Cooking has held little – actually, no – appeal during the steamy days and tropical nights of the past five heatwaves. Fortunately, salvation has been close at hand thanks to disposable barbecues.
Fired up in the garden, they’ve been my go-to ally for an easy supper, ready to char whatever happens to be lurking in the fridge. Indeed, given al fresco dining has a singular charm, the quality of the food never really matters. (Call it smoke and mirrors if you like, ho, ho.) Rather, the taste of the outdoors, washed down with a cool beer, more than makes up for even the most haphazard chill and grill dish.
What’s more, these single-use foil trays with their pre-treated charcoal are so easy to use. No scrubbing or soaking. Just cool them down and chuck them out (carefully).
Yet unless we splash out on a permanent home barbecue, the days of cooking this way in our house could soon be numbered. Not only has the Prime Minister suggested that retailers stop selling disposable barbecues due to wildfire risk. In the ‘longer term’, it seems the government may consider outlawing single-use grills altogether.
A disposable barbecue ban is also a headline-grabbing distraction from the bigger issue
The idea was cooked up (sorry) at a COBRA meeting convened this week to deal with the government’s response to this summer’s record temperatures. Yet, given the halting delivery of Andy Burnham’s – or ‘don’t burn’em’s – statement to the media on the matter, could it be that even the PM isn’t quite convinced by the idea? Or perhaps he’s simply embarrassed that, given COBRA’s remit – to deal with crises and emergencies – the level of Solomonic wisdom brought to bear on a moment of national risk amounted to little more than junking tray-cooked sausages.
Whatever the reason for the Prime Minister’s faltering reaction, clearly banning these disposable items is a stupid idea. A case, if you like, of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Or rather with the barbecue.
Of course the spread of wildfires has been shocking. Some 1,017 have been recorded in England and Wales so far this year.
But such prohibition-like tactics would surely be a blunt instrument, penalising law-abiding people who cannot afford a fancy outdoor number from John Lewis yet still want to enjoy the simple pleasure of dining in the garden. All because of the knuckleheads who carelessly cook burgers on parched grassland, where a stray spark can turn into a blazing inferno.
More significantly, a disposable barbecue ban is also a headline-grabbing distraction from the bigger issue: why this country is so ill-equipped to cope with drought, when hotter countries withstand far more extreme conditions without going into meltdown.
Clearly the strategy hasn’t been to fix the roof when the sun isn’t shining. Which is why we have water companies losing around 2,954 million litres of the stuff per day. Or the reason few major new reservoirs have been constructed since the early 1990s, meaning the country fails to capture and hold excess water during wet weather. Meanwhile, farmland is saturated in the winter – even to the detriment of crops – with no obvious provision to store millions of gallons from seasonal downpours. All of which is no reason to make the disposable barbecue the scapegoat for lack of judicious planning or robust infrastructure.
Rather than an outright ban, when conditions are disproportionately hot, local councils should make increasing use of Public Spaces Protection Orders to impose on-the-spot fines for lighting barbecues in high-risk areas. The financial penalty should be set high enough to make people think twice about grilling in the wide open. Signage should be clear, unmissable and strategically placed to remind potential offenders of their responsibilities.
To satiate the appetite for eating out, country parks or beaches could install permanent, non-flammable barbecue stations where visitors can safely place reusable grills. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, for example, already provide free public electric barbecue cooktops along the seafront.
As for Andy Burnham, he should junk those tediously blokeish TikTok videos and instruct his social media team to launch a vigorous educational campaign about barbecuing outdoors. One which would cover the dangers, the penalties, no-go areas and, crucially, how to do it responsibly. This would encourage good practice and foster the same sense of national responsibility as a hosepipe ban, making people feel they are part of the solution rather than simply being told what not to do.
It’s also worth pointing out that outdoor barbecues in this country have a limited window, even if the climate change agitators argue otherwise. At some point the rain will come and before you know it, we’ll be bickering over whether it’s time to put the central heating back on (chez moi at least). Eating outside will be a distant memory.
Until then the barbecue should be embraced – an affordable way to enjoy hot food outside and for families and friends to spend time together in nature. That’s why the disposables should stay – unlike the government’s throwaway gimmickry. That should be consigned to the bin and replaced by credible solutions to an ongoing problem.
