A Brief History of Grilling

Grilling, in the traditional way, over wood and fire has a long history, dating back almost 5 million years ago. Cooking was done outdoors from almost the time that man tamed fire, and continued to be the only way of cooking for many years.

Gradually various means of cooking indoors were invented and cooking outdoors was more of an occasion than a necessity. Grilling was almost always associated with picnics and campsites and even then, not everyone managed the whole process without any problems. Around the 1950s, more and more families started moving to the suburbs where a house had a backyard and a nice open space to carry out some decent grilling. Soon, outdoor grilling became the rage.

Around this time, a metalworker in Chicago by name George Stephen, who loved to tinker around with various objects, felt that the commonly available grills in those times were not efficient enough. When he inherited the Weber Metal Company, which actually made harbor buoys, he realized that he could work on the buoy and come up with a better grill. He took a buoy and cut it along the equator. Next, he added a grate to the buoy and made some vents to allow the temperature to be regulated. Finally the top half of the buoy was used as a lid. This grill turned out to be so popular that the Weber grill became a household name and almost single handedly revolutionized the concept of outdoor cooking.

In the years that followed, grilling and barbecuing not only became mainstream but in fact became style statements. Dining outdoors became more of a family affair and barbecue parties were considered the ultimate experience. As the interest in grilling and barbecuing increased, so did the variety of grills in the market and their sophistication.

It was George Foreman who brought the concept of outdoor cooking to the city and with the new, neat looking indoor grills, grilling and barbecuing became distinct possibilities even for apartment dwellers.

Sometime in the 1990s, charcoal grills started being replaced by gas grills – it was much easier to start and regulate a fire in these grills.

Grilling equipment now include fancy rotisseries, smoking chambers, entire outdoor grill islands not to mention accessories like small refrigerators, beer taps and even warming chambers.