Life of Fire: Mastering the Arts of Pit-Cooked Barbecue, the Grill, and the Smokehouse: A Cookbook

 

Life of Fire is a tutorial and cookbook for live fire cooking pit-fired barbecue, grilling, and smoking foods with recipes by Pat Martin and Nick Fauchald. Released 15th March 2022 from Penguin Random House on their Ten Speed Press imprint, it's 320 pages and will be available in hardcover, spiral bound, and ebook formats. 

This is a very well written and graphically appealing ode to open fire cooking. The authors write accessibly and clearly about the subject. It's very clear from the first page that they have the requisite expertise and knowledge and the included recipes are a lot more than just pulled pork sandwiches (though they are to be found here as well), and this is one of the few barbecue books I've seen which thoroughly discusses cooking whole animals and ash/ember cooking. 

The introduction covers materials choice, building, maintaining, and containing fires, sourcing wood, safety issues and more. The following chapters delve in depth on everything from game birds to roasting a whole hog. The recipes are scattered throughout the book. Each has an introduction, bullet list of ingredients on the right side of the page and general prep and cooking instructions. Recipe ingredient measures are given in imperial (American) units. Most ingredients will be easy to find in local grocery stores. The authors have included resources and links lists for sourcing large cuts of meats, specialty equipment, rubs, and sauces (for readers who prefer to buy them).

The book is absolutely *full* of beautiful photography, including action shots of prepping and cooking as well as atmospheric landscape shots. The food is appealing and appetizing and never overstyled or frou-frou. 

Five stars. Definitely book on barbecue and live fire cooking. There are a number of really good dessert recipes here as well, in addition to the comprehensive barbecue. Highly recommended for library acquisition, homesteaders, grill-lovers, and home cooks.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.