Call Me Asadora: The Radical Act of a Grilling as a Girl in Chile

I remember the itch in my eyes and the smell of ink burning when the rings of flaming newspaper lit the first pieces of lump charcoal, in my hometown of Arauco, in the south of Chile. I remember my dad bending over because the grills were placed directly on the floor,  not standing high like the ones we know now. Those old-style low charcoal grills must have been uncomfortable for the adults — but for me, aged 10, they were of a perfect height. I remember helping my dad turn a big piece of meat (probably a nice fat picanha). He told me, “You turn it when you see the first drops of blood.”

My early memories of grilling have this quasi-cinematographic quality, similar to how other people might describe riding a bike the first time. I was given the power to read an instruction from the meat itself. It was just the meat, the fire, and me — and the neighborhood cats always coming over to check what was smelling so good. “When it bleeds, you turn it, add salt, and wait with patience until the other side is done.” A revelation.

At the time I didn’t realize grilling was a 100% male-dominated field in Chile. A woman working the grill was as outrageous as a female Catholic priest. Yet I never felt out of place. Learning how to grill felt natural; it was part of the lessons taught to me by my parents and older brothers, all of them creative souls who thought I should learn how to fly traditional Chilean kites, clean sea urchins, write poetry, pick a perfect watermelon, and cook with fire, among other quite useful skills.

By the age of 12 I was cooking with fire at the scout camps in Chile. My dad had taught me how to start and keep a good fire, how to measure the heat using the palm of my hand, how to buy the right cuts of meat. As a shy, overweight, and bullied girl, I felt empowered. I was independent and capable. I knew deep down that I was good at something, and nobody could take that from me.

We moved from the small town to the capital Santiago for a year and I joined another scout group, with worldly city girls that ate something called “bigmác” and dressed like adults. Again, the fire was mine. The wild flames provided a sense of safety. Every night I wrote in my diary under a dying flashlight about what I had learned that day in the camp, while the others were talking already about boys and diets, laughing and lighting not cooking fires, but cigarettes.

At 17 I would just take charge of the grill at my high school class parties. My nickname was “asadora” instead of “Isidora.” (“Asado” can be loosely translated to “barbecue” in the States, but it’s really so much more than that). I had absolutely no clue how strange it was for everyone to see a teenager behind the grill. It never dawned on me that I had never seen another girl grilling.

I only started to notice when I went to college. My friends began asking me take over grills at parties, “for the sake of the meat.” I began to notice the faces of the men: “Does she even know what she is doing?” Chivalry and disbelief were mixed: “What exactly are you are doing with that asado de tira?” “Did you put the salt already?” “Can I help you with that charcoal so you don’t ruin your hands?” No thanks.

The sexism in grilling became most apparent, however, when I wrote a protest piece about being a woman and grilling. It was just humorous, not even explicitly feminist. A journalist contacted me through Twitter and interviewed me grilling. Photos were taken. The next day somehow I was on the cover of the most popular entertainment newspaper. I was smiling, holding a beautifully browned piece of meat in one hand and a can of beer in the other, under the headline “DARING YOUNG LADY WANTS TO STEAL THE GRILLS FROM MEN.”

My friends and my family were so amused about the cover, usually reserved for TV celebrities, soccer players, and politicians. But people who didn’t know me so well — new friends, new colleagues — were astonished, and would tell me with wide eyes “I didn’t know you could grill!” My calendar became filled with asados.

I found the whole thing hilarious 10 years ago, but I don’t anymore. I would have loved to have a grilling community with women to help support me — to help me realize how sexist the whole thing was. But such community didn’t really exist. I have to believe if that piece was to run today, things would be different.

My love for grilling has brought so much joy to my life. I’ve forged deep friendships over the fire — including with Carolina Carriel, whom I ended up co-authoring a cookbook with. I moved to the United States in 2013 and to Denmark in 2017 and found parties around the grill really are the best place to meet people. No matter where in the world, everyone is at ease around the fire.

Dominating the wild, unpredictable open fire has always been known as men’s work — including those not-so-wild patio gas grills. What’s not as well-known is the power of teaching girls how to grill. Teaching girls how to grill unlocks a sense of self-sufficiency that to me seems more versatile than just cooking. It develops intuition, confidence, outdoors skills, and social skills. I didn’t know, at the age of 10, turning and salting a cut of meat too big for my hands, that grilling would encourage me to be the most authentic self — even in a world where the fire is not supposed to reach delicate ladies’ hands. Dominating the fire will make a girl believe she can do anything.