📕 Part 1: BBQ

This episode's vocabulary

Dab hand (noun) - someone who is very good at a particular activity.

Grill (noun) - a frame of metal bars over a fire on which food can be put to be cooked.

Grill (verb) - to cook food over fire or hot coals, usually on a metal frame.

Tongs (noun) - a device used for picking up objects, consisting of two long pieces joined at one end and pressed together at the other end in order to hold an object between them.

Charcoal (noun) - a hard, black substance similar to coal that can be used as fuel or, in the form of sticks, as something to draw with.

Be fond of sth - to like someone or something very much; to like doing something.

Allude to someone/sth (verb) - to mention someone or something in a brief or indirect way.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, do you like barbecues?

R: I like the end result of them. But I'm not exactly a dab hand with the grill in the set of tongs unfortunately.

M: Do people in your country like barbecues?

R: It's popular in Russia and Scotland, I think. You could smell them all the time when the weather is good. And people set them up and clear out the charcoal from the local shops when the weather is ideal.

M: What kind of food do you like to have at barbecues?

R: Well, I used to like, only burgers and now I'm increasingly fond of grilled vegetables and mushrooms. I've also discovered that bread is really bad for my gut bacteria. So I switched to kebabs. They are amazing.

M: Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. Would you like to have a barbecue with your family or friends?

R: I would love to, and we often did back in the day. Maybe when I'm back home we can have another one for my birthday. Although I'm a bit worried about the charcoal lighter fluid going everywhere and wrecking my clothes to be honest.

M: Did you have barbecues when you were a child?

R: Well, all the time. Like I alluded to earlier, dad would load up the grill with chicken and beef burgers. We also used to do just spare ribs which are amazing if extremely unhealthy.

M: Rory, thank you so much for your yum, yum, yum, delicious, tasty answers.

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Discussion

M: So barbecue. Rory, tell us first of all what's going on with this word? So BBQ, a barbecue? What is it? Two barbecue?

R: Well, a barbecue is just, it's like if you cook outside on a grill. A grill is like a piece of metal that's got, well, lines of metal so that the heat can get through from the fire to cook the meat on top.

M: So a grill is this technology, this piece of equipment. A grill.

R: Yes, but it's also a verb to grill things.

M: To grill. Yeah, to grill mushrooms. Yum, yum, yum. I'm hungry now. I want grilled mushrooms.

Yeah, to grill mushrooms, to grill meat. But can I say barbecue mushrooms, barbecue meat?

R: Well, you can say that but it's more common to say something like barbecued mushrooms or barbecued meat. And then you've got the different kinds of meat like you could have barbecued burgers or chicken.

M: Barbecued chicken, right?

R: Yes.

M: Usually we say like I enjoy having barbecue parties, right? Or I enjoy cooking on a barbecue is also possible. So cook something on a barbecue.

R: You can throw something on a barbecue. Australians do that. '

M: Oh yeah. Ozzie culture, Ozzie barbecue culture. Wow.

R: Do we know any Australians? No, because we don't associate with criminals. Oh, well. Seriously.

M: Yeah, Australia used to be his colony.

R: A prison colony.

M: Yeah, for the Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Okay, anyway. We can also have a

barbecue season. A barbecue season. Right.

R: You can have seasoning put on your barbecues. We talked about, we talked about seasons

and seasoning.

M: Yeah, seasoning, like herbs, different like spices, salt, pepper seasoning. Rory, you've used

precise language about barbecues. For example, you said the charcoal. Charcoal.

R: Charcoal is the black stuff that you throw on a barbecue to make the burn. It's like wood. It's

like coal basically.

M: Yeah. Coal - charcoal. And also, you said a set of tongs.

R: Tongs. Not thongs.

M: Oh.

R: You don't want to put your thong on the barbecue.

M: Yeah, thong is a type of underwear.

R: For ladies.

M: Yeah, a set of thongs and let's have a barbecue.

R: That's gonna be a hot barbecue in a different sense.

M: Yeah, very hot. On fire. So a set of tongs, tongs.

R: Tongs are like, it's like a pair of metal arms that you use to pick up things and turn them over so

that you can equally distribute the heat. Or you could put or you use them to put them on a

burger or a plate. Without burning your hands because you don't pick up things with your hands

on a barbecue. You pick them up with tongs.

M: And you said I'm not exactly a dab hand with the grill. A dab hand?

R: A dab hand just means that you're good at something. Hmm, I'm not exactly a dab hand with

the grill. I'm not a dab hand with cooking on a barbecue.

R: I'm not a dab hand with...

M: Phrasal verbs.

R: Mixed conditionals. Explaining mixed conditionals I'm not very good at.

M: And then we also talk about food that you can barbecue. Rory, you mentioned burgers. I'm

increasingly fond of grilled vege and mushrooms. So vegetables - vege.

R: Having them on kebabs.

M: Nice. Yeah, so, barbecue cooking could be about throwing meat and vege on the grill. But it

also could be more adventurous, you can get more adventurous. So you can get more

adventurous and edging twists to your food. Like barbecue some what? Chocolate?

