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| The Barbecue! Bible | 
 enlarge | Author: Steven Raichlen
Brand: Workman Press
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy New: $10.43
You Save: $12.52 (55%)
New (47) Used (12) from $10.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  89 reviews
Sales Rank: 3412
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2 New
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 556
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.9 x 1.4
MPN: 14943
ISBN: 0761149430
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9780761149439
ASIN: 0761149430
Publication Date: May 28, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NEW BOOK!! COVER SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT BUT STILL 500 RECIPES!!!!! WE SHIP 6 DAYS A WEEK!!
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Product Description
The Barbecue! Bible 10th Anniversary Edition By Steven Raichlen"Now the biggest and the best recipe collection for the grill is getting better: Announcing the full-color edition of The Barbecue! Bible, the 900,000-copy bestseller and winner of the IACP/Ju
Amazon.com Review
Now the biggest and the best recipe collection for the grill is getting better: Announcing the full-color edition of The Barbecue! Bible, the 900,000-copy bestseller and winner of the IACP/Julia Child Cookbook Award. Redesigned inside and out for its 10th anniversary, The Barbecue! Bible now includes full-color photographs illustrating food preparation, grilling techniques, ingredients, and of course those irresistible finished dishes. A new section has been added with answers to the most frequently asked grilling questions, plus Steven's proven tips, quick solutions to common mistakes, and more. And then there's the literal meat of the book: more than 500 of the very best barbecue recipes, inventive, delicious, unexpected, easy-to-make, and guaranteed to capture great grill flavors from around the world. Add in the full-color, and it's a true treasure.
Featured Recipes from The Barbecue! Bible
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| Customer Reviews: Read 84 more reviews...
 How can I put this? July 3, 2003
302 out of 457 found this review helpful
Okay, it's not like there's any giant downside to owning this book, but my question is - does anyone really need like 800 gazillion pages to learn how to cook a hunk of meat over a fire? I know this book's getting good reviews on here, but I'd be willing to bet that most of the reviewers haven't tried more than three of the hundreds of elaborate, time-consuming recipes in here. Everytime I crack open this book, it's like, "Hmmm....that looks pretty good, too bad it has 25 different ingredients, sounds complicated...that one's too much trouble, too...that's interesting, too bad I don't have a giant steel drum to turn into the smoker I'd need for this one...Gee, I've never heard of these spices, and I'll never get around to mail-ordering them...if I ever come across an entire, dressed goat in the supermarket, I'll have to come back to this one...", etc.
Having lived in Argentina for two years (serious barbecue country), and having put on tons of my own barbies since and attended loads of others, I guess I have a different perspective on the whole experience. In my mind, you don't really get points for how many hours you put in preparing your marinades, or how many different types of crushed spices you sprinkle on to your ribeye, or from how far away your recipe comes from, or how many recipes you've memorized or whatever. Things matter only insofar as they actually affect the end result - the meal - and I think the reason why is that barbecue, in the end, is a kind of primal male performance for the purpose of elevating their status among their fellow dudes and/or arousing the admiration of girls. So, a guy doing a barbecue is no different than a some caribou in rut snorting and stomping around, or a frog bellowing out his songs, or a touchdown victory dance. (This is why NO guy EVER barbecues if he's going to be the only one eating, and why no guy ever wants help from his wife while he's doing his barbecue [less glory]. And this is why when you do a barbecue, you have to make sure the end result is better than any of the guys you invited could likely have done [girls love an alpha]. If you wind up giving your guests something average, or dud-like - well, that's some serious face-losing. You can laugh it off, but you'll still look weak. It'll be like stealing the ball, running down the court all by yourself, doing your lay up - and missing).
Supposing I'm on to something about the psycho-sexual aspects of the barbecue and what perhaps is a (the?) major point of them, I'm not really sure if this book is really all that helpful, despite its terrific size (I won't make the joke about size mattering here...). To me, it seems awfully cumbersome in all its details. To be a genuine BBQ superstar, you need a good understanding of basic barbecue/grilling techniques, and maybe three super killer recipes (which you don't need this book to discover). Heck, you could even be a genuine BBQ superstar with just one incredible recipe. It's like pitching - if you have two incredible pitches that you have total control over, you're a god, you're Greg Maddux or Nolan Ryan or Mariano Rivera. If you have 8 okay ones, you're driving a milk truck somewhere.
