So you’ve been checking the weather forecast repetitively for a couple of days and after a few anxious moments and flirtations with storm warnings, the usually temperamental British Summer is set to serve up a series of warm, sunny days.

With the sun out and those black clouds on hold, you’ll have a chance to flex your catering muscles. “It’s time,” somebody cries, trying hard not to put on a faux-Australian accent, “to bring out the barbecue!”

The barbecue is the quintessential item of catering equipment during the summer months. It’s an item gets lit at a variety of events, from school fetes, to festivals, street food exhibitions, to pubs putting on outdoor banquets, the barbecue is comes into its own at this time of year.

But it’s not just a summer spectacular, it has the ‘ability to reflect whatever might be hot at the time (from reality TV to the taco craze’ and crucially, as Natasha Geiling writes for The Smithsonian, it’s not a new form of cooking: It’s been around for eons.

And it’s a growing market too: In 1997 the alfresco and BBQ sector was worth just £150 million, a couple of years ago it raked in £7.1 billion.

The origins of the word ‘barbecue’ can be traced back to the conquering Spaniards, who referred to a type of cooking as ‘barbacoa’, a method that involved cooking meat over an indirect flame. Not much has changed; the same technique that Hernando de Soto recollected from his time in Mississippi hasn’t evolved too much. The equipment however, now that’s moved on somewhat.

Here in the United Kingdom the perennial favourite foods to whack – not literally – on the BBQ are the traditional staples of burgers, sausages, hot dogs and chicken, though the more adventurous and stylish caterer may opt for fish or on trend items like tacos (yes, tacos). But over in the United States, the home of the barbecue, there was full-scale war of words over what was a ‘true’ barbecue food: One side said beef, another said lamb and mutton, a third said pork and countless others said something else!

Personally, we at CS Catering towers prefer the ‘whatever we feel like’ approach, one that we’ll be adopting soon enough!