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We all like to think that we invented barbecue. The truth, however, is that different cultures in different countries throughout the world have their own homegrown styles of barbecue grill, some of which go back thousands of years. Any fan of barbecued meat that avoids these other styles is missing out on learning some new techniques and eating some great food. This article will give you a brief, whirlwind tour of different barbecue traditions and techniques across the globe.

To appreciate other styles of barbecued grill, we’ll have to leave behind some comfortable American notions about barbecue. When we think of barbecue, we think of pork and beef cooked low and slow over indirect heat for some truly fine tender and juicy meat slathered in a sweet and spicy tomato-based sauce. Barbecue grill in other cultures, however, cook lots of other meat in addition to beef and pork, and use their own native spices and sauces. And while we see an important difference between grilling and barbecuing indeed, may even come to blows over it after a few beers in a Texas roadhouse, few other cultures make such a distinction. So for this article, we’ll have included grilling as part of barbecue.

European countries have had their own types of barbecue grill for centuries. Before refrigeration, smoking was one of the standard ways to preserve meat for the winter. Europeans smoke just about any animal that walks, swims, or flies. Central and Eastern European countries are famous for their sausages smoked over oak or hickory wood. Ireland smoked meat over peat instead of a charcoal or wood grill, creating a distinctive flavor in the process, and the Irish make a mean smoked potato. France, Italy, Greece, and other Mediterranean countries have a tradition of meat delicately seasoned with persillade (garlic and parsley), brushed with olive oil to seal in the juices, and smoked over grapevine wood.

The Asian barbecue tradition evolved completely separately from western barbecue grill over thousands of years. The kamado cooker burns lump charcoal, and is tightly sealed to keep in moisture, the ceramic cooker walls radiate the low, indirect heat all around the meat for hours. Southern China serves Char Sui, pork marinated in soy sauce and honey and grilled in long narrow strips. Korea sports Bulgogi, thinly sliced beef, pork, or chicken marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, and chili pepper, and is grilled right at the table. Japanese barbecue is marinated in soy-based sauces such as their famous Teriyaki, and sport some of the world’s finest techniques for barbecuing seafood and vegetables. They even barbecue fried noodles, known as Yakisoba. The southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam boast the world famous Satay, meat skewered on bamboo, BBQ grilled over charcoal, and marinated and basted with a thick, gooey curry-peanut sauce.

There are many other barbecuing traditions across the globe that merits at least a brief mention. In the Middle East, the world-famous Persian grill kebab is deeply entrenched with many regional variations. In South Asia, the Indian Tandoori barbecuing grill tradition marinates chicken and lamb in yogurt and spices, then cooks it in a charcoal-fired clay oven. In the Pacific Island style of pit-smoking, of which Hawaiian Kalua is perhaps the most famous, salted pork is laid in an earthen pit lined with banana or Ti plant leaves and filled with hot stones, then covered in more leaves and burlap, then reburied to steam all day. Lechon barbeque from the Caribbean and Philippines roasts a slowly turning pig on a spit over charcoal.

Thanks to the glories of the internet, exotic new barbecue recipes, cooking instructions, and even barbecue equipment from around the world can be found within seconds from our homes and offices. Any barbecuer worth his salt can learn a new trick or two from the different cooking and seasoning styles of other cultures, and would do well to take advantage of this vast and ancient resource.

Barbecue is one of those crazy words that means different things to different folk. On one hand, fast food restaurants claim anything with BBQ sauce smeared on it is barbecue. On the other hand, hard-core backyard barbecuers (who tend to be a real particular bunch) think only a particular cut of meat with a particular sauce cooked in a particular way over a particular wood counts as barbecue. Smoking and grilling just confuse things more, are they different from barbecuing, or different types of barbeque?

Well, this article will try to clear all this up for you, describing just what exactly barbeque means. There’s a bit of an argument over whether “barbecue” is a noun (a type of food) or a verb (a method of cooking). Personally, I’d argue that it is both, a cooking style AND a type of food (that, contrary to popular belief, does not necessarily include BBQ sauce). True barbeque cooking requires four things. First a barbecue almost always cooks meat (with some exception, like corn on the cob or potatoes). Second, it is generally cooked outdoors (but we’ll make an exception for restaurants that build special indoor cookers). Third, meat cooked over a live fire, not in an oven or on a stove. Fourth, real, true barbecue is cooked slowly with indirect heat at a low temperature.

It’s for this reason that grilling is not barbeque (and all you suburbanite grillers are free to slap me with your spatulas for saying that). In grilling, meat is cooked quickly (in minutes) over direct heat at a high temperature (5000F or over). In barbecue, meat is cooked slowly (in hours) in indirect heat at a low temperature (between 2000F and 2500F). Smoking counts as BBQ, it meets all the requirements listed above but is a specialized type that includes aromatic smoke to flavor the meat. Now, you may ask (and rightly so) how the end result of barbecue meat is different from, say, oven-roasted or pan-seared meat. The answer is that barbeque meat is extremely tender and juicy.

The low-temperature, indirect heat helps prevent the meat from drying out, keeping it juicy. The long, slow cooking time breaks down the collagen in the meat, making even the tougher cuts of meat nice and tender for easy eating. What most folks don’t realize (including some hard-core barbecuers themselves) is that the marinade, ribs, bastes, and sauces of barbecue cooking are all designed toward this ultimate goal of tender and juicy meat. Marinades almost always include an acidic base ingredient, such as vinegar, lemon juice (or some other citric acid), wine, or even beer. During the long, multi-hour soak, these acids tenderize the meat by breaking down the tissue, making it more tender and allowing the meat to absorb more moisture for a juicer end product when barbecue. The rib almost always contains a healthy dose of salt, which draws the meat juices to the surface and prevents it from drying out. The basting BBQ sauces, usually applied in the later stages of cooking, frequently contain some form of sugar (brown sugar, molasses, or honey), which caramelizes around the meat from the heat and seals in the juices (olive and other oils produces the same effect).

Even the barbecue sauces (which in the United States are either tomato or vinegar based) both contain acids that continue to break down the meat, keeping it tender and moist even while being eaten. A final distinctive element of barbecue meat is a smoky flavor. Cooking over a live fire allows the meat to absorb the smoke from burning wood. Even when cooking over charcoal briquettes or gas instead of wood, the meat still gains at least a hint of that indefinable charbroil taste. Smoking, of course, is a specialized form of barbecue that purposefully tries to emphasize the smoky flavor. So that’s what barbeque is, meat cooked low and slow until it’s tender and juicy. Different cultures in different countries have their own homegrown barbeque tastes and traditions, but we’ll describe those in the next article.