This year, reservations for the barbecue pavilion can be made online. Addresses and working hours of barbecue areas and barbecue gazebos are available in every city. Online order for taxi, grocery store, escort, dog sitter, manicurist. And now – barbecue places. It’s all been coming to this for a long time.
But why does this make me sad?
To paraphrase the classics, we can say: “My God, how boring we live! The spirit of adventurism is lost in us! We stopped looking for a place to barbecue with the women we love! We stopped doing big and good stupid things…”
Online gazebo booking for barbecue is not the joy of the digital age, but the end of the era of “barbecue romance”.
May kebabs claim to carry the same spiritual bond in our society as Olivier for the New Year or a summer cruise. May barbecues are not just about getting together with friends. Much deeper. We can say that it is the most unifying action of people with different beliefs and religions. It doesn’t matter what belief you have, the main thing is to turn the skewers on time. Also, in the spring, barbecues show that we survived, we survived the winter, we survived, and soon summer will come, there will be sun and everything will be fine.
In our culture, barbecuing required a certain spontaneity, suddenness and recklessness. Agree that it is already a strange thing in the 21st century that everyone gathers to eat meat roasted on charcoal in nature. Again: “What kind of bathhouse? There’s a bathroom in your apartment!” Why sit on a perch in nature and overcook meat when you can go to a restaurant and sit there with all the comfort?! However, only a person completely lost in society can understand the difference between a kebab made with one’s own hands in nature and a kebab soullessly prepared by a chef in a restaurant.
What was kebab? It’s not easy to find good meat in the store and marinate it at home. This means being able to gather brushwood and start a fire without any kindling or ready-made coal. Keeping well-made skewers and grill is a treasure. This was our parents’ shish kebab glorified in the movie “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears.” Barbecue, as a phenomenon, required masculinity in men and simplicity in women. It is not for nothing that Gosha, aka Goga, aka Zhora, says that “the barbecue does not tolerate female hands.” This attitude was stronger than the fact that the woman could not drive a car or change a tire.
But “the world of plastic won” and gradually barbecue coals and meat marinated in vinegar appeared on the “Six”. Consumer society demanded not only disposable tableware, but also disposable barbecues and skewers.
Until recently, the tradition of barbecuing in the forest, by the river or in the clearing was continued. But less and less often. Why go anywhere when all this is in the city? You open the app, book a table, you arrive and there are already fire grates, coal and sand bins, trash cans and information boards with safety rules. This is exactly what the Moscow Ministry of Culture promises. I don’t know exactly how the situation is in other cities yet, but I hope they will catch up with the capital.
The real issue is still unclear: Will there be songs, dances and obligatory brotherhood at the end of such a “cultural barbecue”, which has always been a mandatory part of this cultural code? If the answer is yes, there is nothing to worry about: it means that we are experiencing winter again and everything will be fine.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.