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UK grill - a history of barbecue in the UK

This is a very short story.

UK grill pic by Julieanne Savage

Blindsided by the weather

Alas, we have to distinguish between barbecue on the one hand and indoor open fire (or hearth) cooking on the other. A barbecue, by definition, takes place outdoors and in the UK, until very recently, it rained outdoors almost all the time. Barbecuing in the rain is unpleasant even in warm climates and barbecuing in the rain and mud and cold is just a stupid activity if there is some viable indoor alternative.

Only when it could not be avoided

It is not surprising then that barbecue, as a recreation, did not spontaneously develop in the UK. Certainly, since time immemorial, hunting parties and travelers cooked things over open fires in the damp forests of Britain when away from home and caught between inns or huts or caves, as the case and epoch might be. But this was always a miserable consequence of necessity, with very few exceptions. One of the most colourful of the exceptions also apparently contributed to the expression “a pretty kettle of fish”.

The aristocracy

It seems that for some time prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, certain aristocrats with estates in Scotland would offer guests the peculiar entertainment of a voluntarily cooked or “self-poached” salmon.

Salmon are extraordinarily strong and active fish and as the spawning season approaches, make their way up Scottish rivers from the sea. They are not easily interrupted in their progress and will happily leap over or up weirs and waterfalls that get in their way. This is a rough-and-tumble process however, with salmon continually leaping and falling back until they eventually surmount the obstacle. What the worthy dignitaries would do was have servants build a big fire right at the edge of a waterfall and place a large kettle of water on it. The water would be kept full and boiling. Tents would be erected nearby and the guests would be plied with spirituous liquors and other treats. Minstrels would play and jolly frolics would take place, while the whole company waited for a salmon to accidentally fall into the kettle and be boiled alive in their presence. This was considered spectacularly amusing and as the salmon would then be eaten, the whole thing counts as a weirdly distasteful form of barbecue.

The ordinary folk

Not having the opportunity for exotic outdoor pastimes, the ordinary folk stayed tucked-up in their cottages and terraced houses, clustered around their coal fires (later central heating units) and TV sets, drinking tea and eating meat with two veg. It was not until the unprecedented general affluence of the 1990’s and beyond, combined with an ever-escalating diet of American TV shows, that it occurred to the average Brit that he might like to have a go at barbecue or that the average retailer realised that he might profitably offer barbecue equipment for sale.

Fearsome results

UK grill hamburger flambé pic by Je Kemp

The resulting UK grill was horrific. Under American influence, the Brit decided that the proper food to barbecue was hamburger patties and pork sausages (these being the locally available, vague equivalent of the American “wiener”). The retailers cleverly deduced that, as most Brits were urban dwellers without much in the way of a garden and were naturally conservative in investing in exotic equipment, very cheap, disposable barbecues were the way to go.

Not a pretty picture

Grim UK grill

The combination has to be experienced to be believed. Here comes the determined Brit in his baggy shorts and sandals worn with ankle socks, striding down the gray pebble beach under a close gray summer sky. Under his arm he clutches the shallow aluminium tray of a disposable barbecue, filled with chemically drenched charcoal and tightly wrapped in thick plastic. Behind him, his pale and podgy family struggle forward under the burden of folding chairs, umbrellas and many white plastic supermarket bags. A spot is found and camp is established. Time for lunch.

Lunch

With the apprehensive air and long arm of a man lighting the fuse to a large bundle of dynamite, the whole tinfoil, charcoal, plastic contraption is set on fire. White smoke billows forth.

UK disposable grill smoking

Adopting the self-deprecating, but slightly reckless attitude assumed by all Brits when barbecuing (no true Brit considers himself a barbecue expert), the hamburger patties and sausages are tentatively lowered into the smoke. There follows a period of fumbling uncertainty during which either:
(a) the fire goes out and cannot be restarted; or
(b) the fat from the sausages drips onto the charcoal and ignites the smoke in an all-consuming sheet of flame; or
(c) the tide comes in and washes everything out to sea.

UK grill bangers and patties
Pic by Will Jennings

Even when things go well, there is always an atmosphere of impending disaster and the culinary result is always the same. I, for one, will never get used to raw pork sausages blackened by petrochemical smoke and served on a buttered roll with dollops of tomato ketchup.

UK grill - barbecue hope for the future

But all is not lost.

A combination of fine summer weather and hundreds of thousands of South African immigrants over the past decade has given a big boost to barbecue in the UK. It is now the UK’s number one home leisure activity with one hundred and ten million barbecues in 2006.

The standard is improving all the time and even the supermarkets now sell decent charcoal and good pre-prepared cuts of meat more suitable for barbecue than pork sausages.

And if you ask a Brit, any Brit, if he would like to come along to a braai, he knows exactly what you are talking about and usually accepts without delay.

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