To explain what I mean, I think you can level up a cooking style. For example, pasta. At level 1, you’re boiling dried pasta and adding sauce out of a jar. At level 1, you add your own spices. Level 3, switch to fresh pasta. Level 4, make your own sauce. And finally at level 5, make the pasta from scratch.
So with BBQ, I guess level 1 would be cooking the meat so it’s neither burnt nor underdone. Maybe level 2 is mixing different meats/cuts that have different heat/time requirements and cooking well. Further levels = ?
At least for me the progression was like this:
L1 - Sausage on grill
L2 - Meats on grill an getting the heat an timing right
L3 - Rubs and brines and grilled veggies
L4 - Baking bread and pizza
L5 - Serving a complete family dinner with different cuts of meat, fish, veggies and bread from one grill
L0: acting like “grilling” is barbecue.
The issue here is that like nobody uses the term grilling in English so it’s easier to say barbecue.
The grill itself even is usually referred to as the bbq.
“Nobody” is perhaps overstating it, but that’s certainly the case in many places. I was mostly just funnin’, but there are certain circles in parts of the US with prominent barbecue cultures where the distinction is useful and common enough that there’s a reasonable chance of causing confusion if you don’t make it.
I live an ocean away and I can get very pedantic about the difference myself, because I throw a piece of meat in the smoker for double digit hours and people call that grilling here lmao
I absolutely love grilling too, but one activity takes a couple of hours with prep work (ideally with some of the prep work being marination the night before) and the other one requires you to go check the temps every 20-30 minutes from like 6 or 7 AM till the evening lol
No one cares.
Then I have only ever done level 5 :-)
(except fish because I don’t like it)