Traditions

• Asado — Argentine asado

  4 sourced characteristics

  cross border · AR, UY · history: uncertain

  A live-fire cooking practice centred on the parrilla, in which wood or charcoal is burned down and embers are moved under the grill to control heat. Practised in Argentina and Uruguay, with the word naming both the food and the gathering.

• Braai — South African braai

  2 sourced characteristics

  national · ZA · history: disputed

  Cooking over wood or charcoal in South Africa, with the word naming the fire, the food and the social occasion together. Shisa nyama is a related practice associated with township settings and is recorded separately rather than folded in.

• Shisa nyama — Shisa nyama

  3 sourced characteristics

  regional · ZA · history: uncertain

  A South African practice in which meat is bought and grilled on site, associated with township butcheries and their surrounding social settings. Recorded separately from braai because the two are routinely conflated by outside writing.

• Texas barbecue

  3 sourced characteristics

  regional · US-texas · history: partially documented

  A regional US barbecue practice centred on beef, particularly brisket, cooked for many hours at low temperature with wood smoke. Texas contains several distinct regional styles rather than one.

• Memphis barbecue

  2 sourced characteristics

  local · US · history: partially documented

  A Tennessee barbecue practice centred on smoked pork shoulder, distinct from the whole-hog cooking of the west Tennessee region around it and from the sauced hams and shoulders of the east.

• 焼き鳥 (yakitori) — Yakitori

  2 sourced characteristics

  national · JP · history: uncertain

  A Japanese practice of grilling skewered chicken over charcoal, using a detailed vocabulary of cuts and parts, served across settings from standing bars to sit-down restaurants.

• 고기구이 (gogi-gui) — Korean grilled meat

  2 sourced characteristics

  national · KR · history: uncertain

  A Korean practice of grilling meat at the table, on grills built into the table itself, eaten with banchan side dishes, stews and wrapped leaves. The diners do the cooking, which makes it a different kind of meal from one where a cook does.

• Sate — Indonesian sate

  2 sourced characteristics

  national · ID · history: disputed

  Marinated meat on thin bamboo skewers grilled over an open charcoal fire and served with a sauce, with variants documented across the Indonesian archipelago that differ in meat, sauce and even in technique.

• Mangal — Turkish mangal grilling

  2 sourced characteristics

  national · TR · history: uncertain

  Grilling over a charcoal brazier in Türkiye, where the word mangal names both the equipment and the occasion. Documented here chiefly through Adana, whose kebab carries an unusually precise craft specification.

• Churrasco — Brazilian churrasco

  4 sourced characteristics

  regional · BR · history: partially documented

  Meat roasted over embers on a spit or a grill, emblematic of Rio Grande do Sul. Technically unremarkable and symbolically dense — the anthropology of it is more interesting than the technique, which is the reverse of how barbecue traditions are usually written about.

Also drafts, for the same reason — but worth showing, because the word “barbecue” means different things in different countries and that is a live source of misunderstanding between a recipe and the person reading it.

• Barbecue

  A word meaning materially different things in different English-speaking territories — a cooking method, a piece of equipment, or a social occasion — which makes it a frequent source of misunderstanding between a recipe and its reader.

  • US: A specific low-and-slow smoking method, as distinct from grilling.
  • GB, AU, NZ: The appliance itself, and cooking on it generally, including what Americans would call grilling.
  • GB, AU, ZA: The social occasion at which that cooking happens.

• Grilling

  Cooking quickly over direct heat. In British usage 'to grill' also names the indoor appliance with heat from above, which Americans call a broiler — so the same word describes fire below in one territory and heat above in the other.

  • US, AU, NZ: Cooking over direct heat from below, outdoors.
  • GB: Cooking under an indoor element with heat from above.

• Butt

  In American pork butchery, the upper portion of the FRONT shoulder. The name refers to a barrel — a butt was a cask — and not to the rear of the animal, which makes it the most actively misleading cut name in English and a reliable source of confusion at a British butcher's counter.

  • US: The upper portion of the pork front shoulder, IMPS item 406, sold bone-in or boneless.
  • GB: Not used as a cut name. A UK butcher asked for 'butt' will not think of the shoulder.

• Picanha

  The cap muscle over the rump, with its fat layer. A Brazilian term that has entered the British meat trade: AHDB's own cutting specification uses the word picanha for the rump cap, which is why the cut is more available in the UK than the common advice suggests.

  • GB: The rump cap, separated along the natural seam from the main rump muscle. AHDB specifies a maximum fat thickness of 15 mm, which is thinner than a picanha is usually cooked with.
  • international: Named on menus and by butchers who have adopted the Brazilian term.

• Mangal

  A Turkish word glossed by the national tourism agency as 'barbeque', naming both the charcoal brazier and the practice of cooking on it. Like 'braai' and 'asado', it is a word that covers equipment, method and occasion together — a pattern that recurs across live-fire traditions and that English handles badly.

  • TR: The charcoal brazier, and by extension the gathering around it.