Boucans

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of grill or frame used traditionally for roasting or drying meat over an open fire
2. Referring to a method of preserving food by smoking, particularly in the Caribbean
3. Historically, it denotes a wooden structure used by indigenous peoples for cooking and smoking meats

Etymology: Buccaneers, the seafarers of the Caribbean, took their name from this practice. "Boucan" was a French colonial word for a wooden frame on which meat was slowly smoked over a fire. French hunters on Hispaniola who cured wild cattle this way came to be called "boucaniers," the source of the English "buccaneer." The word goes back to Tupi, an indigenous language of Brazil, where "mbucan" named a similar smoking frame. French colonists encountered both the technique and the term in the Americas and adopted them. "Boucans" is the plural of that noun, referring to the smoking frames or the smoked meat they produced.