Leisure

Bourdain on Fire

Respect your ingredients, develop your palate, don't fiddle with your food, and other steak strategies from a guerrilla of the grill

By: Anthony Bourdain, Photographs by: Nathaniel Welch
[ Updated: Jul 14, 2008 - 4:54:58 PM ]

A hockey puck on a burger bun. That's the only way I can describe the Crime Against Food I was presented in the guise of a meal at a cookout a few summers back. When the host-chef turned back toward his inferno, I pitched the carbonized meat patty like a Frisbee into the pine trees, and I ate the bun.

One of the great mysteries of the universe is why in America, where the backyard "barbecue" is a family institution, the great majority of practitioners mutilate perfectly good food.

This is an entirely preventable state of affairs. Any chimpanzee can grill a steak or a burger. (God knows, as a chef, I've trained enough of them.) All it takes to transform you from a backyard Charlie Manson into a world-class grillmeister is a bit of technique and a trick or two like those I share on the following pages. Incorporate these steps into your grill game and I guarantee you'll get a better-tasting, more professional final product. Your guests will bask in your magnificence. Your rivals will cower at your apron.

First thing you need to understand is that you are not "barbecuing"; you are grilling. There's a difference. If you're loading up the charcoal grill with briquettes or cooking over propane or gas-quickly exposing protein to flame-you are grilling. Barbecuing is a separate science, an art all its own. For many, it's an obsession, even a calling. If it's July 4th and you're not from Texas or Kansas City or North Carolina or Memphis, and you're planning to cook for and feed your guests in, say, under 10 hours, you ain't barbecuing, Bubba. Barbecuing is the slow, slow, slow exposure of (usually dry-rubbed) meat to low