Page 6 - May 2021 Barbecue News Magazine

bbq eats
“Barbecue,” “Grilling,”
“Smoking,” “Live-Fire:”
Whatever you call it,
Let’s Eat!
decades, “live fire cooking” has been standard lingo in bar- becue circles. Is there a common definition? Does it mean the same to everyone? No sarcasm intended, but nobody engages in “dead fire cooking” unless all other means of cooking such as microwave, panini, instant pot, pressure cooker, crockpot, solar ovens or other flameless cooking methods comprise a “dead fire cooking” genre.
Native Americans en- gaged in outdoor cook- ing long before settlers from other continents arrived. It has been a popular modern day ac- tivity in the United States since at least the 1930s—and for the prior hundreds of thousands of years globally. The ac- tivity predates “live fire cooking” jargon. Typi- cally a modern day host invites guests over for a “barbecue,” fires up a grill and serves hot dogs, brats, burgers or steaks. A few adventuresome outdoor cooks expand their repertoire to whole
chickens, pork butt, lamb or beef roast on a rotisserie.
Good luck finding a definition of live fire cooking. My search for a definition called to mind the oft-repeated quip about the weather: “Everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it,” except in reverse: “Nobody defines live fire cooking, but everybody is doing something about it.” That’s an exaggeration, but it sums up my frustration at not finding a precise definition. Hats off to Steven Raichlen, however, for expertly describing various methods of “live-fire cooking.”
Ardie Davis
aka Remus Powers BBQ Hall of Famer ardiedavis@kc.rr.com
Blame or praise Prometheus if you will for the pain and joy that fire has visited on our lives and the lives of all who have and will live on Planet Earth over its estimated 7.79 billion habitable years. If you’re keeping track, we have about 3.29 billion years to go.
Prometheus is prominently honored and memorialized in the United States at
what was once—from
1934 to 1991—an inter-
national iconic symbol
of centralized media
power: Rockefeller Cen-
ter. The gift of fire to
humankind made expo-
nential developments in
civilization possible. As
the 20th century waned,
however, a Pandora’s
Box of access to a
worldwide web of de-
centralized communica-
tions media opened,
thus challenging the
power and influence of
former media giants.
Sculptor Paul Manship’s
18 feet tall, 8 ton bronze
Prometheus, grasping
fire in his right hand, is one of the most photographed sculptures in the world. Its iconic status has held steady re- gardless of the communications revolution that has rum- bled Rockefeller Center.
Intended or not, fire and the worldwide web are remarkably analogous. They each have the capacity to change the world for the better or wreak havoc and destruction.
Setting aside the communications revolution, fire as it re- lates to barbecue is our focus here. For at least two
BarbecueNews.com - 6
MAY 2021