Hunters, Gatherers and Grillers
by Nancy
Smoke billows, and the scent of burning wood fills the neighborhood.
A burning rowhouse? A fire up the street? Should somebody call 911?
No, it's barbecue season in my city cul-de-sac.
Our neighbor John was the first to send up smoke signals from his deck a few weeks ago. It was a call to arms. Suddenly every man on the block came catapulting out his back door, sniffing the aroma of roasting meat. Times haven't changed much since the day the first Neanderthal hauled a hunk of burning brontosaurus out of a bonfire and ate it. Show a man a flame in the summer months, and he wants to shove a dead animal in it.
I firmly believe modern man is further motivated to cook (an activity he would otherwise avoid like gardening) from May until September because there are fun tools to buy. Jeff practically laid tire tracks in the driveway in his rush to reach Home Depot to buy a newfangled brush to scrub off the crusty bits of last year's burgers off our grill. (The old brush was so disgusting I think an entire family of urban vermin survived the winter by sucking on the bristles.) And he sent me out to hunt and gather these.
Ozone layer be damned! When manly men want char-broiled steaks, there's no stopping them. Fire up the propane or soak the charcoal. Applewood? For sissies, I'm told. At least among the Steeler fans whose tailgate parties include all manner of animal products that have been ground up and squeezed into sausage casing. Real men don't get fancy.
How do we explain the male/grill phenomenon? Guys who never so much as drain the spaghetti during the winter months are suddenly playing America's Top Chef out there in the warm sunshine. Every evening now, the husbands around here congregate at the hedge to drink beer while our respective dinners slowly incinerate.
Mind you, they may be bonding while standing in the swirling smoke, but they are NOT exchanging recipes. Or comparing techniques. Or discussing the virtues of Carolina barbecue vs. the Kansas City variety. No, each man is confident that he knows everything there is to know about burning food.
There's Jim, who uses his flipper to squish the living daylights out of the hamburgers on his grill. He claims it makes them cook faster. Of course, the technique also squeezes all the juice out of the meat, but he's not going to listen if anyone suggests such an outcome. No, he's the kind of guy who secure in the knowledge that he's got the biggest . . . tongs in the neighborhood. So he'll take no cooking tips from anyone. He's right about everything. Just ask him. For the likes of Jim, grilling is an innate skill that comes with the Y chromosome---sort of the way male patturn baldness does, I guess.
Then there's the aforementioned John, who is the only man who will cook a fish on his grill. The neighborhood ladies appreciatively sniff the breeze as he's grilling a carefully marinated whole salmon, but the rest of the guys are shaking their heads. The unspoken opinion: Real men cook nothing but beef. Or pork if beef is unavailable.
My suggestion that we grill some fruit for the dessert at this year's block party was greeted with the kind of horrified silence reserved for atrocities against humanity.
To tell the truth, I've stopped allowing my husband to barbecue chicken. It always comes out black and tougher than my gardening Crocs. Those volunteer fire companies that grill chicken in mass quantities at the county fair? I'd rather eat the tires off their trucks. With enough barbecue sauce, they taste pretty much the same anyway.
Likewise, when my neighbor Joan comes home with steaks, she loudly announces that they've tun out of propane, darnit, and will have to content themselves with broiling the filets in the oven . . . because her husband has been known to char beef into hockey pucks.
But Jeff, it turns out, has learned a thing or two about filet mignon over the last thirty years. I think it started when he actually began to read the price tags on the packaging. Now he sprinkles a bit of Montreal Steak stuff on the meat (at room temperature, please) and only flips the steak once. He uses a thermometer to get the interior temperature just right--and it comes out medium rare every time.
My son-in-law---from a younger generation and therefore perhaps more highly evolved--has a smoker, which he claims he can fill with assorted meats and then read a book for two hours while it turns into a tasty meal. It's miraculous.
Comedian Jeff Foxworthy suggests it's the sense of danger that draws men to the barbecue grill. Maybe he's right. There's always a chance somebody's going to burn down their garage while roasting a few hot dogs, and who doesn't love to see the fire engines come screaming up your street? It livens up an otherwise sleepy summer evening, right?
I grew up in a small town where one major industry was the manufacture of charcoal briquets. And the night the "factory" blew up will live in infamy. Every house in town shook down to its foundation. The ceiling in our living room cracked the whole way across--and we lived two miles from the explosion.
I remember attending pig roasts as an underaged drink----er, teenager. Our various boyfriends lowered a whole pig into the ground at 7am and covered it with heaven only knows what. Then they tapped a keg and spent the whole day "watching the pig." By the time the meat should have been ready to eat, however, they were all too drunk or sound asleep to dig it up. I don't think I ever actually consumed any pig at a pig roast. Plenty of beer, though.
Then there was the time my husband tied our golden retriever puppy Nittany to the back stoop to keep Jeff company while he grilled burgers for a group of our friends. Except the dog managed to wrap the chain around the grill and drag it, bouncing madly, across the back yard--spewing burning charcoal and hamburgers all over the grass. Yes, the puppy's nickname was "Nitwit," but whose fault was that accident, anyway? I ordered pizza.
In the spirit of the holiday weekend and the official beginning of the grilling season, feel free to share recipes or---better yet---- grilling horror stories. I'd like to figure out how to make a great pulled pork sandwich, so if anybody has any ideas, post 'em. Meanwhile, enjoy the holiday. (Where's Bob Morris when you need him?) Hope you have your flowers planted and can enjoy a nice picnic!
