“If you’re invited to a barbecue, have your dinner before you go.” It is the wisest advice my dad has ever given me. Barbecues are one of life’s perennial disappointments. The romance of eating outside quickly degenerates into a recipe for mucky fingers, smelly clothes and more mess than you bargained for, with grills that you can never get clean, uncomfortable seating that makes your back ache or, dafter still, eating while standing up. Worst of all is the true barbecue legacy – the nagging hunger that follows bitty dining, leaving you with the aggrieved sense that you missed a mealtime you’re never getting back.
I grew up in Cornwall, where beach barbecues were a rite of passage. The flame under the sandy grill was blown out by the Atlantic wind, so these gatherings were impractical, unpredictable and interminable. One minute the sausages were raw and looked like they’d never be ready, the next they were hard and black and basically inedible. Rain frequently sent us scrambling to pack up and flee for shelter.
Even when it doesn’t rain, and the scene is a suburban garden where something that looks like it belongs in a gastropub kitchen has been installed to char halloumi three times a year, I find myself wondering: “How is this fun?” Barbecues are terrible for socialising because the food trickles out, with kids served first (why, when they have the most energy?), so guests don’t eat at the same time and instead dine in silos, wondering if they’ll get home early enough to make pasta. As for drinks, they’re warm because ice buckets don’t work – they’re too small and the ice melts almost instantly in the kind of temperatures we’ve seen this summer – and nobody wants to dash back and forth to the fridge.
The popularity of barbecues is inexplicable yet undeniable, with black smoke puffing from back gardens at the first sniff of a sunny day. When I broached my hatred with an Australian, she reacted as if I wanted to deprive her of her birthright. But just because people keep doing something doesn’t necessarily mean they actually enjoy it.
Barbecues are antisocial in other, more important ways. I used to live above a man who liked to come home from work and barbecue steak on his patio, directly below my kitchen. I had to close every window to stop my whole flat stinking of beef. If you live in a densely populated area, it’s not particularly socially conscious to fill the air with meaty smog during hot weather, just so you can clog your arteries.
Disposable barbecues, which have been factors in wildfires during this summer’s heatwaves, are the worst. This month, one caused a forest fire in the North York Moors, while Dorset and Wiltshire fire and rescue recently told people to go to the pub instead. A spokesperson added: “I’d certainly challenge anybody to say whether they’ve ever had a good meal from a disposable barbecue.” An excellent point which, if we’re honest, applies to all variations of barbecue.
