Barbecue vs Grilling

British Barbecue

.... has absolutely no comparison wirg the American coincept of barbecue.

In Britain we think of barnecuing as a complete and quick way to cook raw food to an edible food ... and that is just about where barbecue ends.

Within the US, barbecue is an institution with prizes won and lost depending upon gow tasty and succulent a piece of meat is after hours of cooking. YES .. I did say hours.

Barbecue truly is a low temperature type of cokking .. cooking tough joints of meat for many hours at a relatively low temperature after injecting a flavourful marinade.

We should not confuse UK Barbecue with US barbecue. In the UK we focus on grilling fast and at high temeratures and sadly we are the worse for it.

US Barbecue

.. is all about flavour and succulence. Marinading the meat over many hours introduces intense flavours that cannot be achieved with a traditional techniqie of grabbing sausages from the fridge  and sticking them on a UK barbecue to scorch and risk being raw within.

The US barbecue is an exercise in planning with thick (and cheap) joints such as Boston Butt (pork shoulder) bough inexpensively and allowed to marinade over 24 hours or more with sugar,garlic, soy and other ingredients to absorb the intense flavours over many hours.

Unlike UK barbecues, US folks do not try to cook with an intense heat in less than 30 minutes.  With a US barbecue, it is not unusual for meats to be cooked at a relatively low temperature over 12-24 hours with the fats rendering and dripping ovrt the heat source delivering a succulent barbecued meat with a sweet smoky flavour that can only be achieved after hours of loving cooking.