Poet/professor Jake Adam York smokes out the meaning of “barbecue”
Denver’s “barbecue poet,” Jake Adam York, died Dec. 16, 2012. Read his obituary here.
“You don’t get tired of eating barbecue; it just isn’t done. I think if you look in the Colorado penal code, there is a law that enjoins you from getting tired of barbecue,” York told food writer Ellen Sweets in 2005.
We asked him to pen an ode to the craft. His love of words — and smoked meat — shines here. This essay was published on Oct. 26, 2005, in The Denver Post’s Food section:
By Jake Adam York, Special to The Denver Post
Some people think “barbecue” means “grill,” as in “Let’s throw some steaks on the barbecue.” Etymology supports them — almost.
When Columbus arrived, many Caribbean peoples were curing meat by hanging strips of meat or fish on a grille-work of green sticks over a low wood fire. The Tainos called this barbacoa. The Spanish took this word to signify a grille-work, and this is the root of the English sense of “barbecue” as “grill.”
But not everyone accepts this definition of “barbecue.”
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