World BBQ
Hot Stuff
Fresh Ideas for Taco Tuesday! (No Ground Meat in Sight)
I’m not sure when themed food nights became a thing. First, it was “Meatless Mondays.” Sounds rather cheerless and reminds many of us of the meat-deprived Fridays of our youth. But “Taco Tuesdays?” Heck, ya. That’s something we can really get behind! Coincidentally, today’s Tuesday. The burden of what to have for dinner has just been lifted from your shoulders. “Taco Tuesday” would appear to be a generic coupling of words, a common...
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Upgrade Your Summer Entertaining: Enter for a Chance to Win the Barbecue Bible Party with Paella Sweepstakes
Authentic Spanish paella, which was first seen during the 18th century near the coastal city of Valencia, has much in common with American barbecue. Like barbecue, it began as a poor peoples’ food, cooked outdoors over open fires, served as a communal dish that brought laborers together for the midday meal. This summer, we encourage you to explore this tradition and bring together your friends and family over the delicious blend of rice, vegetables, and protein that make up this delightful dish. To help you bring this tradition alive in your backyard,...
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Seoul Food: Pork Belly Breaks Out of the Bacon Mold
In 2004, the small food, wine, and travel publication I worked for devoted an issue to Korean-style barbecue. Little had been written about this cultural phenomenon, and we were confident our readers would share our excitement. We worked hard for weeks, our research culminating in a soju-soaked food crawl through L.A.’s Koreatown. We were guided to the best markets and barbecue restaurants by a hip young Korean-American named Jonathan Kim. (He went on to found one of the largest Asian food emporiums in the...
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A Toast to Grilling and St. Patrick
Perhaps you’re neither Irish nor Catholic. Maybe you hate Notre Dame football. There’s still no harm in celebrating on Saturday, March 17, the name day of St. Patrick, the 5th century British cleric who was enslaved as a teen by Irish pirates and returned to the island as an adult. Perhaps you’ve heard that he single-handedly drove Ireland’s snakes into the sea. Not true. Ireland does not now, nor has it ever hosted native species of snakes. Not...
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Evolution of a Filipino Barbecue Cookbook
I first learned about Steven Raichlen when I came across one of his works in a local bookstore while on break from the office. He featured recipes from what was seemingly every country in the world, except my native Philippines. I was intrigued by his research, but I decided to e-mail him to ask why he didn’t have any recipes from back home. To my surprise, he responded personally…and showed me that he actually did (Raichlen’s Indoor! Grilling, Workman, 2004). ...
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“Steven Raichlen Grills Italy” To Debut This Month
Underscoring his reputation as an authority on the world’s grilling cultures, Steven was invited last year to host a new show on the Gambero Rosso (“Red Shrimp”) food channel in Italy. The premise of the show is a simple but intriguing one: Steven visits fishermen, butchers, farmers, chefs, and other people deeply involved in Italy’s food world, learns their favorite preparations, then reinterprets them through the lens of American barbecue traditions. The show, which was filmed in English but will feature Italian subtitles, begins airing this month in Italy. Below is an interview Gambero Rosso conducted with Steven when filming concluded late last fall. Food critic, TV personality, lover of great food, and a passionate cook, Steven Raichlen has found in grilling...
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Celebrate Chinese New Year with Five-Spice Powder Ribs
Have you celebrated the Chinese New Year yet this winter? Why not use what time is left of the 15-day annual celebration, and start a new tradition for your family. As I've written in the past, Chinese culture generally shies away from grilling as a cooking method. But the dishes that are grilled will bring you new flavors that will delight your taste buds and have you marking your calendar for this season every year. Traditionally, we may think of duck...
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Escape Winter: Jamaican Jerk Pork
Already, this winter seems interminably long. Everyone I know is yearning for a respite from grey skies and single digit temperatures. But an escape to the Caribbean isn’t always in the cards. The next best thing? Recreating the spirit and flavors of the islands at home. No dish is more iconic than Jamaica’s fiery, lip-tingling, explosively flavorful jerk. Like many island cuisines, jerk is wholly dependent on ingredients found right there on Jamaica—primarily,...
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Raichlen Predicts: Eight BBQ Trends for 2018
Another New Year already?! It seems like just yesterday I was writing my blog on BBQ Trends for 2017. It’s time to dust off my crystal ball for the trends that will shape barbecue in 2018. But first, a quick review of my 2017 predictions. Some came to pass and some didn’t. Consider Trend #1: How (or more precisely HHOW) our food is raised matters as much as how we grill it. (The acronym, by the way, stands for Heritage, Heirloom, Organic, and Wild.) This one certainly shaped the way we shopped, barbecued, and grilled in 2017 and it will continue to do so this year. ...
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Merry Christmas from Miami: Cuban Roast Pork
On December 24, the air in Miami will be fragrant with the scent of roast pork as Cubans prepare for La Noche Buena—Christmas Eve. From Coconut Grove to Hialeah, intoxicating cooking smoke will waft from countless backyard barbecue grills, cinder block pits, and charcoal-fired pig roasters called Chinese boxes. It is the most important holiday on the Cuban calendar, a celebration of food, family, and faith that was outlawed by Castro’s regime from 1969 to 1997. The socializing, eating,...
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