Cooking with Fire: From Roasting on a Spit to Baking in a Tannur, Rediscovered Techniques and Recipes That Capture the Flavors of Wood-Fired Cooking

by Paula Marcoux

Overview

Revel in the fun of cooking with live fire. This hot collection from food historian and archaeologist Paula Marcoux includes more than 100 fire-cooked recipes that range from cheese on a stick to roasted rabbit and naan bread. Marcoux’s straightforward instructions and inspired musings on cooking with fire are paired with mouthwatering photographs that will have you building primitive bread ovens and turning pork on a homemade spit. Gather all your friends around a fire and start the feast.  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612121581
Publisher:	Storey Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	05/06/2014
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	179,463
Product dimensions:	8.06(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Paula Marcoux is a food historian who lives in Plymouth, Massachusetts; she has worked professionally as an archaeologist, cook, and bread-oven builder. She is the food editor of Edible South Shore magazine, writes on food history topics for popular and academic audiences, and consults with museums, film producers, and publishers. She also gives regular workshops on natural leavening, historic baking, and wood-fired cooking. Her web site is www.themagnificentleaven.com.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 A Fire and a Stick

Back to Basics – Getting Started: Roasting on a Stick – ToastingCheese – Roasting in Ashes and Coals – Baking Bread under theAshes

Chapter 2 A Few Simple Tools

Spit Roasting – How to Make an Efficient and Pleasant RoastingHearth – The Spit – Roast on a String – Cooking on Skewers – The Grill – The Schwenker – The Plank – Searing with a HotIron

Chapter 3 Pots and Pans

The Griddle in All Its Guises – Cakes on the Griddle – Tortillas —Griddled Breads of Northwestern Europe – British GriddleBreads – Other Things to Cook on the Griddle – The Griddle on Steroids: The Argentine Infiernillo – Pots over Fire – The Clay Pot – Iron Pots and Pans – Shallow Frying – Deep Frying – Baking Bread in a Cast-Iron Pot

Chapter 4 More Gear

The Tannur, the Furnace, and the Potager – The Cast-IronCookstove – Smoke – Barbeque, Two Ways

Chapter 5 Retained Heat

Underground Inspiration from around the World – The Earth Oven: Cooking in a Hole in the Ground – The Masonry Oven – Building a Basic Wood-Fired Oven – Getting Ready to Bake –Heating an Oven – Cooking with an Oven Full of Fire – Getting Ready for Pizza – Using Retained Heat – The Cooling Curve – Bread for the Wood-Fired Oven – Natural Leavening for Your Wood-Fired Bread – Natural Leavening Q & A – Overnight Cooking Traditions – Overnight in a New England Brick Oven

Resources, References, and Details

Acknowledgements

Index

What People are Saying About This

author of The Barbecue Bible cookbook series and h Steven Raichlen

"Simply the most stimulating, thought-provoking, and hunger-inducing cookbook to cross my desk in years. Paula Marcoux has scoured the world for every imaginable manifestation of wood-fire cooking. No gas or charcoal grills needed — or allowed."

food historian and author of Savoring the Past: Barbara Ketcham Wheaton

"This fascinating book is handsome, original, a joy to read and a powerful enticement to cook food in wonderful new/old ways."

author of Virgin Territory: An Olive Oil Explo Nancy Harmon Jenkins

"A wonderful book on live-fire cooking, including kitchen fireplace, backyard barbecue pit, and masonry bake oven. It is also a delight to read and full of fascinating nuggets of advice and information."

author of Well Fed 2: More Paleo Recipes for P Melissa Joulwan

"From its fire-building basics to its luscious recipes, Cooking With Fire is a delicious reminder to get dirty, slow down, and savor the crackling warmth of a fire with good friends and good food."

author of From the Wood-Fired Oven Richard Miscovich

"Paula’s archaeologist approach, coupled with instructive photos, imparts an appreciation for traditional cooking methods that can be easily incorporated into your contemporary diet."

food writer and historian Sandy Oliver

"This is a fabulous book — gutsy, good-humored, extremely practical, very motivating, full of fascinating facts, and gorgeously illustrated with truly informative photography."

Editorial Reviews

02/17/2014
Marcoux, the food editor of Edible South Shore magazine, is an expert in the fields of food history and archaeology. Her dual interests meld nicely in this collection, which is as much about creating sources of heat as it is concocting recipes. For those who revel in primitive forms of cookery, there are plenty of adventures to explore, from the simple to the complex. The first chapter, “A Fire and a Stick,” includes instructions on toasting cheese (“impale a cube of cheese upon an implement”), while a section on spit roasting examines how to roast a leg of lamb by dangling it over a fire on a string. And there are well-photographed instructions on not only how to bake naan bread, but also on how to create a Neolithic-era oven that does the baking. Some recipes are irresistibly dangerous. For example, a cocktail called a flip calls for a red-hot poker to be immersed in a glass of rum, beer, and molasses. It’s a drink that would probably come in handy while trying the more time consuming projects such as bean-hole beans, which requires digging a hole, tending a fire within the hole for six hours to create a suitable layer of coals, then burying a pot of beans in the hole to cook for at least half a day. (May)

Publishers Weekly

“No grill? No problem. Marcoux, a food historian, takes us back to paleo times with this outstanding book about cooking over a campground-style wood fire.”

The Tampa Tribune

“Paula Marcoux is a connoisseur of fire. She knows how to build one and how to find its sweet spot, and has deep respect for our culinary ancestors, early humans who first took to flame. Her new cookbook, "Cooking with Fire," is a refreshing departure from the pile of grilling cookbooks on the market.”

The Virginian-Pilot

"As much a DIY guide to building heat-harnessing structures as it is a food history lesson with recipes.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

No grill? No problem. Marcoux, a food historian, takes us back to paleo times with this outstanding book about cooking over a campground-style wood fire.”

“Paula Marcoux is a connoisseur of fire. She knows how to build one and how to find its sweet spot, and has deep respect for our culinary ancestors, early humans who first took to flame. Her new cookbook, "Cooking with Fire," is a refreshing departure from the pile of grilling cookbooks on the market.”

"As much a DIY guide to building heat-harnessing structures as it is a food history lesson with recipes.

From the Publisher

Methodical, authoritative, encyclopedic, Marcoux’s book blazes a mesmerizing trail for contemporary cooks back through the hundreds of millennia since humans first used fire to transform their food.”      

Seattle Times