Someone asks "what do you think of my BBQ?" Which, of course, leads to bickering over what BBQ means. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
211 ups - 0 downs = 211 votes
238 comments submitted at 15:13:58 on Nov 22, 2014 by TheLadyEve
Someone asks "what do you think of my BBQ?" Which, of course, leads to bickering over what BBQ means. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
211 ups - 0 downs = 211 votes
238 comments submitted at 15:13:58 on Nov 22, 2014 by TheLadyEve
Semantics and food drama all in one. Two great flavors in one popcorn bucket.
The semantic issue is one a lot of people take to heart. True barbecue is hard to make. It's really effing hard to learn and usually takes a lifetime to master. While I won't say that there's no learning curve to grilling, it's orders of magnitude easier to learn and master. And there's also a lot of reverence given to pitmasters who've spent a lifetime learning the art and have risen through the ranks being judged for merit. Grilling a hot dog and calling it barbecue isn't any different than opening a can of Chef Boyardee and calling yourself a classically-trained French chef or finishing a paint-by-numbers and seriously considering yourself a Old Master. It's going to rankle people who actually are accomplished in the field and have spent a lifetime learning the art.
But the point is that what people in America call grilling is what people in the commonwealth call barbecue. It's idiotic to get upset over the fact that different countries use different terminology.
Fucking plebian americans spelling "Colour" without a U.
>It's idiotic to get upset over the fact that different countries use different terminology.
Which would be relevant if the issue was as simple as that. It isn't. Refer back to my post you're responding to.
And in the linked thread, note that the comment with the most community support is the one that points out barbecue and grilling are different things- as if that couldn't be deduced from the mere fact we have different words for them. So it's not as if this is even a controversial statement.
The issue isn't that people in different areas use terms differently. It's that food literacy for the art of cooking with fire is low among a lot of people. Read /r/BBQ and you'll learn pretty quickly that areas where people tend to call any grilled food "BBQ" are also areas where people are really unaware of the magic you can create by cooking meat low and slow over charcoal with indirect heat and with the use of smoke.
In any case, what would happen if a large group of people started calling this lasagna? Would you conclude that the picture is in fact a picture of lasagna, or that those people don't understand what lasagna is, and try to engage them in a friendly way about what lasagna is?
If I found out that a different country used the term 'lasagna' for sushi I'd be like "oh, that's interesting - language, huh?" I certainly wouldn't call them wrong for using their form of language rather than my own.
It's really no different how what we call fries are called chips in England. They're not wrong for calling them chips, we're not wrong for calling them fries. it's just two different dialects of English.
You're not wrong that the food cultures are somewhat different between the different countries, and that low and slow barbecue isn't typically as prevalent in places that use the term barbecue the British way, but it's still idiotic to tell them they're wrong for using their language their way.
Yes, Brits and Americans use separate terms for fried potatoes in their various forms. But this isn't a food literacy issue. It's a cultural difference. If I started dating someone who called sushi "lasagna," my reaction wouldn't be cultural difference. It would be cultural ignorance, which there isn't really anything wrong but tells me this person is probably missing out on an entire world of awesome food because they aren't aware of it. Similarly, people who call grilled food BBQ tend to be unaware of this magical stuff we cook low and slow with smoke. As I've mentioned, it's not uncommon in /r/BBQ for Brits to lament that while "BBQ" is used as a term in the Isles, it kills them that (1) they can't find low-and-slow for sale anywhere, have a lot of trouble finding BBQ equipment for sale, and have a lot of trouble selling their friends on what they're missing out on.
You're fighting two completely different battles here, though. People can become more aware of your style of barbecue without you telling them that their language is wrong.
Of course southern US style barbecue is not going to be an common in the UK - it's not a food tradition that comes from there!
>Of course southern US style barbecue is not going to be an common in the UK - it's not a food tradition that comes from there!
Which is the entire issue! I've lived in the Gulf and Northeast regions of the US, and I've had some awesome food in my life and a good amount of it has been due in part or full to the influx of foreign cultural influences. Thai food isn't endemic to southern Louisiana, but we sure do have a lot of it here and goddamn is it some good grub. I shudder to think what my food life would be like if not for the influences brought here by Italians, Central Americans, Cubans, and Asians.
We know that you and I agree that there are places where this amazing regional cuisine is uncommon. The next question should be: What barriers exist to spreading it? The fact that the term BBQ is used so broadly and liberally, IMO, is the biggest problem for and impedance to more people learning about the awesome food and the culture behind it.
I completely disagree that the name is the problem here. All a restaurant would have to do is call the food "Southern Style Barbecue" and it would be plenty differentiated. Isn't the nature of cooking southern style barbecue the biggest barrier to it really spreading? My understanding is the fact that it takes such a long time to cook makes it hard to sell a high quality product in markets that don't have high pre-established demand.
