Life of Fire - by Pat Martin & Nick Fauchald (Hardcover)

About the Book

"From one of the South's most acclaimed pitmasters comes the definitive guide to open-fire cooking, from hot coals and roaring flames to warm embers and cold smoke. Nashville's Pat Martin has grown a nine-location-and-counting empire of Martin's BBQ Joints on the strength of his West Tennessee whole hog that is slow-smoked all day and night. One of only a handful of remaining practitioners of this art, Pat didn't come to barbecue as a family heir of legacy recipes; rather, he stumbled into the pit as a somewhat lost student and found the life by the fire to be the one that made the most sense to him. More than his barbecue expertise, Pat's love of open-fire cooking drives this cookbook of how to work with fire in all the stages of its life cycle. Through beautiful photography and detailed instruction, he shows us how to char vegetables on the wild flames of an adolescent fire; how to grill meats on mature coals; how to barbecue shoulders and ribs and, yes, a whole hog on "adult" embers; and finally how to build and use a cold-smoker for hams and bacon. Learn the stages of the fire and you can master Whole Chicken with Alabama White Sauce, Pork Belly Sandwiches, and Open-Pit Spare Ribs, as well as beautiful vegetable-based dishes--Grilled Carrots with Sorghum and Buttermilk, Open-Face Grilled Tomato Sandwiches, Creamed Grilled Corn, and Ash-Roasted Sweet Potatoes--that will transform the way you cook"--

Book Synopsis

"The most important book on cooking over live fire in decades. Life of Fire illuminates it all, from coal beds, to home-built pits (in minutes!) to simple, delicious, recipes and enough whole hog know-how to impress the weekend warriors without intimidating newcomers."--Andrew Zimmern

ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Saveur

One of the few pitmasters still carrying the torch of West Tennessee whole-hog barbecue, Nashville's Pat Martin has studied and taught this craft for years. Now he reveals all he knows about the art of barbecue and live fire cooking.

Through beautiful photography and detailed instruction, the lessons start with how to prepare and feed a fire--what wood to use, how to build a pit or a grill, how to position it to account for the weather--then move into cooking through all the stages of that fire's life. You'll sear tomatoes for sandwiches and infuse creamed corn with the flavor of char from the temperamental, adolescent fire. Next, you'll grill chicken with Alabama white sauce over the grown-up fire, and, of course, you'll master pit-cooked whole hog, barbecue ribs, turkey, pork belly, and pork shoulder over the smoldering heat of mature coals. Finally, you'll roast vegetables buried in white ash, and you'll smoke bacon and country hams in the dying embers of the winter fire.

For Pat Martin, grilling, barbecuing, and smoking is a whole lifetime's worth of practice and pleasure--a life of fire that will transform the way you cook.

Review Quotes

"Cinder blocks, pits, split logs, and hot coals are the roots of barbecue and the lifeblood of Pat Martin. He's a true friend with an old-school soul, and has barbecue knowledge second to none. Do you have a pit big enough to handle his barbecue inspiration? You soon will."--Chris Lilly

"Life of Fire is quite simply the most practical and profound barbecue bible to date. As Pat Martin walks us through the differences between spit, block pit, smokehouse, hog-in-the-ground and open-pit preparations, the connection between West Tennessee barbecue joints and our earliest ancestors who controlled fire seasons the journey."--Alice Randall

"Life of Fire will change how you feel about barbecue forever. I can smell and taste the history on these pages and can't wait to fire up the spits and dig even deeper into this love letter to proper barbecue."--Michael Symon

"When true legends share their lives with us you stop, listen, you tend to the fire and coals like God is watching. Pat Martin is my higher power for hog cookery."--Matty Matheson

"I've eaten at as many barbecue joints as anyone across the nation and I can get down with anybody when it comes to cookin' meat low and slow, hot and fast, you name it. But DDD O.G. Pat Martin is an old-school pitmaster whose West Tennessee style is at the very foundation of what it means to cook over coals. Life of Fire is about as close as most of us will get to the true soul and tradition of pit barbecue."--Guy Fieri

"Pat Martin's passion for his craft and the legend he has become in the barbecue world is inspiring. He's a magician who can coax flavor out of the simplest ingredients."--Maneet Chauhan

About the Author

Pat Martin is a leader in American barbecue. He is the owner of Martin's Bar-B-Que Joint and Hugh-Baby's and lives with his wife, Martha, and their three children in Nashville.