Shhhhh...be vewy vewy quiet...
I’m looking for a new gadget. Anything. It can be new technology, or old technology used in a new way. It can cost nothing or it can be huge, shiny, and expensive as hell. But I’m looking for a barbecue gadget or piece of equipment that makes the food better.
Notice that I wrote “makes the food better.” BETTER. Not easier. BETTER. I’m looking for this gadget because I don’t think it exists. And I don’t think it ever will. As far as improving the quality of barbecue, we’ve peaked equipment-wise.
The stick burner smokers we have today – offset, Weber® Smoky Mountain, whatever – probably make better barbecue than did the open-pit fire Native Americans used for barbacoa. But even that’s speculation, and the brick and stone and dirt pits used in the couple centuries led to the modern offset, so it can be argued that our offsets make it easier, not better.
Recipes and techniques will continue to improve. People who barbecue LOVE to barbecue, and usually love to cook. When you love it, you think about it all the time, and you get ideas, and ideas lead to experimentation. Like the infamous Froot Loop® rubbed pork Al cooked years ago. I wonder if that idea led to other breakfast-food-influenced barbecue, like the maple syrup that we don’t do without anymore?
Anyway, changes to the recipes and techniques we use to improve barbecue will keep coming. But all the new gadgets and equipment don’t make better barbecue. They make easier barbecue.
Now, is that good or bad? We’re a creative, resourceful species. We like coming up with better ways to do things. Nothing wrong with that.
But we’re also pathetically lazy. Dangerously lazy. Was the Segway® invented as a brilliant, green, and just plain cool transportation advance? Or was it the product of people being too damned lazy to walk a few blocks?
Likely it was a little bit of both good ol’ Yankee ingenuity and good ol’ ugly American laziness. And like the latest trends in barbecue – from smokers to gadgets – there was also probably more than a few drops of greed powering the idea.
Laziness and money have changed competition barbecue. From the manufacturer/entrepreneur point of view, that’s fine. It’s supposed to be about money. That’s business. If you see a need, fill it. If you don’t see a need, create one, then fill it. That’s business.
But no one needs a $5k-$10k smoker to win barbecue contests. But if you can toss the meat in the cooker, push a few buttons and basically forget about it, it's a lot easier to make good barbecue. Not better; easier. Competitors are the first to tell you: it’s not the cooker, it’s the cook.
Add to the contest necessity list a big honkin’ motor home with a king bed or two, a couple air conditioners, and a fully equipped kitchen and competing is a breeze.
Part of the excitement of barbecue used to be (still is for me) the challenge of tending the fire. It was about learning the craft that the old black man down at your favorite barbecue joint learned over years working a pit - choosing wood, stoking the fire and working the dampers to control the temp and smoke perfectly. It was about becoming a true Pit Master and making better barbecue. Today, it’s about making easier barbecue.
So someone prove me wrong: show me a gadget that makes better barbecue. Not easier: better.