Hand-cranked spits and roaring wood-fired open flames might not be the popular option for a weekend BBQ these days, but go back to Medieval Europe and this was the preferred way to cook meat in a large household. The “spit boy” or “spit jack” sat closeby, turning the metal rod slowly and methodically. Eventually, no servants being available, this was mechanised, although you would still need a dog and a treadmill to power your “roasting jack” and this was later replaced by steam or clockwork mechanisms, worm transmissions and eventually the electric motor.
The Romance of Alexander is an account of the exploits and life of Alexander the Great, mostly fantastical with references to mythical creatures - sirens or centaurs. An illustration from a copy dating back to the 14th Century rests with the Bodleian Library in Oxford and depicts a spitted fowl being rotated by hand crank and basted with a long-handled spoon.
According to Etymonline, the old French rostir, meaning “to roast or burn”, developed by the late 13th Century into rosten, meaning "to cook (meat, fish, etc.) by dry heat," and tallies with Frankish *hraustjan, German rösten and Middle Dutch roosten "to roast", originally meaning "cook on a grate or gridiron." Interestingly, this archaic Dutch word then evolved into rooster meaning “table or list” and transcended its useage into a military meaning to show a turn or rotation of duty and from which we now get the word “roster”.
By 1450, the French had coined the word “rotisserie” to mean “shop selling cooked food, restaurant” – clearly the popular method of cooking had set in and was becoming an industry. By 1958 the first manufacturers and their copy writers were setting out in-home cooking apparatus and in 1980 a Manhattan restaurant called “La Rotisserie” was the location where a new form of fantasy baseball was embraced, appropriately named the “Rotisserie League”.
The vertical rotisserie appeared in Istanbul in the 19th Century, uninspiringly as a space saving measure apparently, but it did allow meat to self-baste because the fat flows downwards and who doesn’t enjoy the benefits of such a kebab in the early hours of a Saturday morning. From Greece to Turkey, the Arab world and Mexico, this is a mainstay cooking method across the world.
One such dish is Pollo a la brasa, meaning blackened chicken, and was developed by a Swiss national living in Lima, Peru in the 1950s. He decided to settle in Lima after the Second World War and with his business partners devised a “spit over charcoal” method after watching his cook’s technique in the Granja Azul restaurant. A fellow Swiss immigrant who was also a metalworker was able to develop a type of rotisserie over to allow high output which he named “El rotombo”, the recipe was enhanaced and further restaurants were opened so that Pollo a la brasa is now found in eateries around the world and is considered a staple in Peruvian restaurants, being a national dish of Peru.
Al Pastor, a dish from central Mexico based on shawarma meat brought by Lebanese immigrants - Cag Kebabi a horizontally stacked marinated rotating lamb kebab from the Turkish provinces – Gyros, a Greek dish made from meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie, the list goes on for all these wonderful dishes devised from this very same method originally made possible by the humble spit jacks.
So next time the charcoal begins to emit a glow and the wood crackles, the hum of the motor starts up and glorious aroma of your favourite meats fill the air, think back to the innovation and imaginations behind the heritage of the “rotisserie” and the many folk who like you think the slow roast, self basting way of cooking meat is truly the most mesmorising way to enjoy a good meal.
Credits to Wikipedia/ Etymonline