The acclaimed chef, pit-master, television host, author, journalist, and barbecue guru discusses one of summer’s most cherished pastimes
You’ve probably seen and heard Steven Raichlen more often than not; he’s hosted numerous seasons of acclaimed barbecue “how to” television series on PBS (Barbecue University, Primal Grill, Project Smoke, Project Fire), written several New York Times best-selling cookbooks (Barbecue Bible and How to Grill among them), as well as articles for the Times, Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Food & Wine, and many other culinary and travel magazines, all for which he has won five James Beard awards. Raichlen has travelled the world over and studied its cultures, particularly relating to culinary and live-fire grilling. He has mastered many methods and techniques of barbecue, and presents them with an honest, passionate, and soothing linguistic character that’s both educational and endearing.
Also, Raichlen was raised in Baltimore, Maryland, before attending Reed College and embarking on his culinary studies that would take him across the Atlantic to Europe and, ultimately, around the globe. Today, the 68-year-old resides in Florida but is not one to sit still for long, splitting time between home and Martha’s Vineyard, and travelling the country to present his culinary courses, launch restaurant ventures, or lecture at institutions such as Harvard and The Smithsonian.
Raichlen’s newest barbecue television series—season three of Project Fire—was filmed locally at the Pearlstone in Baltimore and launched earlier this year on PBS/Maryland Public Television and continues airing this summer. For the more up to date schedule of program airings, visit mpt.org/schedule.
We spoke at length to Raichlen about Project Fire, his ties to Chesapeake country, culinary pursuits, work ethic, career highlights, and all things barbecue, including more than a few tips for you to try at home.
You came back to this hometown of yours, Baltimore, and filmed season three of Project Fire. What were the reasons for filming in and around Baltimore and how did you land on the Pearlstone?
Well, the reason was very simple. It was COVID and my production partner is Maryland Public Television, and my producer lives in Pennsylvania. We wanted to stay in a place where everybody could drive to the site and often we film on the West Coast, but that would have involved plane rides and everything. That was the rationale for staying in Maryland. In terms of Pearlstone, it’s a beautiful campus, 180 acres. We had a locked set this year, meaning that once everybody got there, nobody could go in or out. The Pearlstone was a very private, secluded place. We knew that the crew would be protected and sheltered once we got there. There’s also a fun personal note, which is that Pearlstone used to host a summer camp. I actually was a camper there when I was growing up. It’s really fun to return to a place where I’d gone to summer camp many, many years earlier.
So there’s some nostalgia there. Does that play into your demeanor and manner as you were enjoying the time on campus filming?
Absolutely. In fact, two of the 13 shows of the season are themed around Baltimore and Maryland. One of the shows is called Charm City Cue. In that show, I tried to...well, Baltimore has one world famous barbecue specialty. You know what I mean? Texas is known for brisket and North Carolina is known for pulled pork shoulder, but Baltimore has pit beef. That was the anchor of that show because that is a legitimate and bona fide Baltimore barbecue. We upped the ante a little bit. We actually did a pit beef triple-decker. In addition to the beef, which we did with prime rib, instead of a tough bottom round, we also did a home smoked turkey and we got Attman’s corned beef from Attman’s Delicatessen on Lombard Street.
Then, we added two fantasy, sort of what I call Charm City Cues. They’re not really dishes that exist except in my imagination, although now they exist in the public. But one was a Charm City S’more where we made campfire classic s’mores. But instead of graham crackers, we use Berger’s chocolate top cookies. That was kind of fun. And we grilled a fish that in Maryland is known as a rockfish and in the rest of the world is called striped bass. I did it with the Pearlstone Associate Director, Eve Wachhaus. She provided incredible vegetables and fruits that were growing in the Pearlstone’s garden. So we had fresh figs, fennel, and with the Pearlstone’s strong Jewish identity, we used Middle Eastern spices like sumac and zaatar to flavor the fish. It was really spectacular.
It sounds like you really took it upon yourself to incorporate local food culture. That’s something that you do across the board wherever you’re filming.
I do try that. I go back and forth because what really got me started in barbecue and with my shows and books was a concept I call Planet Barbecue, which is I circumnavigated the globe four or five times researching how people barbecue and grill in different countries. There’s always a strong international component to my work. But at the same time, I do try and have a few of the shows reflect where we’re taping. Another show we did is called the Maryland Crab Feast.
For the Maryland Crab Feast show, that was more traditional so we did crab cakes, but I smoke roasted them on the grill instead of frying them or broiling them. Then, I grilled a soft-shell crab sandwich, and we even did Maryland steam crabs, which I did that channeling a Louisiana-style shrimp boil. Then, we did it over campfire, which was really fun and different flavor- and experientially-wise.
