Talk:Barbecue

Barbecue VS grilling

In order to be consistent with the definition AlbertCahalan is proposing, most of the article would have to be deleted, as it does not comply. Certainly the regional variations and all the photos would all have to be cut out.

Certainly not. It is you who insists on a POV definition that excludes what very many people consider to be barbeque. I'm only asking that the general and more inclusive definition be used. All the photos can remain; they are fine. In some particular place, the "deep south" I imagine, barbeque may exclude high-temperature cooking. This is not the definition normally used in California or New England. Sorry, we other people exist too. AlbertCahalan 15:25, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think you should accept that there is a wide community of people who use definitions that differ from the ones you use. From your user talk page, I can see that you have already had disagreements with at least two other users because you chose to impose American English on the Bakeware article. Now you seek to impose your own particular usage of American English over the usage of the previous contributors to this article.

I think you mean on Wikibooks, where someone wanted to use an obscure term as the primary name of an article. Google tells me his name was unpopular by a factor of 38 to 1 against either of the top two alternatives. In spite of this, I was OK with mentioning his oddball term on the page. We don't put pages under screwy names and then mention the common names in passing; that would be severely messed up. AlbertCahalan 15:25, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I urge you to reconsider your approach, and to remember that Wikipedia is not the place to impose one's semantic POV. --Grouse 09:24, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Great. You should accept that there is a wide community of people who use definitions that differ from the ones you use. Please do so. Do not exclude high-temperature cooking, even in the flames. Do not exclude the use of barbeque sauce in a pot on the stove. These are perfectly valid forms of barbeque. Well, hey: I urge you to reconsider your approach, and to remember that Wikipedia is not the place to impose one's semantic POV. AlbertCahalan 15:25, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I should add that the dictionary agrees with me. See http://m-w.com/ for example. (to pick a dictionary you can't just edit) Taking advantage of the fair use concept, I'll even quote it for you. Barbecue is: "1 : to roast or broil on a rack over hot coals or on a revolving spit before or over a source of heat 2 : to cook in a highly seasoned vinegar sauce" It actually looks like your definition is excluded, but I won't be cruel enough to delete that. I just ask that you quit pushing your unusual definition as the only definition. AlbertCahalan 16:40, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I must say, I'm quite surprised by all of this. I always thought the traditional meanings of 'barbeque' versus 'grill' were quite clear — that while the former was starting to broaden its definition, its original sense was not in dispute. I don't think anyone's arguing to exclude the newer senses of 'barbeque', but at the same time it seems fair to note its original sense and to state that there are purists who insist on it. -- Perey 18:20, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm quite surprised in the other direction. I've never met a person who'd make the distinction you make. This is almost certainly a regional issue, with the restrictive barbecue definition being used mostly in the South or Southeast. Maybe you're surrounded even; I'll have to ask in Florida and the Pacific Northwest. AlbertCahalan 22:50, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ironically, I think you're making the mistake of thinking too regionally now. I'm Australian. ;-) Australian usage, for the record, uses 'barbeque' almost universally for the social occasion and the cooking appliance (which is actually of the grilling kind as a rule, rather than the slow cooker). As such, the slow-cook definition of the word is all but lost here, but I was still under the impression it was the original sense. ('Barbeque chicken' on the other hand is a popular takeaway food and is most definitely barbequed in the slow-cook sense.) -- Perey 02:53, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The true definition of barbecue is the indirect slow-cooking method, not common grilling. It is certainly not flipping burgers over a gas or charcoal grill and most certainly not baking chicken in Kraft "barbeque sauce" on a stove. If you think so, then you must come to the South and get some actual barbecue. Anyway, Wikipedia strives to maintain factual accuracy; therefore, this article should only cover the indirect method. Take everything else to the grilling article. Haverton 20:23, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You think Wikipedia is supposed to only use a regional definition? Sorry, but no. This is not the South Wikipedia. You might not care for New England and California, but they exist, They use en.wikipedia.org because they are English-speaking areas. AlbertCahalan 01:53, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If they want to find out about regular grilling, then they can go to the article about grilling. This article is about slow-cooking barbecue.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever had real barbecue? The barbecue I'm referring to? Haverton 19:47, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If you want the article to be about slow-cooking barbecue only, then move it to slow-cooking barbecue and I'll write a replacement article for barbecue. Otherwise, this article is about barbecue. Your "real barbecue" doesn't exist in most places, and I missed my chance while passing through Tennesee. I have had plenty of mainstream barbecue though. AlbertCahalan 20:31, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Or mabye you should move your definition to the grilling article. Perhaps you should have some real barbecue and we'll see if you think barbecuing and grilling are the same. If you live in the Northeast, I know there are a couple of real barbecue places in New York and Boston. However, until you have acutal barbecue, you can't really comment on what's barbecue and what's not. By the way, mainstream barbecue is not canned slop on a bun or baked chicken in Kraft sauce. Haverton 00:23, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hang on a minute here. I think we've completely lost the point in some internecine American barbecue war. ;-) It seems to me that on the one hand we have the "real barbecue is slow-cooking" camp, and on the other we have the "if enough people call it barbecuing, it's barbecuing, even if it's also grilling" camp. Can anyone explain to me why either of these would reject something like the following? Barbecue traditionally refers to a slow-cooking method, and many enthusiasts still insist on this usage. However, the application of the term to other cooking methods, appliances and events is widespread. The most common sense in this less strict usage is the cooking style otherwise called grilling. -- Perey 17:05, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The compromise would be fine. Except that the last sentence needs serious reworking. "Common sense" is extremely confusing as used. Something like "Most commonly, "barbecue" is used to describe what purists call "grilling."

