Tikka masala, anyone?

Hindi has spiced the language with a masala of words long-since codified in its dictionaries: chit, guru, jungle, pajamas, pundit, sentry, shampoo, and thug.

Wait, wait, wait. How about barbeque? That's not Hindi. And, of course, tzuica. I had the apricot variety last evening (drank from a 1-liter plastic bottle), but still haven't fired up the Coanda BBQ this year. Time to start yet on the roast mutton?

An open-air cooking apparatus, usually charcoal burning, for grilling or spit-roasting meat or fish. The Barbeque method is of American origin, being associated with the legendary conquest of the West. It was subsequently adopted in Europe. The word probably comes form the Haitian "barbacoa," meaning grills, but some attribute its origin to the French "de la barbe a la queue" (from the beard to the tail), referring to the method of impaling the animal on the roasting spit. There may even be a connection with the French "barbaque" which comes from the Romanian "berbec" meaning roast mutton."