When I was a child, we always cooked with charcoal. When I was really little, gas grills weren't even invented yet. My dad had a little hibachi grill and he got on with it just fine. He could whip up the perfect chuck steak on that thing. I know that that particular cut of steak is quite inexpensive, but my dad always made it to perfection. You'd have thought we were royalty, it tasted so good. I actually tried to buy a 7 bone chuck steak when I lived in Florida & the grocery store butcher looked at me like I had 12 heads. Oddly enough, there was another butcher there from New York. He knew what I was talking about, but said that they didn't have that cut of meat in that area of Florida. I was rather surprised given the fact that that store chain owns their own cattle & that I was not living in the wealthiest area of Florida. When I lived in Florida, I cooked with charcoal. I had a trusty old kettle grill. We got it too hot one time & the legs melted off. The kettle was still fine. I set it in an truck tire rim & it still worked just fine. When we moved back to New York, the whole thing came with us. Not only did it serve as a grill, but it was also our self contained fire pit. Who needs a chimenea anyway?
Years ago, when they did finally come out with gas grills, they were quite expensive. Everything is always expensive, in the beginning. We weren't poor. I had a roof over my head & food in my belly, but we weren't well off either. Heck, we didn't even have a color TV until I was a teenager & it was a used one to boot. Same thing goes with our first gas grill. Someone was throwing one out because they couldn't get it to work. That's our society...kick it to the curb and buy a new one. Don't even try to fix it. It wasn't in the greatest shape, but all that was wrong were some spider webs in the burner tubes. My dad fixed that straight away and "Viola!", we finally had a gas grill.
LP gas, is a great way to grill & BBQ, but let's face it, charcoal & wood make the food so much more flavorful. When discussing this topic, I always remember back to a certain prime-time cartoon family. The father was a propane salesman & his family always grilled with propane. They were invited to a barbecue at a neighbor's house. The neighbors only grilled with charcoal. The mother & child liked the flavor so much, they went out & purchased a charcoal grill and started going on secret outings just to charcoal grill a burger without the propane salesman knowing. I can relate. I ended up cooking with gas at my own home and giving up the charcoal out of necessity. I had 2 small elementary school aged children & a 40 hour plus a week job. Besides the job, anyone with children knows about after school activities, sports, scouts, clubs, etc. Not much time left in the day to cook. With charcoal, you have to wait for the coals to get ready before you can cook the food. If we wanted to grill, sometimes the food would not be ready until 8:00 PM or later. Not good to feed little children & then send them to bed. Fortunately, gas grills were much cheaper at this point. With a gas grill, you're ready to go almost immediately. Food is done quicker, and you can adjust the heat easier than with charcoal.You can even bake bread & pie with a gas grill. That would be a lot trickier with charcoal. Easier if you are a knowledgeable cast iron dutch oven chef, but we can't all claim that position.
To this day, I am embarrassed to say, that I still only have a gas grill. My kids are grown. Gas is still a necessity for a working family, but I can take more time to cook now. It doesn't matter if I eat at 8:00 PM or later. It's not good for me to eat that late, but I can do it if I want to. I don't have a BBQ smoker either. I would love to have one. But I am limited on space. I already have a gas grill and an outdoor propane fryer. I can smoke items to a degree, with my gas grill, but smoking with charcoal is easier. There are many charcoal grills out there that are mulit-purpose too. They are specially made to smoke or grill. Besides they tend to be cylindrical & don't take up too much space. I would dearly love to have a whole outdoor cooking kitchen. A big gas grill, an outdoor propane deep fryer, a charcoal grill, and a big beautiful BBQ smoker that I could fit whole logs into and smoke meats for 10-12 hours. Maybe someday, when I'm old and retired, and out to pasture. At least with a pasture I'd have space for an outdoor working kitchen. I do miss charcoal very much though. It is time for me to go out & get a charcoal grill. Even if I only get to use it once in a while, it will be a nice change of flavor & pace. I'm a big kid now. I change change things up if I want to. And, I think I want to.
Jenifer Whelan is the owner of The Deep Fryer Depot. http://www.thedeepfryerdepot.com/ your online frying headquarters. For your next tailgate party or fish fry check out our selection of conventional deep fryers or one of our safer http://www.thedeepfryerdepot.com/commercial-grade-fryers/
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