. iv. ix. (1849) 240 Engaged in a great
‘barbecue,’ a kind of festivity or carouse much practised in Merryland.
1815 Salem (Mass.) Gaz. 30 June 3/2 An elegant Barbacue Dinner.
1881 H. Pierson In Brush 90 On any occasion when the barbecue feast was
to be the agreeable conclusion.
1884 Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 27 Oct. 2/3 At the Brooklyn barbecue, which
Governor Cleveland recently attended, 5000 kegs of beer were dispensed.
1935 Words Mar. 6/2 Today the American countryside is heavily sprinkled
with barbecue stands.
1938 D. Runyon Take it Easy 302 They are down in Florida running a
barbecue stand.
1957 Daily Mail 5 Sept. 11/5 Anywhere they [sc. Americans] can find a
clearing with a barbecue-pit set up, they bring out masses of
steaks..and the bag of charcoal to make the fire.
1968 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 3 Feb. 41/3 (Advt.), Lovely covered patio
with built-in barbecue.
1968 Peace News 21 June 7/4 (Advt.), London WC i. 7.30 p.m. 29 Great
James Street. Summer Peace Party and Barbecue.
b. A structure for cooking food over an open fire of wood or charcoal,
usu. out of doors, and freq. as part of a party or other social
entertainment.
1931 Sunset June 10 (heading) How to build a barbecue.
1933 C. McKay Banana Bottom vii. 88 Her husband..had been the best
barbecue-builder of Banana Bottom.
1965 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 9 Oct. 17/9 To make a flowerpot barbecue
get a clay flowerpot... When all the charcoal is red start cooking.
1975 Islander (Victoria, B.C.) 17 Aug. 8/2 We all know the taste of corn
roasted on the barbecue.
1980 Daily Tel. 26 June 3/1 A 10 ft high 8 ft wide barbecue with two
chimneys..in the garden..has got to be pulled down.
1986 Pract. Householder July 15/1 The delicious aroma drifting across a
neighbour’s fence of food cooking over charcoal is enough to make anyone
yearn for a barbecue of their own.
5. An open floor on which coffee-beans, etc. may be spread out to dry.
1855 Kingsley Westw. Ho! xix. (D.), The barbecu or terrace of white
plaster, which ran all round the front.
1883 Cassell’s Mag. Aug. 528/1 The [coffee-]beans..are carried to the
‘barbacue,’ an open space paved with cement or asphalte, where they are
spread on matting..to dry.
1885 A. Brassey In Trades 235 A barbecue is the name given, in Jamaica,
to the house which contains the threshing-floor and apparatus for drying
the coffee.
Cuchulain Libby
"Richard Periut" <rpe...@nj.rrDOTcom> wrote >
> I've heard various stories, some too incredible to put here, about the
> origin of the word BBQ.
OED quotes aside, I like this version:
HALL OF FAME
AN AMERICAN TRADITION
Probably the first genuinely good meal the Pilgrims had in this country was
a fresh-killed turkey, spitted and roasted - barbecued, that is - over an
open fire. The word barbecue, which is an offshoot of the Spanish barbacoa
(a wood frame used as a drying rack or cooking grill), came into currency
among the earliest settlers of the Southern and Western states. A Frenchman
visiting Mississippi in the eighteenth century recorded the curious American
equivalent of a fête champêtre when a whole pig, roasted over charcoal, was
the main dish. Wily Southern politicians enticed waverers to their meetings
with free-for-all barbecues and considered it to be the duty of a good voter
"to holler right, vote straight, and eat as much barbecue as any man in the
country."
Today, following the custom of their forebears, millions of Americans are
cooking in this same simple fashion, for outdoor cookery has rapidly
developed from a sometime sport indulged in by campers, fishermen, and Boy
Scouts into a nationwide family pastime. Indeed, an ironic chronicler might
view the history of indigenous American cookery as a progress from outdoor
cookin' to outdoor grilling.
For reasons difficult to determine - perhaps they stem from something
atavistic in us all - the outdoor cooking process has the magical effect of
drawing people to the fire. Men who wouldn't think of touching a switch on
an electric stove, much less of preparing a meal thereon, suddenly discover
a gift for preparing the proper bed of coals in a grill. Others suddenly
reveal a genius for cooking meat to a turn. Amazingly, many children who are
uncooperative in the kitchen will beg for a chance to clean vegetables or
butter bread in preparation for an outdoor meal. Guests, too, frequently
mean it when they ask, "Can't I do something?" So, with reasonably adequate
equipment and a little cooperation from the weather, entertaining outdoors
becomes a rewarding experience.
- James A. Beard, House & Garden, July 1956