If the food was easy to make well, I highly doubt that it would have any trouble catching on - smoky meat is not a hard sell.
> Isn't the nature of cooking southern style barbecue the biggest barrier to it really spreading? My understanding is the fact that it takes such a long time to cook makes it hard to sell a high quality product in markets that don't have high pre-established demand.
From what Brits tend to say on /r/BBQ, no.
More Comments - Click Here
It's so funny when people are so naturally ethnocentric that they honestly don't understand how they could be wrong.
My food experience in life has been better because of the influences where I've lived from Italians, Cubans, Central Americans, Asians, and Poles. My central point is that the more cultural influences you can experience, the more good food you're going to have. Is that not the exact opposite of being ethnocentric?
I'm not really expecting you to reply, but I really would be interested in how you conclude ethnocentrism from encouraging a world with more cultural exchange.
> Which would be relevant if the issue was as simple as that. It isn't. Refer back to my post you're responding to.
But it is. Refer to the original drama.
> But it is.
No, it's not. There's a lot more going on that's not apparent in the original drama which I've made the effort to clarify. If you've read my posts (including the rest of the post you're excerpting from here) explaining the deeper stuff going on you should realize this.
Well, "is" is derived from the Old English word "is". "Is" refers to a state of being, that something "is" something. So yes, the root definition for "is" is different from is. I'm aware that the word "is" has become a loaner word in many parts of the world, but this doesn't change the fact that a proper "is" means "is" and not "is".
Again, I have no complaint that people use words differently in different areas. I don't care if you disagree with me, but do me the favor of disagreeing with what I actually claim.
You're arguing a point nobody cares about, and which is completely irrelevant to the drama.
I'm not arguing anything. I've pointed out that the drama is a cultural clash, not a semantic one.
Also, there's no logic to the statement I'm arguing a point nobody cares about. Your level of caring, while likely minuscule, has apparently been sufficient to go back and forth with me a few times misrepresenting my statements.
More Comments - Click Here
This whole argument is the same as painting a room, calling yourself a painter, and having a classically trained oil portrait painter get angry at you. There are two kinds of painting. There are two kinds of barbecue. Hell, within the low and slow bbq community there's still debate over what is real bbq, and the answer will entirely depend on which bbq tradition the pitmaster comes from. Should the sauce be sweet? Smokey? Dry rub? White??? What cut of meat should you use? What animal? Chicken, pork, beef, mutton? People who are accomplished in their particular field of bbq will be rankled by the other regions.
Just accept that non-southern BBQ is going to be grilled. It's the regional style of bbq for the rest of the world.
See my other posts for more clarification. You seem to think my complaint is people have different word usage in different areas. This is not correct.
I can't find any further meat to your complaint other than "they shouldn't call it barbecue because it's not cooked low and slow like real bbq". This is just regional dialectal varation. When I say "I'm going to barbecue this weekend," every single person I know will understand that I am grilling meat outside. If I'm going to a bbq joint for some brisket I'll say "I'm going to a tennessee bbq place" or whatever.
I understand you're concerned about "food literacy", but again I point out the wide varation within regional bbq styles on a state-to-state or even county-to-county level. The white bbq of northern Alabama couldn't be much more different than the BBQ Mutton of Kentucky, but they'd both be right in calling their dinner "barbecue". I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about regional bbq styles, but to me grilling and bbq are synonymous in general usage, unless a regional style is further specified.
> I can't find any further meat to your complaint other than "they shouldn't call it barbecue because it's not cooked low and slow like real bbq".
Explained here.
And to pre-empt that this isn't an issue, Brits in /r/BBQ regularly talk about how they have trouble getting their friends turned on to BBQ because they can't them past the idea of BBQ being something other than a grilled hot dog.
>I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about regional bbq styles, but to me grilling and bbq are synonymous in general usage, unless a regional style is further specified.
I agree entirely, and my previous posts explain why this is an issue.
Should Pizza Hut and Dominos change the name of their product because it prevents people from experiencing real pizza from Napoli? How about I start complaining about how southern bbq is just diluting the word, and preventing people from trying real authentic barbacoa. Don't even get me started on bagels. I bet you'd have a hard time finding what I consider to be a perfect bagel where you live; the round things with a hole in the middle are still bagels, just bagels I consider vastly inferior.
>Should Pizza Hut and Dominos change the name of their product because it prevents people from experiencing real pizza from Napoli?
Honestly this proves his point. I don't know what pizza that isn't from american fast food restaurants is, and I wouldn't have even attempted to find out about it because I would assume that all pizza is american pizza, which sullies the perceived value of actual pizza, because I think that pizza is meh, and otherwise wouldn't even attempt to taste other pizza. But even then, this isn't what he was talking about. He is talking about if Pizza were two different food items entirely, such that one was a general term for many different foods, and another was a separate term for which the other didn't encompass, and both existed with in the same language, and which there was also a separate term for which the first talked about. People who use the first term are never going to catch on that what they are eating is not what the other person is talking about, and they will never experience what the second term is talking about because they think they've already had it.
