We all love a barbie. It’s the great Aussie male ritual, and we refuse to acknowledge anyone other than antipodeans can cook a good barbie. What about this image from Argentina? The caption is:
“A slab of meat on a spit is starting to roast by the fire. The ring will be filled with similar slabs in order to feed the large numbers of people who attend the harvest festival, or Vendimia.”
Now that’s just bungin’ on a bit of side. The old Paul Hogan, “That’s not a barbie, this is a barbie!”
This is what I reckon a real barbie should look like – apart from the kee-babs – someone must have let a sheila do the preparation. Snags and chops, a bit of onion, that’s it. Eminently portable, feed an army.
Br Kipper’s First Law of BBQs
You know how you’re havin’ a good time, pushin’ the chops round with the Wiltshire Barbie-Mate, stabbin’ the snags with a fork, pourin’ beer over the onions? Some bastard’ll come along and tell you you’re doin’ it wrong.
I’ve heard:
- Boil the snags first to get rid of the fat.
- Don’t stab the snags because you lose the tasty fat.
- Only put garlic salt on the cooked side.
- Only turn the steak once (well then how do you achieve the above?)
- Put the onions on first.
- Put the snags on first
- Clean the barbie with beer.
- Clean the barbie with water.
- Never clean the barbie with water.
and on and on and on and on. So the first law is:
“There’s always someone who knows a better way of doing it”
Once you accept that and ignore any advice given, the better you’ll achieve inner peace. Remember – “events lead to thoughts which lead to feelings”, and also remember – “There’s one in every village”, and it’s probably the person attempting to give you advice.
The Worst Barbie Ever
Those great days of youthful bliss. Gary Beach near Sydney. Secluded, brilliant sunshine, rolling waves, bevies of beautiful bikinied shielas and bronzed bonzer blokes, ice cold beer, steaks, etc. What more could you want?
A flamin’ barbecue plate and bread, that’s what! Some drongo forgot to bring them and for those of you who hadn’t been to Gary Beach in 1968, there were no roads, it was a national park, and you needed a cut lunch, a compass, carabiniers and ropes to get down the cliff face to the beach.
No one was real keen on trekking back to get the plate and bread. Needs must and we improvised. In those days the beer can was made of good Aussie steel and we removed the tops with the triangular beer can punch, put the steaks inside the cans and threw them on the fire. Ever tried to eat a sandy blue steak and sauce with your bare hands? No napkins, crud everywhere, wipe the hands on the shorts, five blokes drive to Canberra smelling like the back of a hamburger shop.
The girls were good though.
Dumb Guy BBQ Award
Br Flounder had us in stitches. One of his mates has a surname like “Nobody” , but I don’t want to identify him. Whenever the cops pull him over and ask for his name, he says, “John Nobody” doubles over and protects his vital organs, waiting for the inevitable hit.
John’s father doesn’t speak English all that well, and in the manly Aussie tradition, never reads the instructions. He purchased a barbecue – four burner with plate and grill, some assembly required. Some flamin’ assembly! I don’t know if you’ve ever tried assembling a Chinese barbecue , but instructions include:
“Turn base over, then screw up”.
So he’s got the barbecue assembled but there’s a large vacant space under the grille. Head scratching, he decides to RTFM and sees a picture of rocks in top of the burner space. Back to Mitre 10, looks around, sees a bag of rocks, heads home, lifts the grille, places rocks in assigned space, steps back, beams.
An hour later, John picks up the phone to hear general wailing and gnashing of teeth, punctuated with “Santa Maria”, “porca madonna” and general imprecations to come quickly. You can see the hand movements over the telephone. He drives. About a hundred metres from his father’s place, John notices a pall of white smoke curling from the back yard.
“Maybe they’ve elected him Pope. Probably not. Maybe this is a hick-up*. Probably.” Delete “hick” insert… never mind.
John surveys the scene, like Patton surveying the battlefield. The wooden frame of the barbie is charred and smouldering. The bakelite knobs have melted like a Dali clock. The ironwork is twisted and bent.
There is much back-of-hand slapping the manual and whole-hand palm-up pointing at the charred barbie. John does a bit of a recce.
“Dad, you’re s’posed to use volcanic rock!”
“Que?”
“You’ve used fkn heat beads!”
* I actually saw “hick-up” , as in ” This is a minor hick-up”, in a memo in the Army. It took about fifteen minutes for me and my cohorts to stop laughing at the obvious connotations.
Filed under: Great Tales
