[Spit-Project] BBQ books

[Johnna Holloway]

It's the end of the season and Jessicas Biscuit has
put a number of the new BBQ books on sale at 40%
or more off.
Two that I liked and think that deserve mention are:
 Grill It! by Chris Schlesinger and John "Doc" Willoughby.
Loaded with photos, it's a straight forward cookbook that
aims to give you 200 recipes plus
"the benefit of their four essential grilling techniques,
as well as 10 key tips for better grilled food (resulting in
different live-fire cooking methods and what the best grill is
for you, to building the right fire, controlling the heat, and testing 
for doneness)."
Great book for someone afraid of fire and needing a basic text.

The other is weird and funny. Rick Browne's
Best Barbecue on Earth Grilling Across 6 Continents and 26 Countries, 
With 175 Recipes
is a paperback and on sale it's only $13.77.
It includes a number of interesting recipes including 'stuffed chicken 
in a salt crust' from
France (actually a salt flour crust of 12 cups flour, 3 plus cups salt, 
9 egg whites, and water.),
a b'steeya from Morocco made in a cast iron skillet, and even a beef 
wellington adapted for a grill.
Like I said weird.

Coming this month and I haven't seen a copy yet, but the descriptions 
are promising:
*Savage Barbecue: Race, Culture, and the Invention of America's First 
Food by
*Andrew Warnes. This is a University of Georgia Press volume and is 
available in
both hardcover and paperback.
It's described as  "Starting with Columbus's journals in 1492, Warnes 
shows how the perception of barbecue evolved from Spanish colonists' 
first fateful encounter with natives roasting iguanas and fish over 
fires on the beaches of Cuba. European colonists linked the new food to 
a savagery they perceived in American Indians, ensnaring barbecue in a 
growing web of racist attitudes about the New World. Warnes also 
unearths the etymological origins of the word barbecue, including the 
early form barbacoa; its coincidental similarity to barbaric reinforced 
emerging stereotypes."
 May be very interesting or it may be too academic; on the other hand it 
may provide
some interesting glimpses into 16th century barbecue.

Johnnae, playing librarian