Where does the term "grill out" come from?
July 1, 2013 6:24 AM Subscribe
Why do people say "grill out" instead of "grill"?
I don't understand why people say "grill out," as in, "We're going to grill out on Friday." It sounds like an extra word to me. Is "out" short for outside? Why not just say "We are going to grill?" or even "We're going to grill outside"? Or does adding the "out" imply that it's not just grilling, but more of an event?
I live in the upper Midwest. Is this a regional thing?
I don't understand why people say "grill out," as in, "We're going to grill out on Friday." It sounds like an extra word to me. Is "out" short for outside? Why not just say "We are going to grill?" or even "We're going to grill outside"? Or does adding the "out" imply that it's not just grilling, but more of an event?
I live in the upper Midwest. Is this a regional thing?
I've never heard this, and I've grilled/had cookouts in the Mid-Atlantic, New England, and now California.
If we're hosting an event (as opposed to just cooking dinner), we'll invite people over for a cookout.
posted by rtha at 6:37 AM on July 1, 2013
If we're hosting an event (as opposed to just cooking dinner), we'll invite people over for a cookout.
posted by rtha at 6:37 AM on July 1, 2013
Sounds regional too, and like a portmanteau of "grill" and "cookout".
Can portmanteau apply to a phrase, not just a word?
posted by The Michael The at 6:38 AM on July 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
Can portmanteau apply to a phrase, not just a word?
posted by The Michael The at 6:38 AM on July 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
I've heard this occasionally. I always thought it had to do with the fact that people with fancy stovetops inside can actually grill things in their kitchens if they want to. So "grill out" implies that they're using the outdoor cooker not the indoor one.
posted by jessamyn at 6:38 AM on July 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 6:38 AM on July 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Rank conjecture: when I was a kid in Milwaukee, we said "cook out" instead of "grill" or "barbecue." It was both a noun and a verb -- "We're having a cook out (or cookout or cook-out)." and "We'recooking out tonight." When I was a teen, people started using "grill," and I could easily imagine people just swapping "grill" for "cook" in the sentence rather than replacing the whole phrase.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:39 AM on July 1, 2013 [7 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:39 AM on July 1, 2013 [7 favorites]
Literally, it does seem like it refers to grilling outside, as people say above, but I'd like to add that in terms of its colloquial sound of "rightness," it seems to go with a whole lot of other verb/preposition phrases. For instances, when you grill out, why do you "cook up" some meat? You aren't cooking it up on the ceiling. Then why do you "scrub down" the grill? None of these prepositions are literal, any more than "hide out from the law" (as opposed to simply "hide" from the law -- you certainly can hide out by being inside) and "grill out" seems as if it fits right in. My favorite example is when my friend's preschooler, who had been much immersed in learning about dinosaur extinction, was telling us his dog had been put to sleep: "Blacky died out," he said sadly.
posted by third rail at 6:39 AM on July 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by third rail at 6:39 AM on July 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
I suppose it could be a regional expression, but it is used down here in Florida, too. I suppose that's because a lot of grills are built-in to lanais. Other people have Jenn-Air ranges with down draft grills in their kitchens. And virtually all commercial grills, from your local neighborhood bar-'n-grill joint, to steakhouses and Golden Corral type places, are indoor grills, the better to control flies and insects, and provide air conditioning for customers and employees.
So, to "grill out" is to grill in your backyard, probably on your patio, with a couple of beers, some tunes, and various sauces and condiments at hand. It's not a real bar-b-que (which involves smoking and several kinds of meat, usually), but it's more than lighting up the hibachi for a couple of quick steaks...
posted by paulsc at 6:42 AM on July 1, 2013
So, to "grill out" is to grill in your backyard, probably on your patio, with a couple of beers, some tunes, and various sauces and condiments at hand. It's not a real bar-b-que (which involves smoking and several kinds of meat, usually), but it's more than lighting up the hibachi for a couple of quick steaks...
posted by paulsc at 6:42 AM on July 1, 2013
Best answer: Or does adding the "out" imply that it's not just grilling, but more of an event?
