We've all contended for the title of 'Iron Chef burnt snag' and for the more ambitious — 'Iron Chef rissole'.

The Barbie. A case of beer. Mates. Saturday arvo. The type of scenario captured in Danny Katz's seminal 'The Tong Master'ⁱ.

'The Tong Master' struck a resounding note when it was penned in the late nineties. The timing was good, with the country in danger of being overrun by metrosexuals, suffering from a massive outflow to the UK of desperate young women in search of Mark Darcy (only to find Daniel Cleaver), and worse still, Boony having temporarily left the country to captain Durham in the English county championship. Our collective psyche was taking a battering. All was lost. But the following summer, the Nation rebounded on the back of increased barbecue, snag and VB sales. Not long afterwards, the barbecue legend Steve Raichlen defeated Iron Chef Roksbura Michiba in an epic barbecue battle on Japanese television.

In those days, every tong master could return to the backyard table to backslaps, high fives and gracious thanks for doing the cooking — absolved of all further domestic duties and safe to get written off. Simply by grilling some steaks and turning a few snags. Typically half cut by the time you stepped up to the hot plate, you could always get through the routine of poke, prod and roll …  "Snags look done to me" someone would say, and that was it.

Sadly, the days of the tong master as we know it may be numbered. Nowadays, a new type of player haunts barbecue scenes. Savvy, sophisticated and well dressed; he does a mean sushi, a perfect lamb chop, and can whip up a vegetarian extravaganza quicker than you can reach for another beer. You'll be left holding the tongs, and he'll have left with your girlfriend.

I discovered this the other weekend at a friend's house on the NSW South Coast. Saturday afternoon …  The girls had gone out and the lads were winding down with a game of backyard cricket.

As the afternoon drew long we drank more and the balls seemed to stray farther and wider of the wicket, never threatening the bails at the best of times. "Where are the girls?" someone asked. "Dunno", came the answer. We knew there was a barbecue somewhere about the place, probably an old Weber or a little gas fired number that we'd dust off in due course and destroy some snags. I was looking forward to holding court with the tongs and shooting the breeze with the fellas.

At about 6:30pm the girls and a large covered platter appeared in the backyard. No worries, sweet. Lads sifted in from various outfield positions in the yard, someone woke up from a snooze on the deck. All converged and were keen to see how many snags and steaks we'd have to play with.

The inventory: two large whole ocean trout, marinated baby octopus, squid, prawns on skewers, marinated chicken breasts, tofu burgers, haloumi cheese, onion, capsicum, eggplant and corn. The latter three for the salad.

Given that the only thing usually consumed within cooee of the Barbie is a meat salad comprising steaks and sausages, this was unheard of. It was like something out of Huey's Cooking Adventures. I had a look around, half expecting the big man himself to come bounding up with a film crew and all the answers in tow.

Then a girl I haven't even met before kindly popped out to tell us to keep her tofu away from the meat and fish, and use separate utensils, or else. We were speechless.

We stared at the platter for a while and pondered our fates. A beer or so later we thought we'd better fire up the Barbie. Leaving it to warm up, we decided to have another game of cricket. No one wanted to mention the giant food platter though we were all thinking about it.

Sven had been pretty quiet up until then. Despite his eyes being a bit too close together for my liking (much like the ocean trout) he was otherwise a decent enough bloke. He'd put in some good knocks in the yard, rolled down a few overs and could talk about cricket and footy. He had started on the beers with us, but had quickly changed to cokes after the first round, some hours ago. Fair enough, I thought, as I helped myself to a cold one from the esky and lobbed a couple more beers down the yard to the lads. These were plucked hungrily from the air like chips by seagulls — squirreled away for consumption safe from the flock, accompanied by grunts of approval.

While the rest of us were playing cricket, Sven began making a start on dinner. Eventually we shuffled over to the action.

He rolled up the sleeves of his skivvy and pulled his hair back, cracking his knuckles and his neck at the same time. Olive oil was draped across the hot plate in a gentle and measured arc.

The chicken was set in place first, after being drained of the marinade.

Sven's voice had strangely grown deeper and he seemed to grow in stature as Smooth operator came on the stereo. He called for a gin and tonic. All of us went at once. "Only takes one of you", he said with a brisk snap of the tongs.

The chicken was slowly cooked for a few minutes on one side. Then the ocean trout were placed carefully in foil, side by side, next to the chicken. I wondered how he would know when they were cooked. Some minutes passed, Sven gently turned the fish, and great care was taken. We all watched the foil packages delicately caressed into place, inhabitants left to roast in their own juices.

Next, with a flick of the wrist the squid were rolled out like dice in a game of craps. Sven was now holding court, the high roller, mesmerising us with his barbecue moves. In the background, no one spoke, just drinking and nodding, mumbling words, grunts of support or agreement with each smooth, move.

The octopus danced in the flames, little tentacles curling up in deference to the tong master. The prawns waited eagerly in the wings for their chance to sizzle. They didn't disappoint.

Now cooked, the chicken breasts were deftly flicked onto the serving plate. Poultry in motion. Followed by the two large fish and the rest. Click of the tongs and someone was off to the kitchen with the precious delivery.

A part of the hotplate was carefully left untouched, uncorrupted by the carnivorous extravaganza of grilled and fried delights from land and sea.

"Knife" he said. I handed him the knife. He took it and set to work on the capsicum, corn and eggplant. The haloumi and the tofu burgers were then seared briefly on either side.

"Not bad" one of the boys said with a swig of his VB. "Yeah" we chimed as we downed our beers.

The platter was laid out on the table and we all eyed it off proudly. The girls were impressed. However, the moment came that we had all been dreading. "Who did the cooking?" one of the girls asked. We all looked at each other, and then, shamefully, to the ground. "Team effort" said Sven.

I was about to pipe up and allow Sven his dues. Someone sensed what was coming and called it off with a subtle shake of the head. I stood down, while Sven stood head and shoulders above all.

As I chewed on the succulent, tender fish, which flaked and crumbled in my mouth, and we all bathed in the glow of the collective barbecue glory that Sven the tong master had allowed us, I began thinking. The modern barbecue aficionado needs to be skilled, alert and flexible — and probably sober. Presentation is key. Subtly, each barbecue is different, and the skills required each time would be different. From natural selection processes the true tong master will always step forth.

ENDNOTES

1. The Tong Master, a celebration of the barbecue culture, appeared in The Age newspaper, Melbourne Australia, on the 9th October 1998, and in Danny Katz's book Dork Geek Jew (Allen & Unwin, 2002), a compilation of his newspaper columns.