[Sca-cooks] A Question of Spit Roasting....

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Daniel Myers:
>On Monday, April 7, 2003, at 01:43 PM, Darren Gasser wrote:
>
>>Nancy Kiel wrote:
>>>Roasting is direct heat, as there is nothing but air between the
>>>"roastee" and the fire, but the heat is coming from the side.
>>>According to the OED, broiling and grilling are basically the same,
>>>as is BBQ, in that the "roastee" is being supported on a gridiron,
>>>with the heat coming from underneath. You might BBQ meat that you
>>>wanted to smoke or dry, or BBQ a whole animal.  Remember this is a
>>>New World technique, the first reference being 1661.  Nowadays
>>>broiling is just top heat (e.g. creme brulee). Cooking something in
>>>an oven is baking.
>
>[...]
>
>>As for BBQ, here's what Larousse has to say:
>>
>>"Barbecue:  An open-air cooking apparatus, usually charcoal burning,
>>for
>>grilling
>>or spit-roasting meat or fish.  Charcoal cookery is the most ancient of
>>cooking methods. The barbercue method is of American origin,......The
>>word
>>probably comes from the
>>Haitian 'barbacoa', meaning grill, but some attribute its origin to the
>>French 'de la baebe a la queue' (from the head of the rail), referring
>>to
>>the method of impaling the animal on the roasting spit."
>
>
>Interesting.  I'd heard though that the term "barbecue" came from the
>French phrase "barbe au cul", which translates as ... um ... "arrow in
>the backside".

Wouldn't that be "fleche au cul"? "Barbe" has referred, in French, to
a beard for a long time.