A catalyst for wildfires and A&E admissions, instant barbecues are a menace that need to be stopped, says food writer Fliss Freeborn
Ahhh, summer. The long, balmy days. The warm, perfumed nights. And the jarring sound of sirens as the fire brigade attends yet another blaze caused by one of those odious instant barbecues that terrorise the local wheelie bin population between May and September.
Statistics show it’s not just bin fires, either: the Home Office estimates that disposable barbecues are responsible for 4% (that’s one in 25) of major preventable fires, including wildfires that threaten vulnerable moorland habitats. Progress was made during last year’s hot summer, when retailers stopped selling instant barbecues completely to alleviate that risk. Aldi and Waitrose have kept the ban in place for the foreseeable – so when will the rest of us follow suit and give up instant grills for good?
It’s not just the environment that’s at risk. Google ‘instant barbecue accident’ and you’ll find hundreds of local news stories about beachgoers – many of them children – stepping on scorching hot sand and ending up in A&E with third-degree burns to their feet. This is partially due to people burying their barbecues to extinguish them, and partially because the sand still retains much of the heat even when a barbecue is cool enough to pick up and move elsewhere. Like many of life’s problems, this can be solved in two ways: abstinence or a couple of optimally deployed bricks.
To me, abstaining from disposable barbecues is the preferable option because – honestly? – they do an utterly lacklustre job of cooking food. Oh, sure, if you can figure out how to light the damn thing, then hastily incinerate the mountain of alfresco food you’ve bought by the time the coals go tepid, you’ll end up with something you might call dinner if you squint. But really, barbecuing is about so
