Barbecue Safety

One of our neighbours had a barbecue last night - Thursday seemed an odd night for it, but there you go. Cue clouds of smoke, the revolting stench of burning flesh (reminds me of 'Nam...Dagenham, that is) and loud intoxicated merriment (I can't complain about that, Acid Rabbi has been known to attempt to drunkenly rap sections of the Torah over the top of drum and bass music at full volume in the early hours). Standard barbecue procedure, in other words.

However, this barbecue was made especially fun due to the fact that, at around 1 am, the "chef" (for want of a better word - barbecueing is to the chef's trade as cro-magnon hunting methods are to advanced brain surgery) - tipped the used charcoal into the communal compost recycling bin, resulting in quite an impressive fire which the fire brigade had to come out and extinguish. It occurs to Acid Rabbi that barbecues are not really suitable for a large percentage of the General Public due to three reasons - they involve fire, they involve meat products such as burgers which may contain various nastiness and many people are as thick as pig shit.

Place a metal fork on the barbecue. If it melts within 30 seconds, the barbecue is ready and the meat can go on.

So here's some brief guidelines on How To Do It Right:

The Basic Plan

• The woman makes the salad
• The woman lays out the table
• The woman prepares all the drinks
• The woman puts the coal on top of the grill of the gas barbecue
• THE MAN TAKES OVER AND LIGHTS THE BARBECUE
• The woman brings the meat to the barbecue
• THE MAN PUTS THE MEAT ON THE BARBECUE
• The woman screams hysterically at the man when the meat is just starting to cook
• The woman screams hysterically at the man when the meat is burning
• THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE BARBECUE AND GIVES IT TO THE WOMAN, WHO PUTS IT ON THE TABLE.
• The woman cuts the meat and distributes it amongst everyone
• EVERYONE THANKS THE MAN FOR DOING SUCH A GREAT BARBECUE.
• The woman cleans up

The barbecue, known in the USA as the barbeque or BBQ, is a method of cooking that has become extremely popular in recent years. At its most basic, a barbecue is a simple pit dug into the ground and filled with charcoal; however, there are also various space-age types that use as electrickery, gas or even uranium as fuel.

Finer Points of Barbecueing

• Place charcoal in barbecue.
• Use nasty smelly waxy firelighter things to get the charcoal burning. These can be ignited with matches, and will produce a particularly acrid, stinky smoke that makes even your grandmother (who has been getting through 60 Woodbines a day since 1928) cough her guts up.
• Wait for firelighters to burn away. Your charcoal will now be very much not on fire. Use more firelighters, following the same instructions as previously. Once they've burnt away, your charcoal will still not be alight. Continue until you run out.
• Attempt to get it going using rolled-up newspaper (unless you read them online, don't do it then), with as much success as you had with the firelighters.
• Loudly exclaim, "Ah fuck this, let's do it the Man's Way!"
• Siphon petrol from car (preferably someone else's car, petrol is expensive).
• Liberally douse charcoal with petrol, and ignite with match. Realise that you're going to look like a right twat at work on Monday without any eyebrows.
• Observe charcoal failing to ignite. Pour more petrol on. At this point it will become apparent that one tiny bit of charcoal had in fact begun to smoulder.
• Observe vast fiery petro-chemical mushroom cloud as it majestically rises above the neighbourhood. Think how you're going to look an even bigger twat at work on Monday now you have third-degree burns all over your face.
• Quickly brush all the eggs off the meat which the flies have laid while you were trying to light the bloody thing in the first place.
• Wait for charcoal to die down to a gentle smouldering. It may go out more several times, so repeat the re-enactment of Nagasaki with the petrol. After all, we all know petro-chemical explosions are cool, that's why there's so many of them in Hollywood films.
• Place meat (which by now should have been in direct sunlight for at least two hours) on barbecue grill. When the outside is blackened and charred, it's ready for consumption (but not necessarily by humans). The meat should be in the form of sausages and hamburgers, both of which are guaranteed to contain e-coli, and the biggest lumps of steak available. Remember the old barbecue maxim:

"Cut its horns off, wipe its arse and it's ready to eat!"

YAY E-COLI !!!!!

• Berate any vegetarians present, telling them they shouldn't have bothered coming if all they're going to eat is rabbit food. Eat sufficient meat to give a bear rectal cancer. Drink lots of luke-warm beer. Maybe have a few joints if you're some sort of liberal or hippy. Just turn a blind eye to the fact that the inside of the meat is pink and cold.
• Go to work on Monday, bravely suffer taunts of colleagues over the serious facial burns and missing eyebrows. At 10.30, suddenly develop a really, really, really urgent need to go to the lavatory. Spend the rest of the day vomiting blood and excreting something that resembles lumpy coffee.

Incidentally, people in the Third World who have no choice other than to cook their meat over open fires would do all their cooking in a microwave given half a chance. We have cookers now - there is no longer any need to cook meat in a fire.

• See Also: "How to get rid of a tapeworm."