Shashlik made in Germany
They say that the word "barbecue" comes from the Spanish-Mexican "barbocoa", which means "sacred fire". Be that as it may, notes Deutsche Welle, for Germans it is truly a sacred matter.
As soon as the leaves on the trees and the grass on the lawn begin to turn green, as soon as the voices of birds and children increasingly manage to drown out the noise of passing cars, a intoxicating aroma spreads in the air of fried Bavarian sausages, cutlets with a golden crust, juicy entrecôtes, pork loin, and chicken legs, mixed with the spicy smoke that only comes from hot embers covered with gray ash, onto which heavy drops of fat fall with a hiss...
This, by the way, is how German grilling differs from "proper" barbecue. The latter essentially means smoking at a relatively low temperature, while on a grill, meat is cooked. The grill-brazier, unlike the familiar to us mangals, is most often round and not very suitable for classic shashliks. But this does not prevent usually reserved Germans from treating the grill with the same passion that residents of the post-Soviet space treat shashlik. Any male company in Germany can spend hours discussing which meat is best to take, how to prepare the right marinade, when to salt and pepper, how long to grill, whether to wrap in foil or not...
Grilling in Germany is a purely male affair. It is impossible to imagine a woman standing at the brazier with huge tongs in her hands (with which they flip pieces of meat on the grill). Grilling, including the entire preparatory stage, is essentially almost the same as what men have done since time immemorial. Only at the dawn of humanity, to obtain meat, he chased the mammoth, and today he buys it at the supermarket. But he does it himself, not trusting his wife. And he marinates the meat himself, not to mention the lighting of the sacred fire.
The sacred ritual of grilling elevates a man in his own eyes, adds masculinity and a note of authority to his voice. In an emancipated German society, this is one of the few moments when you can casually say to your wife: "Bring me a beer from the fridge, I can't step away from the meat," without fear of getting a frying pan over the head. Grilling and feminism are mutually exclusive by definition. Only very few women dare to take the scepter from their husband's hands, that is, the tongs for turning the meat. The representatives of the fair sex (here the term is appropriate) are left to obediently slice cucumbers and tomatoes for salad in the kitchen.
Almost half a billion euros are burned by Germans annually on their sacred fire. More than three million grills alone are sold in Germany per year: from cheap disposable ones, flat like a book, which can be bought at any gas station, to the extravagant designer model "Black Pearl" under a lacquered hood for 230 euros.
Many special schools, courses, seminars, and even one "Grill Academy" teach Germans the art of grilling over coals. The secrets of the craft are shared on the pages of a dozen and a half specialized magazines by the country's best grill chefs (by the way, almost exclusively amateurs, not professionals). Every summer, a nationwide grilling championship takes place, participants of which must prepare, as part of the "compulsory program", a five-course dinner.
It seems incredible that in Germany there are people who dare to rebel against the nationwide love of grilling. For most Germans, this borders on blasphemy and insult to national dignity, but a minority continues to desperately fight for their rights. They are bothered, you see, by the thick smoke that billows every evening from behind the neighbor's fence or from the neighbor's balcony; they are, imagine, vegetarians, so the smell of cooking meat is unpleasant to them. And the judges take their side!
Several years ago, the Bavarian Higher Regional Court ruled: if neighbors are against it, you can have a grill in your own garden no more than five times per summer. Later, the Federal Court of Justice in Stuttgart decided that even three times is sufficient. The city judges in Munich in 2009 were more generous and raised the bar to as many as 26 grillings over the four summer months!
Note that in each case we are talking about classic grilling over hot coals. Electric or gas grills are a different matter. But German men treat such pathetic substitutes for "real" grilling with contempt: they certainly do not deserve comparison with the "sacred fire".