The gin and tonic, I always thought, was requisite.
As far back as I can remember these were the sounds of Sunday afternoon:
4:30 p.m.: Clank, clank, clank in the garage. Dad foraging for his tongs, his electric charcoal lighter, his bag of charcoal.
4:40 p.m.: Clank, whoosh, clank on the terrace. Dad raising lid off Weber, tugging open vents, dumping charcoal into pile. Starter plugged in, its slender neck half-buried in the briquettes.
4:45 p.m.: Whoosh, clank, clank, ”Honey, where`s the lime?” Dad tending to essentials of grilling. Spirits cabinet ajar, jug of gin plopped on counter, tonic lassoed from refrigerator. Dad groping for vitamin C, the perfect nutrient-booster for the liquids he swore would save him from malaria. (It did. He never succumbed to the fever.)
Drink, spatula and Melmac platter of raw beef mounds in hand, the fire warrior returned to his flames.
This is what followed as my father, ad-man-turned-Sunday-chef, sweated each week through the labor and delivery of the 8 1/2-minute hamburger: Weber spewed smoke. Dad sipped G&T. Shimmied away from smoke. Sipped. Checked watch. Lifted lid. Peeked at underbellies of beef. Bellowed, ”Somebody bring me the spatula.” Checked watch. Sipped. Weber bellowed smoke. Dad bellowed,
”Somebody bring me the plate.” ”You ready in there?”
And the verdict …
He swooped into the house, sans cape, with his platter of charred mounds, crunchy outside, oozing inside. He beamed. He wondered aloud, every Sunday as far back as I can recall: ”Hmmmm. You know what I think it was this time? 8 1/2 minutes. That`s it. Can`t keep `em on there any longer than 8 1/2 minutes. Gene,” he said to himself, sinking his teeth into his success, ”you`re a genius.”
So we consumed our Sunday mounds of beef on a bun. Dad was in his glory. He had triumphed over yet another riotous burst of flame. We giggled into our buns, then we licked the juice off our lips and cheeks and chins and fingers. He was sure it was the 8 1/2 minutes. He was always sure it was that. We were sure it was the tonic. We were always sure it was that.
And so we watched him tend his fire and his mounds of beef Sunday after Sunday. In snowstorms. In rain. Pounding rain. In galoshes. In his tuxedo jacket, once. And, almost always, in his
It`s-Hard-to-be-Humble-when-you`re-as-Great-As-Me sweatshirt and his thinned- at-the-knees corduroys.
The genetic byproduct of such a soul, I lept when asked to do a little digging into this phenomenon known as The Backyard Grill and Man`s (Yes, Man`s) Preoccupation Therewith.
Might this be some primal instinct dating back to Peking man and his hankering for woolly mammoth-on-a-stick? Might this be some male rite of dominion over flame, a test of one`s testosterone, a sure-fire proof of masculinity, the knack for somehow turning raw meat into a finger-licking meal?
Might be. Both counts.
”It goes back to the days of hunters and gatherers,” says Lorna Sass, of New York City, a food historian. ”It was the task of men to do the hunting and the butchering and the grilling of the animal, while it was the task of the women to gather plants.
Historic precedents
”In a way it`s the most obvious theory, but I really do believe it`s the instinct to barbecue, and the acceptability of it being in the male domain,” Sass says. ”It`s really the only form of cooking to be in the male domain. Through the history of civilization it`s always been the case that women do the indoor activities and men do the outdoor.”
For some reason we just can`t shake it. Two-thirds of the folks out there flipping burgers are men, according to a national survey conducted last year for the grilling mavens at Weber-Stephen Products Co. of northwest suburban Palatine, makers of the ubiquitous back-yard kettle, the Weber Grill.
”We do an awful lot of research,” says Mike Kempster, Weber-Stephen`s senior vice president of sales and marketing, ”and it`s consistent: Grills tend to be a magnet of social gathering for men. They start that grill and watch the fire. It brings out the Boy Scout, the cave man, whatever. Guys`ll talk about being mesmerized by the fire.
”It`s a chance for men to show off their prowess at the grill and to serve their families for a change. Their manhood`s on the line.”
David Brain, assistant professor of sociology and a lecturer on pop culture at Indiana University in Bloomington, talks about the ”little grill dance” men do when gathered `round the flames.
”They`re out there huddled around the grill, talking theories and technique, the appropriateness of rawness, the secret to barbecue sauce, then all of the sudden the smoke blows in their eyes so they all shuffle one way, then it blows again, and they all shuffle back the other way.
”I`d say it`s a ritual for all time.”
A national passion
Whether it`s men or women doing the smoky shuffle, America is undeniably hooked on grilling. No fewer than 11.5 million charcoal grills and another 3.2 million gas grills are sold each year, and some 800,000 tons of charcoal briquettes annually go up in flames, according to the Barbecue Industry Council, a trade association for grill and charcoal companies, headquartered in New York.
No one keeps track of how many bottles of ketchup, jars of mustard and pickle relish are polished off in back-yard barbecues. But the folks who make a living counting such things tell us that America is a land of 1.8 grills per household. And there are 70 million grilling households in this nation of plenty.
While we`re at it, we might as well take a look at the attire of choice for flipping burgers. It`s the bathing suit, according to 36 percent of those polled in last year`s Weber-Stephen grilling survey. Chef`s aprons score with 31 percent, and 10 percent go for a chef`s mitt (along, of course, with whatever else they opt to pull from the chef`s closet).
Flipping through the latest grill accessory catalog, there isn`t a wisp of smoke clouding the fact that the once-primitive ritual of beast-on-a-stick has given way to elaborate fire toys and increasingly complicated grill choreography.
”If you want to look at it through the lens of conspicuous consumption, it is a model of the evolution of Western civilization,” says food historian Sass.
”It`s the whole idea of finding fancier toys to play with-`My train set`s better than your train set.` Men tend more than women to love gadgets, so they create a natural audience for the even-better grill, the even-better tongs.”
”My wife issued an edict about 10 years ago that one grill has to go back to the factory for every new one I bring home,” says Kempster, who unabashedly adds that his Long Grove neighbors think he`s a little nuts.
”For years they`ve seen me out there chipping through two inches of ice to get to the grill, or cooking in a blinding rainstorm.”
That`s entertainment
Brain, the Indiana sociologist, says there`s something about Grilling as the Great Entertaining Equalizer that has so many back yards smoking.
”It`s a way to entertain without taking any status risks or making any status claims,” Brain says. ”Indoors, at a dinner party, everything from the china to the way the living room is decorated is grist for the interpretive mill.
”Throwing some meat on the barby is unavoidably casual. Not everything is seen as an interpretation of the host`s class and taste.”
Still, Brain says, there are subtle ladders of class and taste in grilling:
”Is it burgers and hot dogs you`re throwing on the grill, or steak and lobster? Also, there`s the matter of presentation. If you`re of some class, you don`t just tear the steak out of the plastic wrapper. You have to put fresh ground pepper and things on it.
”Grilling becomes more elaborate as it becomes more ritualized and as it starts to filter up the socioeconomic ladder. It begins with the bowling-type working class. And it`s really big with the upper tier of the working class that`s migrated out to the suburbs. Those are the people more likely to have the aprons with the funny sayings and the elaborate tools.”
I wonder if they`re the ones who make it seem impossible to flip a burger without gin and tonic in hand.
