The barbecue season has been kind to me so far – nothing worse than a couple of minor burns and a few hundred mosquito bites. The house, miraculously, is still intact. We haven’t had to call the fire service or go to the emergency room, and I count this as a success. It is a risky business, but it is part of the summer ritual, and it must be done. Since the beginning of recorded time, and probably long before, the barbecue has been an out-of-control male fire celebration. Men are supposed to have this mystical relationship with fire because their ancestors ran in the hunt, and every successful hunt ended with an outdoor roast. Even today, in less developed parts of the world, like Outer Mongolia and Texas, you can still see whole animals roasted over a fire pit while men stand around and give advice, just as they did on the shores of the Mediterranean thousands of years ago. More than half of all outdoor grills these days run on gas, which takes most of the fun and all of the risk out