Into the Fire

Hey now, let’s grill, baby!

I’m thrilled to share the news about my next book. Into the Fire is about grilling: who grills well and where do they do it? Why do people get obsessed with cooking over fire? The book ranges worldwide from the American South to Japan—I’ll visit great grilling cultures over the next year for proper research. The book is a portrait of experts who have mastered the most ancient form of cooking.

I forget who said, Not every book needs to be about fishing. Well, I can still fish but I’m so excited for this next chapter. The publisher is Henry Holt and the book won’t be out for a while so we can all exhale—no deadlines yet!

There’s something wonderfully theatrical about grilling. The grill-master, wielding tongs, possibly wearing a ceremonial apron or a good-luck hat, is the conductor. Grilling lends itself to theories and strongly held beliefs about each step the process. Even starting a fire can ignite controversy. Some people would rather endure a tax audit than resort to lighter fluid.

Fire exerts a gravitational pull and draws us near—we connect to the heat and the people near us. We build bonfires and feel protected from the dark, telling ghost stories late at night. On a primal level grilling connects us to a simpler past and it exists outside the realm of technology—fire is our original technology—and unfolds in analog time. Grilling slows us down and brings people together.

Humans have cooked over fire for at least 800,000 years—some say we’ve been at it for over 2 million years. Grilling is elemental and primal. You don’t need a kitchen to grill, you don’t even need a grill—you can cook over a campfire (watch out, marshmallows).

In one sense grilling is universal, known the world over—all you need is a fire. In another, it’s highly specific and remarkably regional. Grilling contains multitudes. Yakitori practitioners in Japan finely season every part of the chicken on charcoal grills where the heat is measured to the degree. One legendary Spanish chef grills individual peas and smokes ice cream (how is that possible?) on custom grills he’s designed himself. Barbecue gurus across the American South refuse to leave well enough alone and righteously battle for brisket supremacy. Patagonia gauchos stretch an entire lamb on la cruz, a steel cross, that they lower over an immense live fire. The process takes all day, and, at times, all night.

Grilling, like all things worth doing, combines sense and sensibility. The sense are the facts: temperature, chemical reactions, recipes, marinades, quantities, progressions, and everything else that transforms food when it comes into contact with heat. Then there’s the sensibility, the reasons we do these things: the cultural, personal, and creative compulsions that make food an expression of the people who prepare it.

I’m thrilled to work on this next chapter.

See you by the fire!

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