British people know what barbecues are

I've been at home during the day more than usual lately, for a variety of reasons, and I've seen a few episodes of 'Bones' which I've never watched before. In these episodes Stephen Fry is playing a cameo role of a psychiatrist treating that bloke who was Angel in Buffy. He (Fry) is being a charicature Brit, in that way that he specialises in, and who am I to argue with the stereotypes of us all drinking tea and not knowing how to make coffee properly etc etc. But I balked at the part of the script that had SF's character not knowing what a barbecue was, and never having experienced one before. I can only assume this was in because (like the tea drinking) it is a staple of Britishness as far as American sit-coms are concerned.

In all these years of reading Harry Potter fan fiction I've discovered all sorts of differences between America and Britain that I would never have imagined, different names for the same thing that I never suspected and all sorts of assumptions made by both sides about the other, but I am really, really surprised about the B B Q thing.

I love barbecues and I've been having them, weather permitting, since I was a child. In fact sometimes the weather didn't permit and we went ahead anyway - I can remember my dad sitting by the barbecue under an umbrella, cooking pork chops.