Barbecue. The word, when it is the first thing that pops out of your mouth as you lie in bed and your wife greets you with a sleepy pillow-eclipsed smile and the cats claw outside your bedroom door, can sound a little ridiculous. What does Bar B Q mean anyway? What are its origins?

Actually, nobody cares, because once you say the word “barbeque” the mind abandons frilly thoughts of etymology and ontology, and moves on to halibut and kebabs and corn and tri-tip and sausage and short ribs and salmon and burgers and leg of lamb and turducken and scampi and kangaroo and scrod and fennel root and game hen and all the good things that have accreted in our collective unconscious since the discovery of fire by some axe-wielding Persian king back at the wee dawn of time.

Barbecue. What shall we grill? How shall we grill it? With what shall we eat it? What are our beverage options? A floral yet crisp rosé from the south of France? Those assorted bottles of weissebier idling in the basement from last years trip to Bavaria? A fine, slender-bodied Pinot Noir from Oregon’s Willamette Valley? Your intrepid neighbor’s latest experiment with home-made root beer?

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Mark Bitterman :: May.31.2007 :: Recipes :: No Comments »