random pet peeve

[lirazel]

It really, really irks me when people use the word barbeque when there is no barbeque involved. Like, they say that, and what they really mean is that someone is grilling hamburgers and hot dogs or whatever? And hey! I love hamburgers and hot dogs! Go ahead with your grilling! I am a fan! BUT NOT AS BIG OF A FAN AS I AM OF BARBEQUE, SO STOP IT WITH YOUR FALSE ADVERTISING. YOU GET ME ALL EXCITED ABOUT THIS GATHERING TO CONSUME BARBEQUE AND THEN THERE IS NO BARBEQUE. BARBEQUE IS SERIOUS, SERIOUS BUSINESS SO DO NOT TAKE IT LIGHTLY.

If you're grilling and eating outside and such and there's no actual barbeque involved, it's a cook-out. The end.

This post has been brought to you by the word shibboleth.

Now I really want some barbeque.

Comments

[unbridled-b.livejournal.com]

Seriously. A true Southerner would know better. You get your ass kicked for passing off grilled wieners as barbeque. ;P

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY. Getting us all excited about barbeque and then not following through? People will not be happy.

[blackfrancine.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! YES. My parents--who were raised in the Midwest--do this. Or at least they used to. I think they were eventually indoctrinated into the very serious distinction between grilling and barbeque.

But I remember as a kid being weirded out that everyone who I wasn't related to called it "grilling"--and that it was most definitely NOT barbeque in their books.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

It's totally a regional thing, I realize. And you will get corrected if you're down here and say it wrong.

Who was it the other day who told me that he barbequed a turkey, and I got all excited? I asked him if there was a pit involved, and he was like, "Oh, I meant I grilled it." DISAPPOINTMENT. I've never had homemade turkey barbeque, so I was anxious to hear how it was. The kind I get from our local joints is pretty good, though obviously not as good as pulled pork because nothing is.

[blackfrancine.livejournal.com]

I totally need to do a barbeque tour of the South. Because, here, we're all about the beef. Like, the greatest thing you can give me in life is beef ribs--because they're SO hard to find. Almost no one makes them--only the really hole-in-the-wall authentic places do. But every other form of beef barbeque is ubiquitous. Brisket, sausage, chopped beef. But pork is almost like an exotic form of barbeque for us--it's like, ooh. Look at this novelty item--pork! I need to be more familiar with the pulled-pork universe, I think.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Oh, you do! And I will gladly accompany you! I like beef, but I'm all about the pork. I'm really interested in trying beef ribs now. I do love ribs, so that sounds really good.

Of course, y'all are a cattle state, so it makes sense that beef would be at the center of your diet. I read that the reason that Southerners eat so much pork is because of the poverty issue--pork is substantially less expensive than beef, so we ate tons of it, and even in the places that are now doing okay economically (which is still a limited number of places) just kind of stuck with it.

[bobthemole.livejournal.com]

There's some quite decent beef ribs at Ruby's Barbeque in Austin, on 29th and Guadalupe.

You might know that already :)

[blackfrancine.livejournal.com]

I haven't had their ribs! I actually haven't been to Ruby's in a really long time--since I was in school, I think. But I remember they have really good side items--and that if you go there, you're gonna smell like a smokehouse for the rest of the day... which could be good.

Artz Ribhouse on South Lamar is the place that I usually go for beef ribs--but I think Sam's on E. 7th might have them too. And outside of Pflugerville, the Cele Store def. has them. Theirs are the best in the universe!

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

We've never barbequed a turkey but last year, we roasted one in our pit just like you'd roast on in the oven. We used a combination of aged oak, pecan and mesquite. No sauce involved but oh my God, it was awesome, I kid you not.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

That sounds amazing. I am making myself so hungry in this post!

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

I know, me too. And I don't have time for BBQ today.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Alas, we Northerners use the term "barbeque" and "cookout" to mean the same thing.

Although in recent years we are beginning to learn the difference .

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

This is encouraging news! Everyone should know the difference and let that difference improve their lives! Because what is life without barbeque? It's a barren wasteland, that is what.

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha ha HA!

I love this post.

Barbeque is indeed serious fucking business!

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

:D I am glad we agree!

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

It's true! Hey, I like grilled burgers and smoked chicken breasts just fine but that's not a barbeque.

inviting someone over for barbeque and serving grilled wieners is sort of an insult, in my opinion. But then, I don't like grilled wieners. They dry out on a pit and well, just ... no. Yuck!

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I actually only eat my hot dogs grilled, and I like them a little charred, so maybe I'm weird! But I agree about other grilled things being very good...but not barbeque!

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

Heeeeeeeeeeee! And I like mine boiled in water so that they swell up.

[blackfrancine.livejournal.com]

Heee! This sounds so dirty. Swollen wieners.

Sorry. Mind's in the gutter! Carry on.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I feel like Allison Janney's character from 10 Things I Hate About You would use that in her romance novel.

[blackfrancine.livejournal.com]

Tumescent! The hot dogs are tumescent!

LMAO!

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

omg, you just made me choke on my coke.

[magisterequitum.livejournal.com]

This can get you into seriously trouble, if you don't understand the difference. Like, you cannot get people excited!

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I know! It's a dangerous thing! Use the words carefully!

[bobthemole.livejournal.com]

Oh barbecue!

I think I know what I want for dinner now.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I am very pleased I can provide you with inspiration!

