All up in my grill
COOKING with fire is a symbolic and elemental way of preparing food. Fire is part of human evolution and was the first form of cooking; cooking is what distinguishes humans from other animals. Food author Michael Pollan makes the point that, “When we learned to cook is when we became truly human”. He thinks our fascination with fire is some kind of evolutionary instinct: fire is a sign you’re going to be fed. Watching fire can set off excitement centres in your hungry brain. Think of it as kind of fire-based genetic memory Pavlovian reaction. There’s certainly a very primal, raw satisfaction to eating something you’ve just seen grilled right in front of your nose on a live flame. Exposing food to high temperatures produces a particular chemical reaction called the Maillard effect. It’s a chemical reaction of amino acids and sugars which activates loads of delicious flavour compounds and may explain why people go gaga for barbecue. Barbecue purists say that only charcoal or wood-based fire cooking is the real deal, but I’ve included a few places that use gas because they too do fun stuff with fire. I spoke to chef Ian Marconi, caterer and popper-upper extraordinaire, operating under the name Jackrabbit. He uses live wood and charcoal in his cooking and learned his trade at legendary London restaurant Moro where, he says, “everything was done either on a Turkish style charcoal grill or in a wood burning oven”.
“I looked like a coal man and had no hair on my arms or face for years, but I loved it.” He emphasises the instinctive and variable nature of fire cooking. “You have to get a real feel for how everything works when you’re dealing with something without a dial, timers, temperature gauges. There’s no comparison to the natural, smoky, charred lack of uniformity in the end result when using fire compared to using electrical equipment." A part of the world very much associated with fire cooking is the American South: North and South Carolina, Memphis, Texas and other areas. The international craze for these Southern US subcultures has been raging in Ireland for a few years now, but it’s not the only gig in town. Fowl Play has Portuguese and Filipino influences. Mongolian and Korean barbecues do their thing and we have our own Irish tradition too. I have money on some culinary hipster opening a fulacht fiadh restaurant in Dublin 8 any day now. Walking around Meatopia and The Big Grill this summer it struck me that the aesthetic of the 21st century barbecue festival is a post-apocolyptic, smoke-filled carnival. A Mad Max meat orgy. The scale of the cooking and the equipment is big and industrial. There are hacksaws, chains and hooks. There are recognisable animal parts strung up everywhere, and whole pigs and cows on spits. It’s a shameless carnivorous celebration, and not for the squeamish. A barbecue festival is not where you want to take that nice vegan you just met on Tinder. I chatted to Ivan Garbino, the head chef and pitmaster in Fowl Play at the Square Ball,
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CHAR — ISSUE ONE
