What’s the point of Barbecues?

[PinkIcedCream]

I read a lot of threads on here from posters who appear to spend a lot of weekends cooking food outdoors on a barbecue and wonder what it is about cooking on a barbecue, whether charcoal, gas etc…that they love so much?

I live very rurally with no near neighbours so at least if I lit an outdoor wood fire, the smoke wouldn’t bother anyone else. Presumably, if you live in a built up area, the smoke and the smell might bother your neighbours?

My DH is vegetarian and never cooks so he wouldn’t be one of those blokes who like to take control of standing around turning the meat into charcoal. I eat some meat and no fish and don’t really like burgers, although homemade ones usually taste a bit nicer.

We don’t drink alcohol either so have no interest in getting pished.

One of my friends offered me their big barbecue when they moved abroad but I declined and I think they were a bit surprised but I couldn’t see us ever using it.

Please tell me what you enjoy about having a barbecue at home. Am I missing out?

YABU - Barbecues are great fun.

YANBU - I don’t really enjoy them either.

We love it. We have a gas bbq so can cook after work midweek regularly. We cook burgers occasionally but we do a huge range of things - from whole chickens, leg of lamb, and large steaks needing carving, to fish, sausages, vegetables in various ways, pizza, all sorts.

It can be as simple or as complicated as you like.

When I was a kid bbq's were amazing. It would be hot, the family would come over or the whole street would get involved. It was festive. BBqs in my adulthood have been a big let down, no real outdoor space, or the summer weather too hit and miss, no place to sit, and the food not up to much. Haven't been to one now in about 20 years!

Why does there have to be a point? People like different things. Don't be a grinch

Like @momager1 said it's not always a good thing to cook inside, and I also learnt from a Jamaican how to cook on a bbq properly, changed the game for me!

The taste of the food is better then when it’s cooked in/on a cooker.
also the element of being outside cooking and eating is sometimes enjoyable.
if you don’t enjoy them it’s probably because you’ve only ever had burgers and sausages on them and with your husband being a vegetarian then that alone makes it less enjoyable, although there are lots of nice vegetarian things you can cook such a corn on the cob, halloumi etc.

So many people determined to suck the joy out of any situation 🙄

What @Lovingitallnow said and other PP!

I’m not really bothered about food. But DH loves to shop and prep for a bbq and we always invite friends to join.
I usually prep various colourful salads.

Often we’ll set up a tent and some outdoor games for any kids attending and/or board games etc to entertain folks whilst they wait for food.

I love being outside when the weather is nice; we’ve eaten just about every meal outside for the past couple of weeks.

to save heating my home up even MORE , tonight we are having prawn skewers, beef skewers, veggie skewers. I will also plug my rice cooker in outside. We eat inside as I have a severe bee allergy and husband hates flies lol. But I will not be adding to the heat in the house. I already have all things in their respective marinades in fridge ready to go on skewers tonight!

As a teetotal vegetarian I absolutely disagree.
I love the different side salads, grilled halloumi, so many different veggie options for sausage and burgers now but I do cook meat for DP and DC.
Neither DP or I drink so we make lots of mocktails and punch.
Kids love it and even the youngest likes to get involved helping, one day I'd love an outdoor kitchen, with the pizza oven and proper Blackstone grill.

I think people love BBQs because it just brings an ordinary meal into an event doesn't it?

I do not get the excitement. Typically hosted by women in maxi dresses waving prosecco around and looking all excited over the couscous while their loud children scream on a trampoline and the balding husband burns meat. Do not get it

Oh please, you sound fun.
Imagine the audacity of enjoying a glass of wine in the garden while wearing a summer dress

I love them, i am not sure if it’s the food, the happy family time or the outdoor dining or a combination of all three.
I even live the snacks and dips I have while the food is being cooked.

I think if you particularly like boiled or fried food it’s probably never going to appeal. Personally I love the taste of food cooked on a flame rather than in a pan. I also love how easy it is to cater for larger groups. I like being outside rather than in a hot kitchen and I like not having to wash up roasting trays.

