BYB held This is an Aussie BBQ? One of my sons spent 3 weeks in Zild after graduating from college to visit his best friend who had married a Zildean and had gone to live there. My son enjoyed himself very much except for the food. According to him, they hardly ever ate meat unless it was in the form of sausage (notwithstanding that his friend worked as a butcher in his father-in-law's shop), and his description of a cookout (our word, not sure what they call it) is just like Doc C's.

Sorry BYB, but your son must have been mixing with Westies (people from Western Auckland who live in or near the foothills of the Waitakeres), as different a breed as you can get from the rest of New Zealand (unless you count people from Tamaki, Papatoetoe, Papakura, Titirangi, Henderson, Kumeu, One Tree Hill, Mt Wellington, South Auckland, or ... hang on, let's just say Aucklanders).

The barbie is usually one of two things, or somewhere on a continuum between the two - a quick searing of snarlers which are then wolfed down half-raw, followed by copious amounts of beer or a gourmet's delight, accompanied by fine wine.

Barbies these days are quite varied. When S. and I got married a couple of years ago, the entire "wedding breakfast" was cooked on a barbecue, and you would never have known it by taste alone. The fact that the cook was working in the middle of everything was kind of a giveaway, however.

However, in all fairness to our Striner friends in the West Island, they are the absolute masters of the barbecue. Barbied garlic prawns are right up there with divine. The Zildish prawns are tiny, puny, pale little things by comparison, and they just plain shrivel up when they hit the grill.

I've never seen a barbie culture thing going in Zild, but, boy, I sure have in Brizzie and Melbourne. There was a murder in the Strine a few years back over who was going to cook the meal on the barbecue, if I remember correctly. Can't remember the details, though.


The idiot also known as Capfka ...