Upper midwesterner here, too, and this is how I understand it. When I make burgers for my family for a weeknight dinner, I grill. When I am inviting others to join me and to have some beers and stay awhile, I grill out.
posted by AgentRocket at 6:45 AM on July 1, 2013 [6 favorites]
Upper midwesterner here, too, and this is how I understand it. When I make burgers for my family for a weeknight dinner, I grill. When I am inviting others to join me and to have some beers and stay awhile, I grill out.
posted by AgentRocket at 6:45 AM on July 1, 2013 [6 favorites]
Best answer: does adding the "out" imply that it's not just grilling, but more of an event?
More that the cooking is being done outside than anything else, I'd say. Simply saying that one is going to "grill" something can be ambiguous. If I say I'm going to "put something on the grill," that pretty close to unambiguous, and certain things like burgers, dogs, and steaks are so closely associated with outdoor grilling that one would be reasonable to assume that it would be outdoors. But there are things which people can and do grill indoors. I've a lovely cast-iron skillet with grill lines on one side that makes a mean substitute for the grill when it's raining or cold out. And if it isn't a burger, dog, or steak, saying one is going to "grill" something doesn't automatically mean outside.
But I think I'm with GenjiandProust on this one: what you're looking at is a substitution of the word "grill" for "cook" in the idiom "cook out," which I hear used much as he describes. To "cook out" is to use an outdoor grill to prepare food. To have "a cookout" or "cook-out" is to have an outdoor meal with food prepared on a grill. One could substitute "grill" for "cook" in those instances, and I have heard people use "grilling" as a substitute for "cooking out," but that's less common. I don't really hear "grill out" all that often, to be honest.
posted by valkyryn at 6:55 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
More that the cooking is being done outside than anything else, I'd say. Simply saying that one is going to "grill" something can be ambiguous. If I say I'm going to "put something on the grill," that pretty close to unambiguous, and certain things like burgers, dogs, and steaks are so closely associated with outdoor grilling that one would be reasonable to assume that it would be outdoors. But there are things which people can and do grill indoors. I've a lovely cast-iron skillet with grill lines on one side that makes a mean substitute for the grill when it's raining or cold out. And if it isn't a burger, dog, or steak, saying one is going to "grill" something doesn't automatically mean outside.
But I think I'm with GenjiandProust on this one: what you're looking at is a substitution of the word "grill" for "cook" in the idiom "cook out," which I hear used much as he describes. To "cook out" is to use an outdoor grill to prepare food. To have "a cookout" or "cook-out" is to have an outdoor meal with food prepared on a grill. One could substitute "grill" for "cook" in those instances, and I have heard people use "grilling" as a substitute for "cooking out," but that's less common. I don't really hear "grill out" all that often, to be honest.
posted by valkyryn at 6:55 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Rank conjecture: when I was a kid in Milwaukee, we said "cook out" instead of "grill" or "barbecue." It was both a noun and a verb -- "We're having a cook out (or cookout or cook-out)." and "We're cooking out tonight." When I was a teen, people started using "grill," and I could easily imagine people just swapping "grill" for "cook" in the sentence rather than replacing the whole phrase.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:39 AM on July 1
My experience matches Genji's. Where I'm at, people use "grill out" and "cook-out" interchangeably. I hear the word "grilling" used, too. As in "We're grilling out this weekend" or "I'm grilling tonight".
"Barbecue" is, of course, an entirely different outdoor cooking experience, and not interchangeable with "grill out" or "cook-out"
posted by magstheaxe at 7:00 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:39 AM on July 1
My experience matches Genji's. Where I'm at, people use "grill out" and "cook-out" interchangeably. I hear the word "grilling" used, too. As in "We're grilling out this weekend" or "I'm grilling tonight".