>Don't even get me started on bagels. I bet you'd have a hard time finding what I consider to be a perfect bagel where you live; the round things with a hole in the middle are still bagels, just bagels I consider vastly inferior.
not even the same concept, they are both made the same way, and taste the same, look the same etc in your example, when you compare both versions of BBQ the taste preparation and look is all different. People won't try BBQ because they think they've already had it. You're "authentic" argument is a straw man, that wasn't what he was saying at all. This isn't a Wine vs Wine argument and this isn't a superior tastes argument.
> People who use the first term are never going to catch on that what they are eating is not what the other person is talking about
Weird. Where I live "BBQ" is synonymous for grilling, and yet there are many thriving southern-style bbq houses that don't grill a single thing. People either must be going to them accidentally, or something called context exists and specifics can be drawn out through conversation.
>People won't try BBQ because they think they've already had it.
And if the words for BBQ and grilling were completely and magically separated, I can imagine people not trying it because it's something they've never heard of before. You and I have no clue how people's eating habits are determined by the names of the foods.
> Should Pizza Hut and Dominos change the name of their product because it prevents people from experiencing real pizza from Napoli?
Absolutely not. Freedom of speech is important and people should be allowed to call anything a pizza if they so choose.
Whether or not the fact people will call anything from a piece of galvanized rubber with cheese to a hot circle of garbage "pizza" prevents people from experiencing how good pizza can really be is a completely separate issue.
My goal is not to assay right and wrong. It's to find out what barriers exist to people experiencing just how good foods outside of their ethnicity can be, and how those barriers can be mitigated.
Cool. We're in agreement, then. I'm off to barbecue a hotdog.
> Cool. We're in agreement, then.
So we agree that saying "barbecue a hot dog" is an impedance to bring good food to more people?
More Comments - Click Here
Damn didn't even realize BBQ snobs existed.
Would you call someone who considers Chef Boyardee to be classic French cuisine a snob as well?
While I would definitely agree that in an ideal world people would use a different term for grilling and for smoking meat over low heat but at this point it isn't worth it to argue. It makes you look like an asshole to say "that's not BBQ" when somebody is proud of what they've done. Words have contextual meaning. "Come over for a BBQ" or "we are BBQing later" means grilling. "Taste this BBQ" means smoked meat. You are just stuck with that.
And true BBQ certainly isn't as difficult as you make it sound. Yes, getting everything perfect is difficult but a newbie with a few hours on the internet and a wsm can make excellent meat. Its not some high art that demands thousands of hours of apprenticeship.
>While I would definitely agree that in an ideal world people would use a different term for grilling and for smoking meat over low heat but at this point it isn't worth it to argue.
To each their own. Food is one of the most important things in my life, and I'll admit to being an idealist.
> And true BBQ certainly isn't as difficult as you make it sound. Yes, getting everything perfect is difficult but a newbie with a few hours on the internet and a wsm can make excellent meat. Its not some high art that demands thousands of hours of apprenticeship.
Perhaps I should clarify my stance here. Yes, anyone can make some pretty damn good BBQ with not too much work. Hell, it's probably harder to get a pork shoulder wrong than it is to get it right! It's mastery of the art which is difficult.
Some foods are easy to master. Let's look at Italian. Homemade pasta is really easy to master. The parmigianas aren't that hard to master either. Lasagna can be intimidating but with a small amount of practice can be simple. And most people don't even realize that alfredo basically reduces to butter and cream. Some things are hard to master. Pizza? Pizza is hard enough to master that there are certifications for Pizziaolos. Meatballs are hard enough to master that learning an Italian grandmother's secret recipe will give them a shorter life expectancy than your arch enemy complaining to the local Don about you on the day of his daughter's wedding.
So when I say that BBQ is hard, I mean that it's hard to master. Myron Mixon (don't remember if it was on BBQ Pitmasters or elsewhere) once talked about people who would wander over to his stall at competitions and tell them to go ahead and watch. It isn't recipes that make him one of the winningest pitmasters on the major circuits and he knows it. It's because he knows enough about meat, smoke, and flame that what he does is intuitive. You can watch him all you want, but without a decade or two of experience you won't replicate what he does with meat other than by dumb luck or accident. Hell, I've been BBQing for years and until you start learning more you have no understanding of how much you still had to learn at the start without realizing.
This thread has been linked to from elsewhere on reddit.
^If ^you ^follow ^any ^of ^the ^above ^links, ^respect ^the ^rules ^of ^reddit ^and ^don't ^vote ^or ^comment. ^Questions? ^Abuse? ^Message ^me ^here.