Burn Baby Burn

None of the big box hardware stores near me carry Hibachi barbecues anymore. It's the end of an era. Hibachis were inconvenient but inexpensive. Being made of heavy cast iron, they would last 3-4 years even though I neglected them completely. I would leave them outside all year long and only buy new grills when the old ones rusted. I never trusted putting the things on a pedestal so would have to crouch down to use them, and their cooking surface area was not very large. But the price was right, about $10 CDN or so for years, but the last one I bought in 2007 cost me $13 CDN. It’s still in the back yard, probably serviceable but it’s impossible to find grills that fit now.

I have tried buying the slightly more expensive round waist-high thin-metal charcoal barbecues, but I have never had one that lasted the summer. It takes one rainfall to start them rusting, and they go downhill quickly once that happens. I know, I know, if I protected them from the rain and cleaned them out regularly, they would last longer. But I will not do that. I don’t buy cheap $20 pieces of third-rate technology so I can spend my time maintaining them. To my mind, that would miss the entire point.

After cooking a meal, it takes a while for the charcoal to finish burning, and the barbecue is too hot to touch till the next day. By then, I am not thinking about the barbecue, I’m onto other things. If it starts to rain, I will not go outside and get wet just to save a $20 piece of cheap crap. I could buy a protective cover, but they can’t be used until the barbecue has cooled down, and by then I will have almost certainly forgotten about putting the protection on, and that plasticized cloth cover would end up being just another wasted purchase. I know I am not alone in this, because all my life I have been seeing rusted barbecues in people’s back yards and torn dilapidated protective covers cluttering up their tool sheds.

Now and then I look at the expensive propane and gas fired barbecues that are lined up for viewing at my local big box hardware store. I have noticed that their prices have been steadily increasing over the years. They now look like expensive sculpted appliances, which is what they are, of course. All that effort and money is spent on something that sits outside and is only used for 3-4 months of the year. I have tasted meat from those things, and it tastes as if it had been cooked indoors in the kitchen broiler. That’s no surprise, since that’s what they really are. With them, you don’t get that charcoal flavour, so why not just cook indoors and save yourself $500 and the expense of getting a gas hookup.

In television ads I see that you can buy entire sets of outdoor furniture to go along with the gas outdoor ranges. You can buy patio refrigerators and even outdoor sinks with hot and cold running water. Unless you live on a 40-acre estate so that your patio is 200 metres from the house, the majority of these outdoor “living areas” will be set up within 10-20 metres of perfectly good kitchens, dining rooms, and living rooms. And while the home owners and their guests are outside enjoying the redundant al fresco rooms and duplicate appliances, their indoor rooms are cooling in air conditioned comfort, empty.

Why recreate outside what you already have inside only to lose the charcoal taste in the process, which was the reason for the outdoor barbecue in the first place?