There was one more show that was Baltimore-themed and that was called Little Italy. That was an Italian-based grilling show, but we used Baltimore’s Little Italy as a springboard to get into this stuff.
Since the production crew spent so much time together was there a lot of camaraderie, or were pandemic protocols still at play?
Well, I would say this year it was socially-distanced camaraderie. Everybody was masked, including myself, except when I was in front of the camera and then I got to take my mask off, but it was really very nice. Somebody brought a guitar and that got passed around. The Pearlstone staff, they were just so nice and so great. All the meals were kosher, which is great. The Pearlstone had an amazing vibe. You just felt human goodness and kindness permeating. Then, if you’ve seen the show, you know it’s a gorgeous view on a hillside overlooking a lake with gardens in the background. It’s just an incredible place to shoot.
Can you speak on how this season differs from past seasons of Project Fire and even some of your other shows produced over the years?
Obviously, COVID was one big difference. The setting was another big, big difference. Very often, we’re in the Southwest. We try and pick areas where we have a decent shot of the weather being okay for an outdoor feast. We didn’t have a single day of rain at Pearlstone, which was great. Oh, we had a couple of really fun new features in the show. One, very simply, was “Ask Steven,” where, through social media, we had people ask us questions about grilling. Everything from, “I love broccoli, but I don’t know how to grill it” to “I always have trouble with my fish sticking to the grill grate.” We incorporated those “Ask Stevens” into the show. Then, those “Ask Stevens” actually led into recipes.
We had questions from all over the world literally. We had questions from Italy. We had questions from France and of course, from Texas and the Pacific Northwest. That was fun, but I think the coolest new feature of the show—certainly, the one I enjoyed the most—was the mystery box segment. For those, our culinary team—field chef Chris and our stylist Nora—picked an ingredient for me and it was under a wooden box and I came on set and lifted the box. I didn’t know what I was going to find. Then, I had to invent a recipe on the spot with it and to go along with the mystery ingredients, they had set up a little pantry station.
I saw the mystery ingredient and then I could go over and get the supporting ingredients I needed for the recipe that I made up on the spot. That was really fun. I personally loved it. That’s how I think. It was really fun for me to create recipes on the spot, and they gave me some very challenging ingredients.
Were you ever stumped by an ingredient?
I would say they definitely piqued my imagination. One of the ingredients they gave me was a big head of a sunflower. It was an immature sunflower, so the seeds were still soft. It turns out that you can grill that like an artichoke flower.
That really pushed it. In another segment, they gave me a bowl of chicken livers, which was definitely challenging, but I made a smoked chicken liver pate modeled on the one that my grandmother used to serve every week at Friday night dinners. That was kind of fun. I think another one was tofu. One session, they gave me lamb ribs. That was a brand-new feature in this year’s show and it’s something I definitely want to do more of.
You travel and have a lot of knowledge in food culture to draw on for those types of situations like the mystery ingredients. What the heck is it about barbecue that speaks to you and in cultures worldwide?
It’s so many things. First of all, just from the act of cooking it, there’s something so satisfying about standing in front of a fire and cooking over a fire. It’s an act that we’ve been doing for almost two million years as a species. It really is an act that made us human. We’re the only animal that cooks and the discovery that you could cook meat over fire just completely gave us our evolutionary leap forward to homo sapiens. I think also food...I have this little thing, I always say something like, “If something tastes good baked, fried, or sauteed, it probably tastes even better grilled.” I think that there’s nothing like grilling and the intense fragrance from the wood smoke for making food taste so great.
That’s an element of it. There’s the communal aspect that keeps attracting me. Whenever you light up a grill, it’s a communal activity. Grilling brings people together. Nobody ever gathered around a stove to watch a pot of soup simmer. You light a grill and it’s a party.
Are there any 10 commandments, so to speak, that one should follow when barbecuing? Just a few basic tips.
Well, let me give you a few off the top of my head. Then, there is actually a formal barbecue 10 commandments and barbecuing and grilling that was in my first barbecue book, the Barbecue Bible. I think the most important principle is learn to control the fire and not have it control you. Grilling is very different than cooking indoors where you’re raising or lowering the heat with the turn of the knob on the stove. In grilling, basically, it’s about managing the fire, getting closer to the hotspot or getting further away. That’s a very important principle. I have a little mantra, a little thing that goes, “Keep it hot. Keep it clean. Keep it lubricated.” That refers to good grill hygiene.