R: Can you barbeque chocolate?

M: Barbecue some fish with vege.

R: People do barbecue fish. I don't think you can barbecue bread. I think that's just called toast or

burning your bread.

M: Grill your bread. Grilled bread. Ooh, yum, yum, yum.

R: That's just toast.

M: Yeah. And, Rory, you talked about your gut bacteria. So, bread is really bad for your gut

bacteria, right?

R: Well, it's bad for my gut bacteria, but other people are probably fine. So gut bacteria are the

small things that live inside of your guts, your stomach, your tummy.

M: Oh, right. That's why barbecued food. And we can say barbecued food isn't just tasty, but it's

also healthy.

R: Like it can be. I don't think spare ribs are particularly healthy for you. They're like...

M: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you talked about what? What do you call them?

R: Spare ribs. They're like ribs, but they're covered in this kind of sauce. And they taste great, but

they're not good for you. I'm sure they're terrible for you.

M: They say that the food that you put on a grill is much better than fried food because like fried

food is cooked in the fat that comes out of the food.

R: I was gonna say eating glass would probably be healthier than eating fried food. Oh my god, though. That's a very apt comparison. Because fried food has something called, I think it's called trans fats in it. And trans fats has the same effect on your cells as eating plastic. It wrecks the cell membranes.

M: What?

R: Yeah, it's not good for you. Alright, stop it. That's why barbecued food... When you barbecue

your food, the fat just drips away.

R: Well, assuming you've cooked it properly.

M: Yeah, if you cook it properly. Yeah, so barbecued food retains a lot of its moisture. So it's nice

and juicy. Yum, yum, yum, yum. Yeah, and all this intense heat and flames create all this beautiful

smell. And, Rory, it is true that the word smell is negative.

R: Well not always. No, it's gonna have a nice smell like I can smell the barbecue, for example.

M: Right, so the smell of the barbecue it's like a nice smell?

R: Smoky smell.

M: Yeah, smoky smell. Should I use the word scent.

R: No, scent is delicate but nothing about a grill is delicate, so I like the smell of barbecue.

M: Yeah, the heat, and flames, and smoke, and yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. I've done some

research about barbecues and I found out that most people grill burgers. Then steaks, hotdogs

and chicken.

R: Nothing about ribs?

M: Ribs no.

R: How rood rude.

M: Yes, it is rude, ribs are delicious. Rory, and you said that when you're back home, you can

have one, you can have a barbecue for your birthday. Is it like for your birthday? Not like at your

birthday, on your birthday? For your birthday?

R: Yeah, barbecue for birthday. Though, at least, it's sort of a reflection of how special the

barbecue is. Because you get something for your birthday. You get present for your birthday,

money for your birthday. For me a barbecue special so you have it for your birthday.

M: Can I say I got this computer on my birthday?

R: Yeah. But it's more common to say for because it's special.

M: Cool. But you say at barbecues, right?

R: I was at a barbecue.

M: At a barbecue.

R: I brought something for the barbecue.

M: Yep

R: It's to do with a period of time. Regardless, barbecues are super special in Scotland, where it's

never sunny. Almost.

M: Well, in Russia, we call them shashlik. We call them, well, barbecue. Yeah, Russian barbecue.

Yeah.

R: And you have them at all times of the year.

M: Oh yeah, in winter.

R: In winter. Yeah, I remember walking out of school and someone was having shashlik just

outside at the school. It was like minus 10 degrees or so.

M: No, it doesn't matter, barbecue is like all around.

R: All the time. Now. We should have one in the studio.

M: In the studio, on the balcony.

R: Oh my God, I'm gonna message Vanya and tell him to bring us barbecue.

M: Let's have a barbecue, balcony barbecue. Yeah. And we're gonna grill. What are we gonna

grill?

R: I'm grilling Vanya for answers about where my order is. So we might have to grill Vanya when

he gets back. If he gets back.

M: Yes, dear listener, for the purposes of IELTS speaking, you should be aware of your barbecue

culture. I'm sure you have some culture, or you can talk about Rory's barbecue culture, or my

barbecue culture. So in Russia, we do have barbecues in winter in minus 10 and 15. And if you

think that, oh, Australia, yeah, they have a rich barbecue culture in Australia. In the States also.

And if you're sitting there thinking barbecue appeared in the States. No. Around 1 million years

ago. Homo what?

R: Erectus.

M: Homo erectus or the hominid just before the Neanderthal man.

R: Neanderthal. Oh, you're doing great work preparing for this.

M: Neanderthal.

R: Neanderthal.

M: Neanderthal men first tasted cooked meat. So even before the United States appeared, even

before Australia, men ate grilled meat. Even before Scotland.

R: Freedom.

M: Freedom.

R: Band nine score.

M: Yeah. Forever, quality.

R: But that's enough from us. So now we're going to go and grill Vanya. Until next time. Bye!

M: Bye!

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