The Ultimate Expression Of Cooking With Fire

Man has changed much since our days spent hunting saber-toothed tigers and mammoths. We’ve traded in guttural grunts and growls for multi-syllabic words and nuanced gestures and turned in our spears and axes for iPhones and laptops. But there’s one birthright we’ll never trade – cooking with fire.

Grilling and barbecuing aren’t the exclusive domain of man but on the first nice day of the year, when the sun is shining and raw meat sits in the fridge just waiting for the application of heat, men who own grills across the country get a little twinkle in their eye and a spring in their step. The thought of lighting the flames, whether charcoal or gas, is just far too exciting to contain. And when we actually fire up the grill…the smile is ear to ear.

Personally, I’m a barbecue guy. Low and slow cooking over lump charcoal is an art form that lets me at least attempt to convince my wife I’m not just outside playing with fire.

Contrary to those claims though, barbecue is, in my opinion, the ultimate expression of cooking with fire. You’re taming the flames to moderate the heat and take advantage of the smoke and (relatively) gentle temperature to transform a chunk of meat and turn it into something amazing.

The fat and connective tissues break down and make whatever cut you’re playing with fork-tender, succulent and freaking delicious. It takes practice to moderate the heat on your grill, and every grill is different, but practice makes perfect! Here are some great barbecue primers, as well as recipes, to get you started!

• Everything you ever wanted to know about barbecue!
• Learning to BBQ
• Making Kansas City barbecue (video)

Once you get a little experience under your belt, you can get into advanced techniques – like arguing about which types of barbecue are better than others and devouring five pounds of barbecued brisket per sitting.