By Brian Lisankie
It is an unarguable fact that no matter where you are in the world, the moment you light a grill, every man and dog in the area will quickly congregate around the fire. There’s a reason for this behavior that goes beyond the mere desire to eat. Cooking meat over a fire is a primal act rooted deep in the basal DNA of both man and dog. It’s as basic an instinct as the need to hunt or to procreate. As a result, some form of fire-based cooking can be found firmly woven into the social fabric of nearly every culture in the world.
Man has been consuming animals since the dawn of time, and what started out as a pretty rough process of merely tossing a chunk of formerly animated protein onto the coals of a fire (although I will still do that under the right circumstances) has gradually evolved along the way and the procedures have improved and become more standardized regionally over time.
While there are a wide variety of approaches to the subject, the chief variables in any flame cooking system are going to involve the type of fuel utilized to create the heat, the choice of protein, the spices involved, and the method of how the heat is applied to the food.
Fuel needs to be the first part of the discussion since without it you’re limited to eating carpaccio or steak tartare. Anywhere that trees grow means that wood is going to be the primary fuel for cooking fires – either in the form of firewood or charcoal. Charcoal is wood that has been heated to high temperature in a vessel with limited oxygen in order to drive out all moisture and volatile constituents. The end result, charcoal, consists of concentrated carbon, so the resulting product burns evenly, hot, and for extended periods.
Charcoal also imparts a different taste to the food than you will get from the coals and embers that are created by a standard wood fire. Important note: real charcoal in no way resembles the toxic chemical briquettes for sale at hardware stores. Those little abominations are manufactured in factories from pressed wood chips and petroleum products. Do not use these. Please. Especially if I’m invited.
Take trees away, and people have to get creative in order to cook. Don Trump Jr and Jason Vincent once ate Marmot during a hunt on the steppes in Mongolia that had been cooked over the most plentiful local fuel—dried horse shit. I’ve also seen fires made with dried peat, corncobs, bundles of dried grass, and coal. At the end of the day, carbon is carbon, and heat is heat, but the source of that heat is going to dictate how the process of cooking is managed and, to a certain extent, how the food is going to taste.
Another universal truth is that you never mess with another cooks’ fire. You can offer to carry things, and you can bring food or beverages, but the cook is solely in charge of the grill and the fire. Period. If they want any help, they’ll tell you.
Application of heat from a burning natural substance to food is done in a myriad of ways around the world and has become the core of many culturally significant cooking methods. Pacific tribal civilizations pioneered cooking Salmon by splaying the cleaned fish on a standing frame of split alder greenwood and smoking or “ponassing” the fish both to eat now and to preserve for future consumption. Pacific Islanders figured out that superheating rocks in a fire on the beach then covering those rocks in a pit with wet seaweed created an ideal way to steam pork for long periods at constant temperature. New Zealand Maori sometimes cooked by immersing food in heated thermal springs rising from volcanic activity.
The English word “barbecue” is derived from the Spanish word “barbacoa”, so that’s a pretty good place to start our tour. Cooking over fire is an important part of life in Mexico from the US border all the way down and throughout central and South America. Although most peoples’ concept of Mexican fire cookery has been reduced to carne asada at Chipotle, you don’t have to go very far afield to find some real treasures. A friend of mine once took me to an unmarked restaurant in a border town that served only one thing: quail rubbed with adobo and grilled over mesquite coals. They didn’t need to serve anything else besides cold Negra Modelos. It was transcendent.
A true Mexican barbacoa is going to involve beef in the northern part of the country and goat or lamb in central regions—sometimes wrapped in agave leaves and served with pico de gallo. Cochinita pibil is pork cooked in a pit lined with heated stones. Birria originated in Jalisco and typically involves lamb rib or beef shank slowly barbecued to perfection and served with onion, cilantro. salsa, and lime (with or without soft tacos) and will make you weak in the knees.
Brazilian cookery is famous for barbecued meats served off swordlike skewers. Forget franchised American restaurants and head to Brazil to discover authentic churrasco – you’ll see skewers of meat resting on a rotisserie but also notice that the cooking involves utilizing heat from a fire to develop a really nice char on the outside while avoiding the smoke as much as possible. The pitmaster carefully manages distribution of the coals to achieve the desired heat. It’s an art in itself. You’ll enjoy Picanha steak (prepared using the fat cap on the top side of the sirloin to keep the meat basted as it cooks) alongside pork, chicken, and lamb. Seasonings are typically limited to coarse salt, but you will also find Erracherra rub on skirt steak.
Argentines call barbeque “asado”, and their version involves locally raised, outstanding beef from the Pampas as well as lamb, chicken, and chorizo sausage. Heat is supplied using a mixture of charcoal and firewood, and lighter fluid is never, ever used to get things started. An adjustable height grill known as a parrilla can be raised and lowered to regulate the amount of heat. Seasoning always involves salt and not much else. Sometimes chimichurri comes on the side. An asado would not be complete without bottles of the best Malbec wines available…dark as ink and known as “vino tinto”.
Peru and Chile broaden things a bit by incorporating seafood brought in close to the coastline by the Humboldt current. Incredibly fresh seafood includes steaks cut from conger eels as thick as fire hoses, giant langostinos, and octopus. Rotisseries of pre-marinated Pollo a la Brasa chicken are made with aji verde pepper sauce – a thick wet rub that is both extremely tasty and creates a crust that seals the juices inside the meat. High in the Andes you will encounter Pachamanca: cooking with fire-heated stones in a covered pit.
Cross the Atlantic to Africa and suddenly the types of protein available on the hoof expands dramatically. Those who have traveled there can tell you that wild game like Eland, Kudu, Impala, Springbok, Ostrich, Zebra, and Nyala top the list of the most flavorful types of animal protein available anywhere and put standard grades of beef to shame. These plentiful resources have resulted in a strong social barbecue culture known as Braai. A strong base of Camelthorn (acacia) wood coals topped with a layer of fragrant vine wood is typical fuel, but charcoal is also used. The fire is typically kept going even after the cooking is done for continued fellowship. If you are invited to a Braai, make certain you accept. It’s an experience you will never forget.
But when I am back in the USA, and as much as I love the culture and the different ways of doing things around the world, Texas barbeque simply can’t be beat. Granted, it’s undertaken on an industrial scale compared to your typical backyard setup, but there is something about the variety and the result of the product produced by a mesquite fired mega-smoker that sets a standard almost impossible to improve upon. I’ve brought plenty of international visitors to TX BBQ establishments, and, without exception, that’s the first thing they asked about whenever they returned.
At the end of the day, it’s the experience that really matters. Good food, good conversation, and good company are a big part of why we do what we do. Broaden your horizons and look around to see what’s cooking on your next trip. The real adventure typically starts where the tar seal road ends, so embrace your inner Anthony Bourdain and get out there. Don’t waste your time at the hotel restaurants—eat with the locals. It’s cheaper, better, and more fun. You might learn a thing or two, and you’ll certainly have more stories to tell. Book a trip through Field Ethos Outrider and home will be a distant memory in eight hours. Get going.
