Life Of Fire

From one of the South's most acclaimed pitmasters comes the definitive guide to open-fire cooking, from grilling over wild, young flames, to low-and-slow barbecue over mature coals and cold smoking bacon and hams with dying embers.


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, in his first book, he reveals all he knows about the art of barbecue and open-flame cooking, in all the stages of a fire's life.

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 grill tomatoes for sandwiches and infuse creamed corn with the flavor of char from temperamental, adolescent flames. 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. You'll roast vegetables buried in white ash, and you'll smoke bacon and country hams with the dying embers of the winter fire.

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

Pat Martin is a leader in American barbecue. He is the owner of Nashville-based Martin's BBQ Joint, with several locations throughout the South.