Ah summer is nearly here, or is it over already? The British and summertime, go hand in hand with burnt sausages in a bun. The BBQ is a summer staple. However they have changed, like everything else these days, and got all fancy. These days the electronic components in a BBQ could equal those to your PC! From integrated ignition controls, adjustable stainless steel burners and pressure regulators that allow you to cook better in an effort to not burn the sausages.
Previously something adopted by the working classes, BBQs haven grown in popularity since the 1950’s, as with foreign travel, it became something for the middle classes too. There is something very British about sitting outside on a cold summer’s day and eating. It seems like we want the Mediterranean flavour in our northern European lives, to make us feel like we are on holiday. To get us to connect with nature. To be a family.
However it seems more and more to me like we need to be better than our neighbours, we need the newest type of BBQ (not one made of bricks like my Dads was) and we need new glamorous outdoor rattan furniture to sit on (not white plastic stuff we used to have in the 1980’s). It has become another opportunity to use the 1950’s analogy of ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’. It’s not about being mediterrean and eating as a family; it’s become more about dining and drinking as if at a wine bar.
I actually like burnt sausages and brick built BBQs, could these new electronic BBQs be taking away mans need to cook over a raw flame, like he would have done thousands of years ago? The element of danger involved in a BBQ and this type of cooking must be part of the fun of this ritualistic eating alfresco. These new BBQs suppress that kind of danger to within modern ‘health and safety’ requirements, which everyone knows is another word for the ‘fun police’.