‘Feeding the Fire’ Brings the Best of Regional Barbecue Into One Place
Feeding the Fire by Joe Carroll. (Photo: Sam Bolton/Yahoo Food)
By Joanna Prisco
Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week is Feeding the Fire: Recipes & Strategies for Better Barbecue & Grilling by Joe Carroll, lauded owner of the restaurants Fette Sau and St. Anselm, which both focus on fire-kissed fare that ranges from beef cheeks and brats to chops and chicken.
Neither a trained chef nor a pit master on the competitive barbecue circuit, Carroll has carved a name for himself within the BBQ world mainly by eschewing the notion that geography dictates the best methods for cooking with fire.
“I didn’t want our barbecue to be handcuffed to any regional style of barbecue,” he explains in his introduction. “If you grew up in Memphis, you believe that Memphis-style barbecue is the greatest thing in the world and everything else is sh*t. Texans say barbecue is beef and beef only; North Carolinians swear allegiance to pork alone. Texans think barbecue sauce is blasphemous; Kansas City worships its sticky, shiny glaze; and on and on.”
Instead, Carroll chose to take what he considered the best techniques, smoking materials and cuts from across the country and amalgamate them to suit his palate.
Axe-Handle Rib-Eye Steak. (Photo: Artisan)
“My own style of barbecue,” he describes as, “impossible to categorize… having incorporated a cut of meat from one region, a hardwood from that one and a smoking technique from another, until the result was a mutt of American ‘cue filtered through the mind of an Irish-Italian kid from New Jersey.”
The experimentation yielded not only high praise from restaurant critics and diners, but also a trove of recipes that range from a gargantuan, Flintstone-sized Axe-Handle Rib-Eye Steak to the lightly toasted littlenecks that appear in his Grilled Clams with Garlic Butter to Grilled Sausage, Pepper and Onion Sandwiches fit for a summer day spent in the backyard.
Grilled Sausage, Pepper and Onion Sandwiches. (Photo: Artisan)
All of these, and many more smoked and barbecued bites, appear inside “Feeding the Fire” along with thoughtful instructions for building single and two-level fires, as well as advice on selecting the best pieces of meat from sustainable sources.
“A bad piece of meat can’t be rescued, no matter how many other ingredients or flourishes you throw at it,” maintains Carroll. “But a high-quality heritage breed steak or chop doesn’t need more than some salt and a lot of heat to become the best thing you’ve ever tasted.”
Visit Yahoo Food throughout the week for recipes from Feeding the Fire.
Check out other cookbooks from Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week:
Oh Gussie! By Kimberly Schlapman
Rose Water & Orange Blossoms by Maureen Abood
