Column: Hey, you should see the size of my lava rocks...

By Thomas Winterhoff

First published on May 8, 2002
Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

Well, it’s that time of the year again. Hot-blooded males throughout the Greater Victoria region have cast aside their dog-eared copies of the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue for something far more tantalizing. After weeks of eager anticipation, last month’s arrival of a much racier form of paper-based diversion was greeted with barely contained excitement and a kind of hushed reverence.

The guys in the neighbourhood soon had their attention riveted on the sleek model draped across the glossy centre pages of the new Canadian Tire catalogue: a propane-powered, quadruple-burner, digital ignition, double-decker barbecue, complete with optional side burners. Absentmindedly wiping drool from the corners of their mouths, their fingers languidly traced the outlines of the self-cleaning gas nozzles.

"Does is get any better than this?" their dazed expressions seemed to ask.

Our Neanderthal ancestors first clued into the fact that throwing a whacking great slab of mammoth meat onto the fire had the pleasant side-effect of killing most of its inherent cooties (and making a lovely gravy besides). Ever since then, virtually every human being in possession of a Y chromosome has been seeking out better and infinitely more complex ways to scorch their family’s dinner beyond recognition.

Out on the open savannah of their backyard patios, modern man has maintained this millennia-old tradition. The only difference is that the equipment now at his disposal does a much more efficient job of reducing everything in the fridge to charcoal and ashes.

Some of the barbecues now available are truly awe-inspiring, if not a little mind-boggling for the neophyte grill artist. Long gone are the days of the rudimentary, coal-fired Hibachi. Nowadays, even mid-range units have electronic ignition, porcelain burners and enough grilling surface area to cook up a whole side of beef at one go (and a bushel of corn besides).

Accessories for some models include: burger presses, custom grill cleaners, a Gas Grill Gourmet cookbook (a title like that doesn’t quite get the saliva flowing, does it?), shish kebab wheels (whatever they are), grill covers, digital thermometers, smoker boxes, deluxe grill scrubbers and – get ready for this – "spray-on flavour".

Given the size and sophistication of the top-of the-line models now on the market, wouldn’t it be easier just to move all the household furniture out onto the deck and plant your begonias in the kitchen?

My wife and I don’t eat a lot of meat at home, so I find it a little hard to get all worked up about an appliance that’s half the size of our kitchen and worth about as much as our car. (Some models I’ve seen in high-end magazines were priced at up to $5,000.) But barbecues have other ways of messing around with guys’ common sense, apart from cleaning out their bank accounts.

Although many of us will send the kids inside at the first sign of rain, we’ll happily stand outside in icy pools of water during a mid-winter hurricane – spatula in hand – if there’s even the slightest chance we’ll get a tiny morsel of blackened gristle down our gullet before frostbite sets in.

The madness doesn’t stop there. The arrival of a neighbour’s new assemble-it-yourself barbecue a few summers ago drew all the guys on the street to it like a magnet, bearing traditional tribal offerings of beer, tools and phenomenally bad technical advice. Despite the manufacturer providing full-colour, step-by-step instructions on how to put it all together in under 20 minutes, the glossy leaflet never even made it out of the box.

When Piece A didn’t quite fit into Slot B, out came the heavy-duty tools from the shop. By the time the technical wizards were finished (and the deck was littered with empty beer cans), the resulting monstrosity looked more like a winning entry from Junkyard Wars than a barbecue.

Who needs an instruction manual when a couple of six-packs and a sledgehammer will do?

I knew it was time to make my way back home when the testosterone-inflamed barbecue experts launched into a detailed comparison of the size of their lava rocks. I did, however, stop by Thrifty Foods to pick up a couple of juicy mammoth steaks on the way home.