That would be me! Except for the children, and the trampoline, and while Mr Pony is indeed balding, he isn't actually allowed to cook on MY bbq. I like couscous, though.

I think its different eating out on holiday than at home. I could sit anywhere on holiday and love it - we sat by a main road next to our hotel and just ate patatas bravas and drank beer in Madrid at Easter and it was glorious. My back garden - meh! I also think you overeat with BBQ food and its not particularly healthy. Its all the extras - pasta salads, marinades. carb central - I cook salmon if having one a lot and have cous cous/salad but always reach for the sausages.

I'm another one for "cook inside, eat outside". I don't get it. And I grew up in a BBQing country.

A lot of you seem to have been to very bad bbqs!

I've just said to husband shall we eat outside. He said why its hotter than hell out there. 😂

Everyone is different so each to their own. I am not a fan TBH, and I don't host them myself as I don't possess a BBQ thing anyway.

However, I do love eating and mingling in the garden on a great Summer's day, that is one of life's great pleasures.

I just throw everything in the oven (yes I know it makes the kitchen hot, but slaving over a hot BBQ has a similar effect surely!). Tray of chicken legs/wings, cocktail sausages, quiches, ribs, baked spuds, whatever. A tray of roasted veg, a big dish of potato salad, coleslaw, pasta salad etc. Bread. Tiramisu for dessert. Serve the lot outside, get kids and sober folk to help ferry it outside.

Works for me, and foil dishes all the way, so very little clean up. Plenty of beer and wine, and water/squash, all in the mahoosive cooler thing on wheels that comes out of the shed the day before to be hosed out lol.

Enjoy it your way, and enjoy the sun.

@Assignedtoworryyourmother

My mum who'd lived in Greece before settling in the uk used to bbq in the mid seventies when it was all seen as rather eccentric and foreign. She had an old chimney pot in the garden. The short dumpy style, and she'd make sausage patties or home made burgers with sweetcorn cobs and grill them over coals. Kraft cheese slices had recently come out and they were a proper treat.

Lovely memories of my grand parents and elderly aunties in orange and brown deck chairs and the youngsters on tartan picnic blankets

For me it's all about the flavour bbq imparts to the food.

It has to be charcoal. A gas bbq is just outside cooking. I'm not interested in that.

I love every aspect of what people are saying about barbecues (outdoors, social, lots of different salads, everyone helping themselves etc etc.) apart from the barbecue itself!
I'm not fussed about having charcoal and smokey food. I find the drawn out cooking process irritating tbh. The barbecue itself often detracts from the sociability because there's a macho martyr stationed at it for hours.
But I accept other people love them. Doesn't make me a killjoy or misery. I have an open plan kitchen /living room with bifolds onto the garden. Fabulously social set up that doesn't lose anything because the food isn't cooked on a bbq.

We mostly bbq in this weather if we are making anything that’s not salad or a bowl of pasta. Except DH is half South African, so we braai. And always on charcoal (I’ve drawn the line at a braai pit in the garden).

Yesterday it was chicken shawarma with homemade yoghurt flatbreads. Today it’s salmon in foil with grilled asparagus and Jersey Royals. Absolutely delicious, and doubly so when eaten in the sun.

To be honest, the barbecues of my childhood were pretty grim- sausages, burgers, flabby bread, ketchup and a cloggy pasta salad. But having eaten great variations on bbq all around the world (oh my gosh, they get it in the Caribbean), it’s a lovely way to eat. Learn to do it right, experiment, avoid the random mishmash (ask guests to bring wine, not a dish of food), and it’s great.

And always, always finish with ‘s’mores 🙂

DH can’t be doing with all the faff eg waiting for the coals to be hot enough but then it does tend to be just us 3 - if we had folks round, it wouldn’t matter if you had to wait. I love the flavours, especially barbecued steak. We have had some lovely evenings on the beach with a disposable BBQ.