The Grill Effect

Worldwide, the Grill Effect impacts us all. Grilling out represents a significant impact on economies, cultures, and families. It would be foolish to ignore burgeoning grilling technologies; the grilling lifestyle continues to grow and change every time Spring rolls around.

Winter grilling represents more than simple animal flesh roasting over open coals. Winter grilling requires a steely mindset and a really good set of tools. Two types of Winter Grillers populate the Winter grilling landscape;

• the dedicated outdoor attenders, and
• the back-and-forth voyagers.

The former category prefers to attend their cooking surface on a continuous basis. Regardless of the outdoor temperature, they stand their posts at the grill. They eschew warmth and family support in favor of real-time monitoring of meat and fish products. They understand that even the briefest lapse in concentration could spell the difference between succulent grill marks and ordering out for pizza. We salute these heroic amateur chefs who willingly sacrifice body heat for barbecue.

Also willing Winter grillers, but somewhat less attentive, are those grill-masters who dart to and fro between the relative safety of the family room and the bone chilling cold of the back deck. They understand that a modern grill maintains a consistent temperature for reasonable periods of time without human intervention. They have mastered the art of coordinating the just-in-time meat flip. They never, or at least rarely, disappoint their families with overcooked chicken breasts. Despite the grit and grime they continuously track onto the kitchen floor, they hold a dear place in our hearts. Long live these warm-blooded grillers.

Grills, propane, charcoal, tooling, and many condiment containers comprise a significant percentage of sales in home improvement stores. Each Spring, anxious grillers emerge from their man caves to peer curiously over their neighbor's fence. They live in external anguish that someone in the cul-de-sac has scored the latest in grilling surface technology for Christmas. They dread seeing a custom-made grill pit rising from the corner of the yard where the swing set used to be. No self-respecting suburban dweller wishes to be the only dude in the neighborhood still cooking over last year's heat dispersion technology.

This state of eternal cooking competition drives hordes of grillers to Home Depot and Lowes. Should they become desperate enough, some even stop off at K-Mart for tongs and oven mitts. Our collective economy benefits from primordial grilling urges. We all profit from propane distribution centers bolted to the front of convenience stores. Never get between a man and his gas refill.

• The Weber Corporation is a family-owned enterprise based in Palatine, Illinois.
• The Char-Broil Corporation has been making gas grills since 1948. Corporate headquarters are in Columbus, Georgia. A satellite office is open in Shekou, Guangdong Province, China.
• The Bond Corporation has a 300,000 square foot distribution center in California.
  

Some foods simply cannot be made edible through kitchen-based techniques. There exist menu items which absolutely must be prepared on steel grates perched over hot charcoal. Look no further than the local supermarket for verification of this thesis. Great slabs of fish that fit on no kitchen ever devised by mortal man are lugged to idling minivans. Immense cuts of ruminant that once roamed free-range across the plains of Texas are destined for mammoth Bradley BTIS1 Original Fully Automatic 4-Rack Outdoor Food Smokers that would make Fred Flintstone proud.

Current research, funded by the Weber Family Foundation, indicates a plethora of sauces, rubs, and cures inspired by cooking cultures from around the world. Animal flesh can be flavored in ways that were never imagined by the original inventor of the outdoor grill (who was a caveman called Urg, by the way). Rows and rows of manly shaped containers populate self-respecting grocery stores across the world. There's no such thing as too spicy, too salty, or too ketchupy.

The Grill Effect is felt worldwide. Lace up your grilling flip-flops and get out on the deck. Check the propane level before you unwrap the fillets.