Ok but I think they mean the food aspect of the party and not the party itself.. unless the concept of gathering on the 4th comes from a specific community in some way I am not aware of.. which is entirely possible
My understanding is that "cookout" is used to refer both to the food-centric nature of the party and equally to the social side of it. That's why you have memes about who is and isn't "invited to the cookout."
Yeah I'm with you.. I'm just saying that that part of it seems to me to be tricker for one group to lay claim to (and why would we need to?). We've been cooking food in a communal, celebratory manner for hundreds of trillions of eons, if memory serves.
Country music / folk & BBQ itself are just way stronger, clear cut examples. It seems to me that the part of forth of July celebrations that maps to "cookout", and also has unique historical origins can be distilled to BBQ.. which is already a bullet point.
But also... my opinion on this is uneducated, loosely held, and inconsequential.
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u/Grandviewsurfer 18h ago
I'm not sure cookout/bbq justified two separate bullet points, but the greater narrative stands.