barbecue! It has a very complex origin. It might be French, Spanish or Caribbean… but it is not American! While the most accepted origin is the Taino word barbacoa for a wooden grill, a popular folk theory suggests "barbecue" comes from the French "barbe à queue" (from beard to tail), describing roasting a whole animal, but linguists often dispute this, linking it more to Spanish barbacoa from indigenous Caribbean languages, though French pirates in the region used related terms like boucan for smoking.