"Barbecue" is, of course, an entirely different outdoor cooking experience, and not interchangeable with "grill out" or "cook-out"
posted by magstheaxe at 7:00 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Probably regional. I've heard it since I was a kid and grew up in Iowa. I still hear it now in Minneapolis.
posted by sanka at 7:03 AM on July 1, 2013
posted by sanka at 7:03 AM on July 1, 2013
It might be technically different, but here (as a slightly sheltered Vancouverite) all I think I've ever heard is "were going to BBQ tonight", or "come over for the BBQ." I didn't even know "grill out" was a thing.
posted by cgg at 7:09 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by cgg at 7:09 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Just wanted to second the West Coast, Barbeque. In California to cook something on a grill over charcoal was a Barbecue.
Now that I live in the South, I understand that Barbeque is a slow smoking process and doing some burgers outside is grilling.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 7:19 AM on July 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
Now that I live in the South, I understand that Barbeque is a slow smoking process and doing some burgers outside is grilling.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 7:19 AM on July 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
"Barbecue" is, of course, an entirely different outdoor cooking experience , and not interchangeable with "grill out" or "cook-out"
Now that is a regionalism -- when I moved to Texas, I quickly learned that "barbecue" was the product and "grilling" was the process. I feel that, in the upper Midwest, the terms were used a lot more interchangeably. Whether "BBQ" will get you threatened or not also seems to be a regional thing....
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:20 AM on July 1, 2013
Now that is a regionalism -- when I moved to Texas, I quickly learned that "barbecue" was the product and "grilling" was the process. I feel that, in the upper Midwest, the terms were used a lot more interchangeably. Whether "BBQ" will get you threatened or not also seems to be a regional thing....
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:20 AM on July 1, 2013
There is a whole thing I've encountered regionally where people will have the impulse to add these, to me, unnecessary prepositions to verbs. Sandra Lee's "down over top" comes to mind (as in "to sprinkle cheese down over top"). So this "grill out" just seems a part of that.
posted by thebazilist at 7:31 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by thebazilist at 7:31 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: It's not an extra word, it's a variation on cookout. One thing is a cooking device or method; another is a party. Those aren't the same thing at all.
posted by John Cohen at 7:48 AM on July 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by John Cohen at 7:48 AM on July 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
Similarly to thebazilist, I have to say that I've specifically heard "out" added to create these particular (possibly regional?) expressions with superfluous words. For example in New York I'd often hear people say that a popular place of business (usually a restaurant or bar) is "packed out" instead of just "packed". What does "out" refer to there? Nothing in particular. It's just an expression. People talk funny.
Re BBQ vs. Grilling, I grew up in the south, albeit in a non-barbecue area, and all grilling was "barbecue". Barbecue could be exchanged for almost any grill-related term, any part of speech. I still sometimes curb the impulse to refer to a grill as a barbecue. The term "grilling" seems newish, to me, like I maybe picked it up watching the Food Network. Not to say that's the case across the south (and my father's father is from the upper midwest, and would have been the one doing a lot of the grilling for much of my childhood).
posted by Sara C. at 7:51 AM on July 1, 2013
Re BBQ vs. Grilling, I grew up in the south, albeit in a non-barbecue area, and all grilling was "barbecue". Barbecue could be exchanged for almost any grill-related term, any part of speech. I still sometimes curb the impulse to refer to a grill as a barbecue. The term "grilling" seems newish, to me, like I maybe picked it up watching the Food Network. Not to say that's the case across the south (and my father's father is from the upper midwest, and would have been the one doing a lot of the grilling for much of my childhood).
posted by Sara C. at 7:51 AM on July 1, 2013
I say it, and it's not uncommon to hear it in places I've lived: Cincinnati, OH; St. Louis, MO; Chicago, IL.
