I live in the part of the world where "barbecue culture" refers to people that have very intense arguments about meats, rubs, sauces, cooking temperatures and times, and woods to use, and none of it has to do with cooking over direct heat. I won't take sides in that here (but if you want to know where to get the best of the best, I can list some BBQ joints in central Texas).

However, you want to know about the equipment, not the slow roasted delicacy. Before Columbus the indigenous people in parts of the Caribbean and south Florida used a frame of sticks they called a 'barabicu' to smoke fish and meats. Though I'm sure lots of other indigenous groups as well as the Europeans had their own ways of curing or roasting meat, that word spread as 'barbacoa' in Latin America and as 'barbecue' in Anglo North America, and regional differences developed.

How the word came to mean the same as grill to some people, and how it became common outside the southeast, involves a guy named E.G. Kingsford and his wife's cousin, Henry Ford. Ford's company was building Model-Ts at the time, and those had wood dashboards, running boards, and sometimes parts of their bodies; they used so much wood that they had their own sawmill, but it produced lots of scrap. His cousin-in-law, Kingsford, suggested he start making charcoal with a new process that made small pillow shaped pieces, briquets. Soon the charcoal production was out running the commercial demand so they started selling charcoal at their dealerships. Then to increase charcoal demands, they created small portable 'picnic kits' including a little 'barbecue grill', which were sometimes given away with the cars (this was also seen as marketing cars as a way to get out into the country side). That campaign was the first to try to sell outdoor cooking, other than just using a campfire.

I'm not sure that The New York Times Magazine qualifies as a scholarly enough source, but here's a link

Hiya! Interesting question, but to help people answer it, are you talking about barbecue as in the food item, or barbecue as in the concept of outdoor cooking and cooking accessories? Thanks!