Originally Posted by
DELee
Many upon many BBQ cuisines and foods.
Is grilling considered BBQ?
Grilling and barbecue are very different, although I've certainly used indirect heat to slow-cook something on a grill, sort of barbecue-esque in an amateur way.
How do you classify, for instance, Korean BBQ? Or yakitori or kushiyaki or robatayaki or yakiniku? Or satay or kebabs? Or churrasco or asado? Or tandoori?
People can get really gatekeepy about regional styles of barbecue but I guess if lots of people accept those as barbecue, then so be it.
Is American BBQ principally cooking via smoking? Or is indirect cooking with charcoal ok?
Professionals would use a dedicated smoker but for backyard cooking, sure...that's a very common thing that people do. I have a small smoker box I can put into the coals if I want to add a little flavor. It won't get you to the podium at the American Royal but it is still pretty tasty.
There's a whole bunch of spit/rotisserie meat cooking methods such as doner kebab or al pastor or gyros or shawarma - are those BBQ?
If you spit roast whole hogs (lechon asado) or chickens (rotisserie) is that considered BBQ?
Finally, is kalua pork / luau pig from an imu BBQ?
In the Midwest USA, where barbecue has such a strong definition on its own, we'd refer to all of those things specifically and separately. We wouldn't generally call them BBQ. But if they're referred to that way in their home regions, that's cool...
The various regions of the world may all have different definitions of barbecue, but we'll all take a shift manning the gate for one thing: HOTDOGS ARE NOT BBQ.