Life of Fire: Mastering the Arts of Pit-Cooked Barbecue, the Grill, and the Smokehouse: A Cookbook

"From one of the South's most acclaimed pitmasters comes the definitive guide to open-fire cooking, from hot coals and roaring flames to warm embers and cold smoke. Nashville's Pat Martin has grown a nine-location-and-counting empire of Martin's BBQ Joints on the strength of his West Tennessee whole hog that is slow-smoked all day and night. One of only a handful of remaining practitioners of this art, Pat didn't come to barbecue as a family heir of legacy recipes; rather, he stumbled into the pit as a somewhat lost student and found the life by the fire to be the one that made the most sense to him. More than his barbecue expertise, Pat's love of open-fire cooking drives this cookbook of how to work with fire in all the stages of its life cycle. Throughbeautiful photography and detailed instruction, he shows us how to char vegetables on the wild flames of an adolescent fire; how to grill meats on mature coals; how to barbecue shoulders and ribs and, yes, a whole hog on "adult" embers; and finally how to build and use a cold-smoker for hams and bacon. Learn the stages of the fire and you can master Whole Chicken with Alabama White Sauce, Pork Belly Sandwiches, and Open-Pit Spare Ribs, as well as beautiful vegetable-based dishes--Grilled Carrots with Sorghum and Buttermilk, Open-Face Grilled Tomato Sandwiches, Creamed Grilled Corn, and Ash-Roasted Sweet Potatoes--that will transform the way you cook"--
One of the South’s most acclaimed pitmasters reveals all he knows about the art of barbecue and open-flame cooking, in all the stages of a fire’s life. Illustrations.
“The most important book on cooking over live fire in decades. Life of Fire illuminates it all, from coal beds, to home-built pits (in minutes!) to simple, delicious, recipes and enough whole hog know-how to impress the weekend warriors without intimidating newcomers.”—Andrew ZimmernOne of the few pitmasters still carrying the torch of West Tennessee whole-hog barbecue, Nashville’s Pat Martin has studied and taught this craft for years. Now he reveals all he knows about the art of barbecue and live fire cooking. Through beautiful photography and detailed instruction, the lessons start with how to prepare and feed a fire—what wood to use, how to build a pit or a grill, how to position it to account for the weather—then move into cooking through all the stages of that fire’s life. You’ll sear tomatoes for sandwiches and infuse creamed corn with the flavor of char from the temperamental, adolescent fire. Next, you’ll grill chicken with Alabama white sauce over the grown-up fire, and, of course, you’ll master pit-cooked whole hog, barbecue ribs, turkey, pork belly, and pork shoulder over the smoldering heat of mature coals. Finally, you’ll roast vegetables buried in white ash, and you’ll smoke bacon and country hams in the dying embers of the winter fire. For Pat Martin, grilling, barbecuing, and smoking is a whole lifetime’s worth of practice and pleasure—a life of fire that will transform the way you cook.