The fact that I have not used this platform to write about grilling boggles the mind. I’ve written about pickles, tomatoes, the general concept autumn, gonorrhea in the Pacific Northwest, and Chance the Rapper. All things that I like. All topics near and dear to my heart. Somehow grilling escaped the constant churn of content creation. No more. I figured that the lucky 54th post on Dang Dude, What the Heck merited an essay about grilling. Well, essay perhaps conjures too grand an image of what follows. Allow me to rephrase – I figured that the lucky 54th post on Dang Dude, What the Heck merited a few words about grilling. There, much better.
A quick note. Various regional differences in nomenclature have led to “grilling” referring to a number of competing ideas. For the purposes of this piece of writing by “grilling” I mean cooking something, usually meats, but also vegetables, or fruits on a grill. The grill does not have to work with a specific type of fuel. In this work, “grilling” encompasses barbecuing, smoking, and any other terms that mean cooking meat over an open heat source while outside. If you think grilling means something else, then cool. You’ll still enjoy this piece.
I do not remember the first time I grilled. It would be quite odd if I did. Unlike a first kiss, or a first car, or a first beer, a first grill does not enter the pantheon of treasured memories. It probably occurred somewhere between middle school and high school. Our family camped a lot. This meant that we ate a lot of dinners outside. Often my dad would set up the gas-powered camp stove and would make us dinner that way. Each camping trip however saw at least one meal where we would cook over the fire pit. Whether we made hotdogs, hamburgers, or “hobo dinners,” or something else, we would grill at least once. At one point my dad probably tasked me with watching the food while he went to do something else. In that moment I became a griller. A memory lost in the sands of time. These moments, these dinners, drew me to grilling. We didn’t have a grill at home, as far as I remember, so in my mind cooking over flames became associated with vacations. Grilling became a special thing. In my mind, anyone who owned a grill and had at their house, had access to unlimited wealth. Even if they just had one of those little Weber grills. At this point however, I did not grill, other people grilled, and I sat in amazement.
In the summers of 2007, 2008, and 2009 I worked as a camp counselor at Crook Creek Christian Camp. Crooked Creek, as those in the know call it, more than anything, set me on the path to grilling for myself. In our week-long camps, we set one day aside as a “camp-out” night. Each cabin of kids would spend a night and morning sleeping outside. This included two meals, dinner and breakfast. As a counselor this meant the responsibility for feeding between six and eight tweens fell directly on my shoulders. If I didn’t cook for these kids, they’d go hungry. Telling six to eight hungry eleven-year-old boys that their meals got burned did not make it into my top ten list of things that I wanted to do. I had to become good at grilling. It soon became one of my favorite things to do. Setting up the fire, creating and maintaining an even heat, working to make sure everything comes out fully cooked, not burning myself, telling everyone “it’ll just be another few minutes,” I learned how to do, and enjoy, all these tasks at camp. Thru this grilling remained a special occasion.
At this pointed the temptation to take a detour into the past has almost overwhelmed me. Discursions on when humans first started cooking meat, who invented the first “grill.” How that word even came about, and etymological breakdown of grilling. Google tells me it comes from the 17th century French word “graille.” Seems about right. Too often though I think that sort of talk devolves into waxing nostalgic for a time that never existed. Nonsense like “the primal nature of man and fire,” gets bandied about. So I’ll avoid that trap. I was born in 1990, I don’t remember the Neolithic Age.
For me grilling means more than just the physical act of cooking things over fire. For me, grilling represents an entire vibe. Grilling doesn’t mean cooking for one or two, it means cooking for a group. It conjures up images of friends and family, beers in the backyard, playing catch in the park, sweat dripping down foreheads, hands sticky with watermelon, and too many hot dogs. It means being tired at the end of the day. That tired you get not from overwork or exhaustion, but the tired you get from relaxing too hard, from laughing too much with friends. Grilling, for me, doesn’t mean setting up the smoker at four A.M. and cooking a whole pig for eight hours. It doesn’t mean infrared thermometers, or roasting spits. Not that I hate those things. In fact, I would like to one day have the time, space, and money, to participate in that type of cooking. I don’t think that would ever mean grilling for me though.
I just bought my first grill. It’s a black Weber kettle grill. I split the cost with my girlfriend. We’ve had it for about three weeks and have already gone through a bag and a half of charcoal. In this I am very lucky. I have a backyard where I can grill and maintain social distance. I live close to three separate places where I can buy supplies for grilling. I have the time and ability to do so. I live with someone who enjoys it when I cook on the thing. That is all wonderful. I just hope that grilling doesn’t become less special, a more mundane task I grow to hate. I’m sure it won’t.
I often like to end these with some sort of moral. I wanted to do the same thing here. Wax rhapsodic about the egalitarian nature of grilling. End with a stirring argument that lists all the ways that grilling represents the very best of socialism. I couldn’t think of anything though. I just enjoy it. It makes me feel as if I accomplished something. The fact that my accomplishment soon disappears into people’s digestive tracts doesn’t ruin it for me. I don’t want this coming off as too elegiac, but the very fleeting nature of grilling calls to me. Coals only stay hot for so long, people eat only so much. I hope this ending doesn’t disappoint anyone looking for a reflection on the larger meaning of grilling. Sometimes something is just cool. To make it up to those readers here’s my Grilling and Chilling playlist. It’s pretty good.