“American Word Origins

Origin: 1733
Many years before the United States was founded, before English speakers occupied the Southwest, and before tract houses with backyard grills spread across the suburban plains, Americans had already invented barbecues. The first barbecues, in fact, were the invention of the Taino Indians of Haiti, who dried their meat on raised frames of sticks over the fire. Spanish explorers translated the Taino word as barbacoa, and in due course English settlers along the Atlantic coast had their own barbecues.
One summer day in 1733, Benjamin Lynde, a substantial citizen of Salem, Massachusetts, wrote in his diary, “Fair and hot; Browne, Barbacue; hack overset.” That is, on this hot day he went to the Brownes to attend a barbecue, and his carriage (or maybe his horse) tipped over. His experience may have been upsetting, but it indicates that the social occasion of the barbecue was established by that time. Large animals would be roasted whole on frames over hot fires, and neighbors would be invited to dine.
In later centuries, as settlement pressed westward, the barbecue went along with it, reaching an especially grand size in Texas, where a pit for fuel might be dug ten feet deep. Present-day barbecue grills are likely to be small and portable, fueled by charcoal or propane or electricity, and capable of cooking only parts of an animal at a time, but they still operate out of doors and provide a reason for inviting the neighbors over.”
Alternatively, some trace the origin of the word to the French expression meaning “from whiskers to arse”, (“de barbe a cul”) which may explain its current popularity in Australia?

A braver and funnier subversion of facist/nationalistic military propaganda would have included amongst the trio other individuals who weren’t so beautifully White, and perhaps some others who were choosing to bbq vegetables…