I also say "cook out," but not as often as "grill out."
posted by smich at 7:54 AM on July 1, 2013
I also say "cook out," but not as often as "grill out."
posted by smich at 7:54 AM on July 1, 2013
I'm in the Northeast and have never heard this term used... I've heard and used " we're having a cookout" or "come to a cookout" to denote a gathering. "Let's grill tonight," is used to denote the act of cooking on a grill outside.
posted by absquatulate at 8:10 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by absquatulate at 8:10 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
I did a quick Twitter search for #grillout and pulled out the first few businesses and organizations (since they're easier to track down a location):
Don Johnson Motors, Northwest Wisconsin
Kalsee Credit Union, Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, Michigan
Foster's Market, Durham & Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Lucky Bucket Brewing, La Vista, Nebraska
Badger Cru, Madison, Wisconsin
Phi Kappa Tau UMD, Duluth, Minnesota
Get It All, Maudlin, South Carolina
Johnsonville Kitchen and Johnsonville Grilling, no Twitter location, but the company is based in Wisconsin
SBR Kitchen and Bath, Hendersonville & Asheville, North Carolina
Not sure if Twitter results are biased in any way, so I don't know if this is a valid sample. But, it does seem like there is an upper midwest (and possibly Carolinas?) geography to this term.
posted by mhum at 8:34 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Don Johnson Motors, Northwest Wisconsin
Kalsee Credit Union, Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, Michigan
Foster's Market, Durham & Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Lucky Bucket Brewing, La Vista, Nebraska
Badger Cru, Madison, Wisconsin
Phi Kappa Tau UMD, Duluth, Minnesota
Get It All, Maudlin, South Carolina
Johnsonville Kitchen and Johnsonville Grilling, no Twitter location, but the company is based in Wisconsin
SBR Kitchen and Bath, Hendersonville & Asheville, North Carolina
Not sure if Twitter results are biased in any way, so I don't know if this is a valid sample. But, it does seem like there is an upper midwest (and possibly Carolinas?) geography to this term.
posted by mhum at 8:34 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I'm in Indiana, and we grill out. To me, it definitely implies more than just cooking things on the grill-- there will be people who don't live in my house attending, and I will be feeding them. It doesn't even have to be a lot of people. I grill out a lot when my mom comes over, for example.
posted by headspace at 8:53 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by headspace at 8:53 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
My understanding is that "grilling" is hot and fast while "barbecuing" is low and slow. Terms of art used by serious outdoor meat cooks. For what it's worth.
posted by fivesavagepalms at 9:00 AM on July 1, 2013
posted by fivesavagepalms at 9:00 AM on July 1, 2013
Best answer: I live in northern MN. It if finally nice outside. People are dragging out the grills.
Cooking on the grill = grill.
Grilling out = inviting friends over to share and have fun.
posted by Elly Vortex at 9:00 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Cooking on the grill = grill.
Grilling out = inviting friends over to share and have fun.
posted by Elly Vortex at 9:00 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
i'm from Ohio and i would never say the sentence "I'm going to grill," it would sound unfinished or too abrupt or something. it would always be "grill out" no matter if it was a big event or just making a weeknight dinner. on the other hand i would say "going to grill some burgers" not "grill out some burgers," in that case the out would sound out of place.
posted by katieanne at 9:03 AM on July 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by katieanne at 9:03 AM on July 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
Never heard that term. Growing up in New England we said, "We're gonna have a cookout"... which I guess could be the same as a "grill out" ?
posted by KogeLiz at 9:09 AM on July 1, 2013
posted by KogeLiz at 9:09 AM on July 1, 2013
This bi-coastal kid's never heard this term before.
"grilling" is hot and fast while "barbecuing" is low and slow
Let's not derail into regional barbecue wars here, but in my world "grilling" is simply cooking whatever on a grill; while BBQ is all about the sauce, and ideally, a smoker is involved, but if unavailable, a grill is okay.
posted by Rash at 11:35 PM on July 1, 2013
"grilling" is hot and fast while "barbecuing" is low and slow
Let's not derail into regional barbecue wars here, but in my world "grilling" is simply cooking whatever on a grill; while BBQ is all about the sauce, and ideally, a smoker is involved, but if unavailable, a grill is okay.
posted by Rash at 11:35 PM on July 1, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by easily confused at 6:28 AM on July 1, 2013 [1 favorite]