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Comment by davegardner | Hacker News Reader

That's just one of the many words that have different meanings in different countries. We Australians take our barbecueing very seriously and it rarely involves indirect cooking. :-) The most common form of barbecueing here involves cooking on a flat hotplate over direct heat.

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The tragic thing about this is that it prevents people in places like the northeastern US from realising that the phenomenon of real BBQ exists. I know that until met my wife at age 23, I had never even seen actual slow-cooked collagen-has-turned-to-gelatin BBQ.

This isn't an instance of the Scotsman fallacy, it is a genuine category error.

Exactly. I'm originally from Texas, where they have a pretty serious idea about what the label "BBQ" means. And it absolutely does not mean grilling burgers over charcoal.

I remember on one of those restaurant impossible/kitchen nightmare type shows where the restaurant was a BBQ place.

Host: do you know BBQ actually is?

Restaurant owner: the sauce?

Right. My wife grew up in Houston.

I noticed this difference when I moved in Australia a couple of years ago. My first guess would be that hot plates are safer than fires from a wild fire point of view (which are quite a concern in Australia), and this is now engrained in the culture. However, I could be wrong and it has always been like this. Any thoughts?

Then you Australians aren't actually barbecuing, are you? ;)

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