Where there's smoke: Bring back the thrill of the backyard grill

An especially fancy barbecue had a metal grill that could be balanced on the stones. Sometimes the grill even had legs, especially in national parks and official campsites.

That was post World War II, when factories had been dedicated for the war effort. You put your name on a list if you wanted a fridge, car, or vacuum cleaner, and waited for about three years. I still remember the envy of every woman in our street when we were assigned a fridge. There was no factory space in that world for non-essentials.

It was about then that Australia made what is possibly its greatest contribution to world architecture: the backyard concrete block barbecue. They had existed in small numbers before the 1950s. Suddenly, with big backyards, a baby boom of kids all yelling for sausages, and dads who usually had a shed down the back where they worked on projects with other dads, The Great Australian Barbecue began to spread across Australia almost as fast as rabbits.

How many readers have even seen one? They were made from concrete blocks, though sometimes bricks, with two low walls and a ledge to place the hotplate or grill. There was a tall back wall and a chimney - you lit the fire in the space below the hotplate and (usually) the smoke went up the chimney.

You scraped the fat off the hotplate with trowel, and fed it to the chooks, unless the dog got it first, which did unpleasant things to its digestion.

Back in 1974, a bloke told me how he had saved his entire family with his new backyard barbecue during Cyclone Tracy. When the roof fell off the house, and the garage and then the car blew away, he and his wife crawled on their hands and knees over to the barbecue, each with a kid slung below them. They stuffed the kids inside the concrete block walls, then grasped hands around it till dawn. The entire suburb had vanished - but not their Great Aussie Barbecue.

The world became consumerist, and factories produced things for them to consume. Families were also more mobile: why build a great concrete bunker when you couldn't take it with you when you moved?

Barbecues now come in all sizes and shapes, from small disposable ones to vast complex structures that do far more than cook half a dozen chops and a packet of sausages.

It's a fair bet that anyone reading this has a barbecue, from a portable one run on gas to a patio model using charcoal briquettes. They are especially useful when the power goes out.

Wood-fired pizza ovens have slowly conquered Australia too, and with good reason - our wood-fired Christmas Eve pizza was one of the world's greatest, even if cooked and eaten in a deluge. They also roast the most fabulous lamb, and will even cook a perfect pavlova shell as they cool down.

A pizza oven can be homemade with a few unskilled volunteers, easily bought material, and a YouTube video. Many versions incorporate one into a courtyard wall, to warm the whole area in winter.

But unless you are content with a Lions Club/Bunnings barbecue sausage on white bread with sauce (a classic dish in its own right), every barbecue needs herbs.

You may not have realised this. Try grilling your chops, cobs of corn, or soy burgers on a bed of rosemary branches. The scent will fill the backyard, the taste will be superb, and the branches eventually burn away to nothing. Use rosemary branches as skewers for your kebabs, or branches of thyme on top of anything grilled, especially halved tomatoes.

But mostly, just now, you need basil. Supermarket bunches don't last long, and basil's flavour diminishes quickly once it's been picked. You'll still get a strong smell, but not that enchantment of full basil subtlety that only comes from a just-picked leaf. Head out now to buy a pot of gorgeous blue-black basil, or even better, a pot with one bright green and one purple basil, grown together - stunning.

A pot of basil costs about the same as a bunch of basil, and will keep on giving you basil right through winter, or even longer if brought into a sunny spot indoors. Basil is actually a short-lived perennial, dying in the cold, but if kept warm may last for a few years. Large amounts grown all along the windowsill will even repel flies and mozzies.

It's worst enemy is leaf blight. Pick off the brown curling leaves and let new healthy ones grow.

"Deconstructed" pasta sprinkled with the cheese of your choice and torn basil leaves is one of the simplest, cheapest, most delicious dishes possible. Our dinner tonight will be "more veg than meat" balls with a fresh tomato sauce, and loads of basil added at the end.

But in this season of violent storms, I remember those sturdy fireproof, storm- and cyclone-proof concrete block barbecues. They must have taken a lot of work to demolish. Do they still exist? Has anyone seen one? Should it be heritage listed? If you have the answer, could you let me know?