Since man first donned an apron, one question has plagued all those who have picked up an extra-long, wooden-handled spatula under a hot summer sun:

Charcoal or gas?

It’s a quandary like no other, causing a deep rift between those who meticulously stack their charcoal briquettes into pyramid form – only to have them tumble time and again – and those who live and die by their electric-start gas grill – praying to the propane god that their tanks didn’t just feel full.

For Bob Patterson, the choice is clear, and charcoal is king.

And Patterson, 45, has some tough talk for those who believe the blue propane flame puts his – sometimes sluggish – but forever favorite fuel to shame.

“If charcoal takes too long, you just have no business grilling,” Patterson said from his home on Main Street in Bucksport. “You want fast food, go to a restaurant.”

Although smitten with the more traditional charcoal, Patterson, who has worked as a chef at some area restaurants, is no purist.

“I drop lighter fluid on that thing like a fighter pilot dropping Napalm over a jungle in Vietnam,” he said, dismissing the less flammable practice of using only crumpled newspaper in an aluminum chimney to light the briquettes. “And if the flames get too low, I’ll blast it again.”

No need, says Hampden resident Frank Conner, whose convenient gas grill gets a workout all year long.

“I can get home from work, turn the thing on, go inside, get the food ready and throw it on, and have a beer while I wait,” said Conner, who’s been grilling for most of his 64 years. “Everything comes together at just the right time and I don’t have to wait forever.”

But for Patterson, it’s not only the primal urge to cook over a manmade fire that has kept him loyal to charcoal, it’s the smoky taste of his custom-cut New York strip when it comes off the grill. Marinated in beer, oil, red onions, red wine vinegar, and the most important ingredient – jalapeno peppers – the steak is not complete without the charcoal-blackened exterior that gas simply can’t produce, he said.

Whether produced by gas or charcoal, it’s that blackened exterior that concerns some health experts, with researchers at the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C., warning backyard barbecuers to avoid the black char – especially on unmarinated meats – because it can contain a substance that has been linked to cancer in some animal studies.

That warning does not apply to grilled vegetables since the chemical reaction that produces the potential carcinogen only occurs in foods with animal proteins.

Good news for Conner, whose penchant for grilled corn on the cob and potatoes and onions wrapped in foil rivals his taste for steak, “a gimme” on any grill, he explained.

As to allegations that gas grillers are left wanting for taste, Conner, who works at the Black Stove Shop in Bangor, points to the availability of tin cans filled with soaked hickory, cherry or apple wood chips that can be used in gas grills to add the smoky flavor.

Although Conner prefers his versatile gas grill, the flames of which can be easily controlled, he acknowledged a return to charcoal for camping trips when time is not – or at least shouldn’t be – a factor.

Jennifer Barnhart, marketing communications manager at Kingsford Products Co. in Oakland, Calif., admitted a bias for her company’s charcoal, but also pointed to a recent blind taste test that found people preferred the taste of food cooked over charcoal 2 to 1 over gas.

But for Bangor chef Cheryl Wixson, the taste issue isn’t a significant one.

“I think it’s a bunch of malarkey,” Wixson said of the supposed taste difference between foods cooked over charcoal or gas. “I think I have a pretty good palate, and the only significant difference I can taste is when the lighter fluid on a charcoal fire isn’t allowed to burn off before the food’s put on.”

Like charcoal to lighter fluid, Patterson absorbed much of his technique from his father who tended the family grill.

Back in his boyhood days, it was a shallow, round, teal-colored charcoal grill that sat outside the family home. Today, it’s a brick and granite block oven Patterson fashioned himself.

The longtime outdoor chef had some advice for his fellow fire-starters, regardless of their choice of fuels.

“It’s a tradition,” he said. “Just take your time and enjoy it.”