You want to start with the hot grill grate. You want to clean it either with a stiff wire brush or with a wooden scraper. People are using wooden scrapers more these days. And you want to oil the grill with a tightly folded paper towel dipped in oil, drawn across the bars of the grate. This oiling serves two purposes. It keeps food from sticking, that’s one. Then, it also helps gives you those well-defined—what I call killer—grill marks. That’s an important principle. Turn, don’t stab, the meat. That’s another of my commandments. What that means is use tongs to turn meat rather than stabbing it with a barbecue fork. What are some others? If you’re using barbecue sauce, apply it at the last minute or serve it on the side. That’s my preference. When I was growing up, we would marinate chicken in sweet barbecue sauce, put it over a hot fire. Of course, the sugar in the sauce would burn. The chicken would still be raw in the center. When I was growing up, that was my notion of barbecue.
One of your most well-known books is the Barbecue Bible. Are there any plans for another big book or revised version of the Bible?
It just got a new cover. We changed the look of the book, I guess maybe about six or seven years ago starting with Project Smoke. Now, they’re black covers with a very dramatic picture of food and it’s a much less busy. The old workman style was a very busy style, a lot of visual elements. We just recently put a new cover on Barbecue Bible. It’s not new content inside, but it sure is a gorgeous looking cover.
In terms of new books, this is actually a pretty exciting month for me because the 11th [of May when this interview took place] is the official pub date of my new How to Grill Vegetables book. That’s a book devoted to grilling vegetables, fruits, and plant food. There’s a little meat in it, but not very much. Certainly, I’ve always loved grilled vegetables. There’s always a very large section on grilled vegetables in all of my books. But this one, it was really fun and fascinating to focus on, really drill down on, the art of grilling vegetables.
Does that speak to the larger overall trend that we’re seeing these days…of this gravitation toward a more plant-based diet?
Absolutely. It’s funny because when I started it two years ago, I’m not sure that I knew that was going to be a trend. I just knew that it was something I was interested in that reflected the way I was eating and grilling. I don’t know if you saw The New York Times yesterday, but Daniel Humm at Eleven Madison Park, which is a Michelin three-star, super expensive restaurant, is, when he reopens, going to be a vegan menu. I thought that was pretty interesting.
You’re constantly creating. Do you ever slow down? How do you have time for yourself and what do you enjoy in any spare time?
That’s a good question. I am kind of a workaholic. That is just part of who I am, but I actually just recently, as in the last month, I bought a sailboat. It’s just been a lifetime dream. That’s one thing. Second, I’m an avid biker, a bicyclist, I should say, not biker as in Harley kind of biker. The third thing I do is I love to read in French. I was a French lit major and I kept that up over the years. In fact, I’ve done many French language TV shows in Quebec.
These days after you’ve put the book down and you’re ready to have a relaxing meal at home, and maybe you want to fire up the grill, what’s your laid back, easy go-to dish that you prep at home?
One of my favorites. We spend part of the year up in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. We get this amazing swordfish, harpooned swordfish. Just a swordfish steak grilled over wood fire with capers fried in butter and put on top. That’s a three-ingredient dish. I just love that. That would be pretty good with striped bass too.
Steven Raichlen’s 10 Commandments of Smoking
1. Know the difference between barbecue and smoking. All barbecue is smoked, but not all smoked foods are barbecue. Texas brisket, Carolina pork shoulder, and Kansas City ribs are barbecue. Virginia ham, Scandinavian lax (smoked salmon), and Italian mozzarella affumicata are smoked, but they’re not barbecue.
2. Understand the flavor of smoke. Think of it as the umami of barbecue. Smoke has a unique ability to endow familiar foods, from sausage to steaks, with an otherworldly quality that is simultaneously familiar and exotic.
3. Smoke everything. Really. Meat, poultry, and seafood, of course, but also cocktails, vegetables, cheese, fruit, and dessert.
4. Buy organic, heritage, heirloom, grass-fed, and local. What your meat eats and how it’s raised matters as much as how it’s smoked.
5. Low and slow is the way to go. Ribs, shoulders, and briskets need a slow cook at a low temperature to achieve smoky perfection.
6. Wrap it up. Wrap brisket and beef ribs in unlined butcher paper the last 2 hours of smoking. This seals in moisture without making the “bark” (crust) soggy.
7. Give it a rest. Once brisket, pork shoulder, and other large cuts of meat are smoked, transfer them to an insulated cooler to rest for 1 to 2 hours. Your meat will be juicier and more tender.
8. It’s OK to overcook your meat. It’s essential to overcook your meat. Shoulders, bellies, brisket, and ribs need to be cooked to 195 to 205 degrees F to achieve the proper tenderness.
9. Remember this simple formula: more air equals higher heat; less air equals lower heat. Adjust the vents accordingly to control the airflow and thus the heat.
10. Remember this simple formula: lower heat produces more smoke; higher heat produces less smoke.
