Living in the middle of a bustling city usually means that you don't have regular access to a grill. Maybe you have a friend with a rooftop who you can sneak on to make some burgers, or your friend has one in a small shared backyard. But it's rare to be able to spontaneously grill anywhere you want, like in the middle of the park or on the beach. Sounds like a dream world, right? Well, dream a little bigger, because all you need is a match and a disposable grill to get the hot dog party started anywhere.
When I was watching the captivating new food documentary Barbecue, I got distracted by a small, disposable grill. The movie explores different countries' barbecue cultures, from backyard grilling in Australia to pig roasts in the Philippines. In a scene in the middle of a Swedish park, groups of people gathered around half a dozen of these small grills, charcoal fires blazing to cook sausages, hot dogs, and marinated chicken. This wasn't your typical shared-park-grill situation—everyone had their own, and they lit up in seconds. It's a Swedish engangsgrill, a 13x9 aluminum pan with grate placed over it, but operated like a full grill. Check them out in action in the exclusive clip below:
Matthew Salleh, the film's director, tells me that they stayed in Sweden for two weeks to film and only got a few good-weather days before it started raining again. "Since they're pretty sun-starved, the moment that it comes out, everyone races outside. Our translator had five of these grills in the back of his car, ready to go," he says. It's a simple setup: light a piece of accelerant-soaked paper, drop it in the charcoal, and wait about 20 minutes for it to get hot enough to cook on (while you play frisbee, or something). It will sustain steady heat for a few hours of burgers and hot dogs, and is particularly popular amongst Stockholm's young college students living in small apartments. Like Swedish favorite brand IKEA, these are both innovative and affordable. They haven't been spotted at stateside IKEA locations, but you can snag a disposable grill at certain local hardware stores and on Amazon for around $20.
"They're perfectly evocative of life up there in Sweden, and people there see it as a wonderful way to assemble a group of people quickly," adds Rose Tucker, Barbecue's producer. "Looking at these beautiful, pristine Stockholm parks at the end of the day, all you could see was little black marks everywhere from them burning on the ground, so be careful where you grill."
Sweden was one of 12 countries that Salleh and Tucker traveled to during the 200-day documentary shoot. The Australian natives—and couple of 11 years—grew up grilling on the "barbie" and realized that it was a universal cultural practice for people to use cooking meat over fire as a way to bring their community together. A geographically diverse eating map included 48-hour-smoked brisket and more barbecue in Texas, stacks of shawarma at a Syrian refugee camp, yakitori on the streets of Japan, khorovat skewers cooked on giant swords in Armenia, and more.
After eating a dozen-plus dishes around the world, the Mongolian boodog is what stuck with Salleh the most, a "unique, labor intensive process" that uses hot rocks to cook an animal from the inside out and makes the "whole thing blow up like a balloon." Tucker was most fond of the Armenian khorovats, not only for the cool swords they're cooked on, but the tradition of pulling a bite of salty, herbaceous marinated pork off the grill immediately, wrapping it in pita, and taking a shot of vodka.
Whether it's gathering around a 1-foot rectangular grill or a whole-hog léchon feast in the Philippines, Tucker and Salleh saw the universal culture of fire-grilled food as a way to bring people together and start conversation. "If people want to share their food with you and you're enthusiastic about it, then it opens up this whole other world," says Salleh. "Maybe if we can all get together over a barbecue, we can sort out our differences."