Whether you spell it barbecue, barbeque, BBQ, or Bar-B-Q, there’s much to sort out when trying to distill the origins of the term and a universally accepted meaning for it, let alone a recipe. But leaving aside the Australians’ term for the grill (a couple of shrimp on the barbie?), and the definition as a social gathering one attends to consume the resulting food, barbecue—the chosen spelling for the sake of this article—has come to ever so loosely apply to meats slow-cooked over lower temperatures, with a lot of smoke, and often indirect heat. The result is tender, smoky, melt-in-your-mouth beef. Or pork. Or chicken or lamb. Perhaps bison. But definitely meat—unless it’s shrimp, but that’s just another exception we’ll get to later. The Name The word itself comes from the Spanish barbacoa, which in turn is borrowed from the language of the first people the Spanish conquistadors encountered in …