[madcap-shiny.livejournal.com]

This distinction never occurred to me before! I WILL BE SURE TO KEEP TRACK OF MY LANGUAGE FROM NOW ON.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

IT IS A THING, KYRIE. DON'T BE A BARBEQUE TEASE!

[brunettepet.livejournal.com]

I have just taken to asking, "So, what kind of wood are you using?" Blank look and I know what I'm in for.

Around here we smoke and we propane grill and we Weber grill. We like our meats and we like fire!

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! I like that plan!

There is nothing better than meat + fire! Unless it's vegetables + frying.

[prophecygirrl.livejournal.com]

LOL! I am on notice!!! I will change my Ebil ways!!!! :D

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Well, you'll probably be okay using it where you are. Just don't use it that way in the South if you don't want a lot of reaaaaaally disappointed people on your hands! :D

[green-maia.livejournal.com]

Um...please don't kill me for asking this, but...what's the difference?

*hides*

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Basically, if you say the word barbeque in the South, you're talking about pulled pork or any kind of meat that's cooked in a pit in the ground. We take barbeque really seriously--different ways of cooking it, different types of sauce (usually vinegar-, ketchup-, or mustard-based), depending on where you are. We have huge competitions for it and build our summers around it. So you really don't want to use that word unless you're specifically talking about barbeque as a food you can eat. You wouldn't want to use it to refer to just grilling something, because we don't use the word that way here. And you definitely wouldn't want to say "I'm going to a barbeque!" if you're really just going to a cook-out where people are grilling something but there isn't going to be any actual barbeque. Basically, if you use the word barbeque, people are going to expect barbeque and barbeque sauce, and probably cole slaw and baked beans or something. And because we love it so much, we'd get majorly disappointed if that weren't provided.

A quote: "Southern barbeque is the closet thing we have in the U.S. to Europe's wines and cheeses; drive a hundred miles and the barbeque changes." Truth. It's completely different in, say, Kentucky than it is from the Carolinas or the Deep South. It's a cultural institution!

[green-maia.livejournal.com]

So I gather that the difference isn't so much in how the cooking is done, as in what's associated with it? It's not that "If you cook it in X way then it's grilling and if you cook it in Y way then it's barbecuing" - it's that a barbecue has all sorts of rituals and traditions and associations that make it a barbecue, and just grilling doesn't have those?

Also - I gather that it's not a barbecue unless there is barbecue sauce, but barbecue sauce isn't enough to make it a barbecue?

Sorry to be so dense! Local food culture fascinates me.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

No, I wouldn't say the difference is in the way it's cooked.

We actually don't use the word "a barbeque" at all. If food is going to be made and consumed outside, we say cookout. We pretty much only use the word barbeque to refer to pulled pork (or, you know, turkey barbeque or whatever--it doesn't necessarily have to be made from pork, but that's what the majority of it is made of)--the actual food that's going to be consumed. And most of the time that involves barbeque sauce, yes, but my little sister doesn't like barbeque sauce on her barbeque, but it's still barbeque. Does that make sense?

Local food culture fascinates me.

Me, too!

[shamoogity.livejournal.com]

[shamoogity.livejournal.com]

Ha, I'm glad someone else asked. I was also confused.

[ghostyouknow27.livejournal.com]

I'm originally from Massachusetts, so the sanctity of the barbecue mostly just puzzles me. But this is reminding me of an argument I once had with a guy who, when I suggested grilling some food, automatically assumed that meant chicken. When he came over, he threw a mini fit because I had assembled veggie kabobs and hadn't bought him any chicken (because my request that he bring whatever meat he wanted to grill was completely unreasonable, even taking into account that I'm veg). *I* was supposed to buy and cook chicken, because I said the word, "grill." I said that was like assuming that ovens were strictly for pot roasts and could never be used to make anything else. He said I was dead wrong. Grill=chicken. The end.

That was pretty much the best part of that date.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Basically we didn't have any beef in the South for so long (because of the expense) that we built our meat-eating around chicken and pork (and catfish!) to such an extent that we really do treat it the way that Europeans treat cheese as like some sort of holy experience. It's really not at all rational; it's just one of those embedded cultural things.

HAHAHA to that story! That is so weird. I haven't heard anything like that! What does he do when he wants a steak or something? Also, it sounds like he didn't respect your vegetarianism, either. What a jerk.

I love veggie kabobs. That sounds like an excellent dinner to me!

[ghostyouknow27.livejournal.com]

Basically we didn't have any beef in the South for so long (because of the expense) that we built our meat-eating around chicken and pork (and catfish!) to such an extent that we really do treat it the way that Europeans treat cheese as like some sort of holy experience. It's really not at all rational; it's just one of those embedded cultural things.

Makes sense! I've spent most of my life in Maryland, and here it's crab feasts. Also, Chesapeake Bay seasoning on *everything.* And Berger cookies, if you're from B'more, which I'm not. *g* I think you have to head into the actual Confederacy/farther below the Mason Dixon to get the BBQ love.

I suppose he must skillet his steaks? Because they sure as Hell can't go on a grill. I'm not kidding when I say that was the absolute best part of the night. **sigh bad dates sigh**

[ever-neutral.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHA

You bring funny

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

These are IMPORTANT THINGS that you NEED TO KNOW when you visit me. Obviously.

[ceciliaj.livejournal.com]

I wanted to let you know that, because of this post, I ate barbeque twice this weekend :-D. Mmmmm.