bbq origin + etymology

bbq origin + etymology

the English word "barbecue" + its cognates in other languages are derived from barabicu found in the language of the Arawak people of the Caribbean + the Timucua of Florida; it has entered some European languages in the form of barbacoa. 

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) traces the word to Haiti aka Hispaniola, + translates it as a "framework of sticks set upon posts". After Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492, the Spaniards found indigenous Haitians roasting fish over a grill consisting of a wooden framework resting on sticks above a fire. The flames + smoke rose + enveloped the flesh, giving it a certain flavor.



"Gonzalo Fernández De Oviedo y Valdés, a Spanish explorer, was the first to use the word "barbecoa" in print in Spain in 1526 in the Diccionario de la Lengua Española of the Real Academia Española." 

the word barbacoa migrated from the Caribbean into other languages + cultures; it moved from Caribbean dialects into Spanish, Portuguese, French, + English. According to the OED, the first recorded use of the word in English was a verb in 1661, in Edmund Hickeringill's Jamaica Viewed: "Some are slain, and their flesh forthwith Barbacu'd and eat". The word barbecue was published in English in 1672 as a verb from the writings of John Lederer, following his travels in the North American southeast in 1669. The first known use of the word as a noun was in 1697 by the British buccaneer William Dampier. In his New Voyage Round the World, Dampier wrote, " ... and lay there all night, upon our Borbecu's, or frames of Sticks, raised about 3 foot from the Ground".

Spanish atrocities committed in the conquest of Carib native's land included barbecuing them, as shown in Catholic Bishop Bartolome Las Casas's "Brevisima relación de la destrucción de las Indias", illustrated by Flemish artist Joos van Winghe + engraver Theodor deBry in 1663.

Samuel Johnson's 1756 dictionary of English Language gave these definitions:

• "To Barbecue – a term for dressing a whole hog" (swine are imported animals)

• "Barbecue – a hog dressed whole" (with or without head and feet)

the standard modern English spelling of the word is barbecue, variations including barbeque and truncations such as bar-b-q or BBQ may also be found.

because the cooking method of barbecue originated in native american groups, Europeans gave it "savage connotations."  Theodor de Bry's Great Voyages, "present smoke cookery as a custom quintessential to an underlying savagery ... that everywhere contains within it a potential for cannibalistic violence."

source:wikipedia