Spring is in the air. There have even been a couple nice afternoons that have made me start to gaze longingly at the barbecue. Or grill. Whatever you want to call it. I use it for both.
There is a difference. Grilling is cooking something over an open flame at a high heat. Cook it fast and get it done. Barbecue suggests cooking at a lower heat for a longer time. So when I’m cooking a steak (after signing the appropriate mortgage documents to be able to afford such things) in six or seven minutes total, that’s grilling. If I turn the heat down and cook ribs for two hours, that’s barbecuing. According to most definitions.
But I’ve started to move beyond meat. Grilling over things. Like veggies. And fruit.
I mentioned last year that I discovered grilled cantaloupe. It was just one of those things. Someone suggested it, so we gave it a try. There may have been a few adult beverages along for encouragement, but it was surprising tasty. You can’t cook it long. It does tend to get a bit mushy, so it has to be quick. But it was surprisingly good.
Then I happened to notice in Facebook group I follow, people talking about grilling bananas. There are a couple Facebook groups I follow that tend to take their bananas fairly seriously. They use them as a unit of measure, since the imperial and metric systems are not truly universal and bananas are. Although size could vary. But someone posted a picture from a grocery store in Australia that was advertising a couple different types of bananas and also showing at one stage of ripeness they were good for different purposes.
While most of us may try to avoid the “banana bread” stage, there seems to be a stage before that when grilling is an option. The idea of grilling a banana seemed to surprise most people, myself included. I had no idea what could be done with fruit on a grill. A couple people were suggesting serving grilled bananas with ice cream, maybe even some chocolate sauce. That certainly got my attention. Like I needed a new way to eat ice cream and chocolate sauce.
But all this has me intrigued. I’ve only tried a couple fruits on the grill, but it seems like there could be many just waiting for me to apply some heat.
We could be in for an exciting barbecue season.