Perhaps there is something in our genes that harkens back to an era when eating cooked meat meant eating grilled meat, and causes such great satisfaction now when we throw meat on a hot grill.  I know for sure it isn't simply the results because just grilling it doesn't ensure it will be good.  I've had meat off the grill that was virtually indistinguishable from shoe leather.  But if the cook can refrain from cooking it to death the results can be spectacular.  Why?  Because something very special happens when meat is quickly seared.  It becomes brown and crusty and flavor gets concentrated in wonderful ways.  You know that!  Simply think of burgers, that most American of grilled foods.  Can a burger cooked any other way taste as good?  Of course not!  And that is exactly why we will go to the trouble of cleaning the grill, buying the charcoal, waiting for the fire to get just right and swatting mosquitoes while we happily flip those wonderful creations.

So we know that grilling is an ancient cooking technique, but the specifics have been updated to reflect new technologies, and the practicalities of modern living.  The pit, which holds the heat source, used to be a hole in the ground or an above ground rock formation.  Now it is a metal bowl with grates used to suspend the fuel above the bed of ashes, and is vented to ensure proper air movement around the embers.  The native American barbacoa, a grid made of still-green wood, has been replaced by metal grids and coated with enamel so to make it easy to use and easy to clean.  Now electricity turns the spit that previously required constant personal attention.  But even as these modernizations make cooking on open fire easier, and requires less time from us, it can be traced straight back to the first ancestor to accidentally drop a chop into the campfire, retrieve it, wipe it off and proceed to make history.