Man Fire Food: Cooking with Fire
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Man Fire Food merges your traditional cooking show with the intrigue of a travelog. In this show, Roger Mooking travels across the continent in a quest to find outrageous ways to cook with fire.
There’s something captivating about travel food shows that just pulls you in. This is especially true with Man Fire Food. Whereas many shows are filmed in more controlled environments, this one-of-a-kind series explores cooking through a more primal approach – cooking with fire. Throughout its 10 seasons, the show tackles various ways of using the simplicity of fire to create complex dishes.
Man Fire Food: The Host
Host and showrunner of Man Fire Food, Roger Mooking, takes audiences on a journey across America, exploring barbecue (What wine goes well with barbecue?) hotspots run by generations of pitmasters who showcase bold ways to cook with flames. Mooking travels the country uncovering giant smokers and monstrous rigs. With his insatiable curiosity about food and fire, Roger is undoubtedly the single biggest contribution toward the show’s successful run.
Man Fire Food: The Series
The storyline focuses on Roger’s travels across America’s barbecue trail. It features a diverse assortment of approaches and perspectives regarding this fundamental cooking style. With fire and food being the main elements, Man Fire Food highlights traditions, techniques and science that take place during this low and slow process of cooking. From Hawaiian grub smoked in an underground lava pit, to whole ducks on Brazilian skewers cooked on top of an outdoor oven, each episode delivers sizzling recipes prepared using out-of-this-world heat.
Man Fire Food: Live-Fire Cooking
Live-fire cooking continues to gain popularity amongst barbecue enthusiasts, as well as classically trained chefs – with its big risks and even bigger rewards. As a result, more and more people are slowly getting into the barbecue game.
For barbecue purists, cooking meat over an open flame is more than just throwing some cuts onto a hot grill. Rather, it’s an art that takes years to master. Cooking with fire forces you to slow down, be mindful and become adaptive, reacting to changing conditions such as the wind and temperature.
Methods of Live-Fire Cooking
Many pitmasters display their creativity and expertise regarding various live-fire cooking methods:
Direct grilling is by far the most popular method. It’s the most simple, straightforward, and widely practiced grilling technique.
Indirect grilling describes when food is cooked next to (rather than directly over) a fire, or between two fires. This is almost always done with the lid closed.
Smoking refers to when hardwood, in the form of chunks, chips, or logs, is added to a fire.
Spit-roasting combines the virtues of direct grilling with those of indirect grilling. The gentle rotation helps cook the meat evenly.
Caveman grilling is the original grilling method. It requires no grill grate, and food is cooked directly on the coals.
Live-Fire Cooking in Texas
As Man Fire Food follows smoke signals to various destinations across the country, the team of course ends up in the Lone Star State. This doesn’t come as a surprise, considering the beloved barbecue is a large part of our Texas culinary identity. Our barbecue reputation is largely built on beef, wood, smoke and fire.
Several Texas barbecue artisans have made their first onscreen appearances on this show. Boasting their cowboy cuisine, coupled with massive cooking contraptions, these pitmasters proudly take fire and food to the extreme.
There will never be a shortage of barbecue joints to showcase here in Texas. And if you fancy it, you may want to check out some of the best BBQ spots from our list.
Ultimately, there is no true definition of a perfect barbecue, as no two barbecues are the same. With regional differences specific to the state and city, each BBQ joint has their own preference for meat, spices, fuel and fixings. While there are countless techniques and many popular beliefs out there, it’s impossible to decide on one universally accepted approach.
Celebrating the nation’s passion for cooking, Man Fire Food connects all barbecue enthusiasts with one common ingredient – fire.
