Barbakoa

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Meat, traditionally lamb, goat or beef, slow-cooked over an open pit or fire ; a social gathering or feast centered on this kind of roasted meat
2. Tender meat cooked low and slow in a pit in the ground ; a cookout or party where such roasted meat is the main dish
3. Slow-roasted meat prepared over embers in a covered pit ; a festive outdoor meal built around meat cooked in this traditional way

Etymology: Barbacoa comes from Spanish, and the Spanish borrowed it from Taíno, the language of the Arawakan-speaking peoples of the Caribbean. In Taíno, "barbacoa" referred to a wooden framework of sticks raised over a fire, used for cooking meat and for drying or smoking it. Spanish colonists encountered the practice in the Caribbean and adopted both the device and its name, and the word then spread through the Spanish-speaking world. The word's meaning drifted with the cooking method. In Spanish it came to mean meat slow-cooked over a pit or low fire, and in Mexico it often refers specifically to goat or lamb wrapped in agave leaves and cooked underground. English took the word in its Spanish sense, so today "barbacoa" usually names that style of slow-roasted meat, while the older Caribbean framework is the thing the word originally described.

Synonyms: barbecue