Barbecue

Barbecue is a term for cooking methods that use live fire and smoke, encompassing both the indirect low-temperature style common in the United States, where meat is smoked or roasted over wood or charcoal at roughly 116 to 138 degrees Celsius for several hours, and the direct-heat style used in much of the rest of the world, closer to grilling over hot coals or a gas fire for just a few minutes at temperatures above 260 degrees Celsius. The word traces to barabicu, a term from the Taino and other Arawakan languages of the Caribbean describing a wooden framework used to suspend meat over flames; Spanish conquistadors encountered the technique after 1492 and carried the word into Spanish, from which it entered English by the 1600s. Beyond the cooking method itself, barbecue also names the equipment used and the social gatherings built around it.