What Is Barbecue? A Brief Introduction Whether you spell it barbecue, barbeque, BBQ, or Bar-B-Q, there’s much to sort out when trying to distill the origins of the term and a universally accepted meaning for it, let alone a recipe. But leaving aside the Australians’ term for the grill (a couple of shrimp on the barbie?), and the definition as a social gathering one attends to consume the resulting food, barbecue—the chosen spelling for the sake of this article—has come to ever so loosely apply to meats slow-cooked over lower temperatures, with a lot of smoke, and often indirect heat. The result is tender, smoky, melt-in-your-mouth beef. Or pork. Or chicken or lamb. Perhaps bison. But definitely meat—unless it’s shrimp, but that’s just another exception we’ll get to later.