Hayford Peirce

I'll compromise for that if you add at the bottom of that paragraph "This article is mainly about the slow-cooking method. For more information on general grilling, refer to the Grilling article." Sound good? Haverton 23:54, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me -- good enough to eat, even, whether grilled, barbecued, or smoked....

Hayford Peirce (I've forgotten how to add my signature here...)

The first problem with that is the question of "How slow is slow?". There isn't a sharp dividing line. If there were a sharp dividing line, separate articles might be appropriate. The second problem is that "grilling" is a severely overloaded term that does have sharp dividing lines — it needs to be a disambiguation page of some sort. To the British it is the same as broiling, to be done in your electric oven! To many people, it means the use of something like the George Foreman Grill. So that's no good. Let's ditch the elitism; as I grudgingly admit that a hot dog is meat (yuck!) we should all admit that people use "barbecue" even if the cooking isn't painfully slow. AlbertCahalan 06:13, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, sign with 4 tilde characters. (looks like ~~~~ in the editor) AlbertCahalan 06:13, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As you say, "grilling" can mean many things. Not only to the British, but many American cookbooks and recipes also say "grill a steak" or whatever under the broiler unit in either a gas or electric oven -- I could find dozens of examples. It's probably an insoluble problem. Like "inflammatory" and "flammatory" essentially meaing the same thing. And thanks for the tilde tip -- I had completely forgotten how to do it.... Hayford Peirce 16:27, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I should mention that the emphasis in my suggestion ought to be on "something like the following". I wasn't really going for polished prose, more a statement of agreement to compromise. :-) I think adding such a comment is sufficient "admission" of the varied uses of "barbecue"; just because a "sharp dividing line" doesn't exist, doesn't mean they aren't distinct concepts! At the least, there's a wider gap between (slow) barbequing and grilling than grilling and broiling. -- Perey 15:51, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Most real barbecue is cooked for at least 8-10 hours in a pit either over or next to a very low burning wood flame. Compare that to 10-20 minutes for a burger. I think that's pretty clear cut. Anyway, split the grill article if you must, but keep the grilling and barbecue articles separate. If you want, have the barbecue article on a disambiguation page for grilling. Haverton 01:22, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Spelling

Should the regional sections of the article reflect (and perhaps explicitly mention) the conventional spelling of each region? I ask because the Australasia section used "barbeque" up until the last edit by Pianoman87. -- Perey 21:26, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Given the mere existance of "BBQ", I think "barbeque" appears to be more correct. "barbecue" looks like a misspelling that became common. While "barbecue" is a more popular than "barbeque" alone, it is less popular if you consider "bbq" as well. AlbertCahalan 23:11, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

For etymology - the spelling barbecue looks linked to the 1699 reference by William Dampier to Borbecu’s and the 1690 reference by Aphra Behn to barbicu. [1] I don't think "barbecue" can be dismissed as a miss-spelling. Further the presence of the Q in BBQ need not refer to the spelling but the sound as in present texting abbreviations such as W8 for wait. This article[2] suggests that the barbeque spelling is later. --AYArktos 01:30, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) (an Australian)

barbeque is an inferior spelling as it suggests pronunciation "bar-beck" (cf cheque, discotheque, grotesque; compare rescue, curlicue). Not that English has ever been afraid of irregular spellings. Joestynes 05:28, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think that the sections for each region should explicitly mention the common spellings/abbreviations in that region, but otherwise use the same spelling throughout the article. I have rarely seen the "barbeque" spelling used, and I'm from Australia. I wonder how we should treat the abbreviation BBQ, as it comes up in certain parts of the article. For example, the television article mostly uses the full word television, but it refers to TV sets, which is the more common usage. Graham 05:45, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Barbecue is generally considered the standard spelling, with barbeque an acceptable deviation and BBQ the abbreviation. Haverton 19:59, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Google shows 9,100,000 hits for Barbecue and 3,020,000 for Barbeque. Frankly I'm surprise that the Barbeque figure is that high.... Hayford Peirce 01:03, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)