Boucan

A French word for a grill used to smoke meat for later consumption. Both the word and the boucan method may be native to the Americas. Spanish colonists called the same smoking process barbacoa, and this word has passed into English as “barbecue.”

The boucan technique was especially important to the men illegally camping on Spanish Hispaniola (modern Haiti) from about 1620 to 1670. These squatters hunted the abundant wild cattle and pigs, and they used the boucan to preserve the meat for later use and for sale to passing ships. The hunters, who lived off the boucan, were known as boucaniers (“barbecuers”). English authors later used the same word to refer to pirates operating from Haiti and other Caribbean havens. (Rogozinski, Boucan)