Barbecue is the oldest and most diverse cooking method in the world. When we think of barbecue in the UK, we often think hot, fast, direct cooking – sausages, burgers, chicken and steaks grilled directly over hot coals – but this is just one small part of a huge global tradition. Travel the world and you’ll find different methods everywhere, all with their own unique traditions and equipment. That grill tradition exists in Japan too, where tiny tabletop grills are used to cook yakitori skewers, but head to the USA and you’ll find barbecue means something entirely different, with huge trailers employed as smoke ovens to slow-cook entire pigs and huge pieces of beef brisket.
Basically, as long as you’re cooking using live fire and smoke, you’re barbecuing. The main difference comes in the form of whether you are cooking with a direct or an indirect heat source. Direct heat is where the heat source is close to or directly below the food you’re cooking – this would include the aforementioned Japanese and European-style grills, as well as South American parillas. By comparison, indirect cooking is where there is a separation from the cooking food and the heat source – this includes American-style smokers and cooking al asador in South America, where whole animals are strung up around open fires to cook with indirect heat from the embers.