It is the adapted form of the Spanish barbacoa, with origin in the Arawak language, corresponding to the people of Taino in Haiti, registered as barbacòa, describing the process of roasting meats under the sun, on top of flames, in an ingenious structure given the period and tools available, made of a grid of wooden sticks that were supported by four logs in each end, that, despite modernization, does not differ from the current system. The Spanish writer and captain Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes (1478-1557), who participated in the process of colonization of the Caribbean that Columbus began, documents it in the 16th century, in a compilation of stories concluded in 1535, whose publication was postponed and officially released in 1851, after his death, in the book General and Natural History of the Indies.

Ironically, in Hispanic countries, depending on the social group, the English version is more common than the Spanish one, as a result of the influence of a culture that is imposed by international brands.