Unfortunately, trying to find three totally killer grill recipes in this thing is like trying to find three pro-life delegates at the Democratic Party's National Convention - who knows if there even are any, and even if there are, who has the time to try to figure out which ones they are? I think Mr. Raichlen's book would be far more valuable if it was pared down to maybe 70-80 discriminating pages of top quality advice, recipes, etc., rather than a dumptruck load of every last aspect of barbecue lore collected after a tour of the entire planet (which is literally what this is). Quality control and straightforward explanations of the mechanics and techniques, rather than just an overwhelming list of recipes, I think would have been far more helpful. (One reason why is that you will be helped in achieving your main objective of impressing the girls and elevating your status among other dudes if you can "let slip" that your incredible barbecue recipe is actually *your own*. After all, for this kind of primal display of fitness, following a cookbook recipe is, like, total Nerdsville. Can you imagine? "Hey Chuck - do you mind holding this page down so I can make sure I'm reading the paprika measurements just right?").
Anyway...what was I going to say? Oh yes. My experience with barbecues is that often the finest are the simplest: Start with the best meat you can get (you can find out about the various cuts and their characteristics in any book about meat or by talking to your butcher - for beef, I prefer rib steaks for all the marbling; the Certified Angus Beef brand is good), salt them, don't burn them, and the bottom line is you're almost 80% of the way there. When you come up with a few of your own little twists, and a great sauce (the Argentine chimichurri is my fave - olive oil, oregano, garlic, some vinegar and a bit of parsley), my guess is you'll have something as good or better than most of the (over-compensating) extravaganzas in this book.
I wish I knew of a more practical book on grilling/barbecue, but the truth is I don't really know of one that would set the would-be barbecue superstar on his way (not that it's that hard to get going). But, if someone is really serious, any text that takes time to explain the building blocks of how various foods work together, and what effects various cooking techniques have (in other words, culinary theory), will only help you nail down your one, two, or three superb open flame recipes (the magazine "Cook's Illustrated" is a pretty good start for this kind of thing).
Get this book if you want, but don't think you need it (or that you'll end up actually trying more than a handful of its many recipes). I think you'll do far better, and have a lot more fun, experimenting on your own, chatting with your butcher or barbecuing buddies, and getting an understanding of WHY great dishes and recipes work so you can then come up with your own.
I hope this review has helped someone. Good luck.
(Post script, Sept. 13, 2005: Since my original review, Raichlen has come out with a book called "How to Grill", which I think is much more useful than this one. He describes there in great detail all kinds of great techniques and really does a good job of explaining how the whole thing works. I would give that one five stars unreservedly. Also, Cook's Illustrated I see has published now a couple of books about meat and barbecues. I haven't checked them out yet - I just saw them in a bookstore the other day - but I assume they'll be worth checking out for those interested in this subject).
PPS, June 8, 2007 - I've caught Raichlen's "Barbecue University" TV show a few times now on PBS. It's great. He does a really good job of explaining why he's doing everything, and that's invaluable for those who relish the idea of coming up with their own dishes.
Best
Tal
 lives up to its name August 19, 1999
61 out of 64 found this review helpful
Among the hosts of books out there claiming to be some kind of bible or another, The Barbecue Bible, by James-Beard-winning author Steven Raichlen is one that lives up to the name. The product of years of travel--over 150,000 miles through five continents--this phonebook-thick study of fire-cooked foods is part travel diary, part history book, part cookbook, and part anthropological study. Notwithstanding the difficulty in defining exactly what cooking styles the term "barbeque" encompases, (the author uses the broadest definition) this book is primarily about grilling. Packed with over 500 recipes including sauces, rubs, side dishes, desserts and exotic drinks from around the world, Raichlen's first hand experience and pithy, "how to" lessons on technique make for easy preparation and a thoroughly interesting read. Covering nearly every posible style imagianble--from Jamaican Jerk to Indonesian Sate to North Carolina pulled pork--you'll find yourself skimming the recipes for content alone. But then, how many cook books feature recipes that begin with phrases like "The Berbers are a rugged, rug-weaving people who live in Morocco's Atlas Mountains" (when introducing a Berber marinade). The layout is clean and easy to follow, with minimal reliance on photographs, so you won't find the standard "prettier than I could ever make at home" images you see in most cookbooks. The relatively few photos that are used serve to connect recipes and techniques to there cultural origins--like images of a real South American pit barbeque, or a North African market. In all, this startlingly comprehensive book offers a wealth of knowledge and is a must have for anyone interested in improving their flare on the grill.
 Barbecue around the world May 7, 2000
59 out of 66 found this review helpful
I received this book as a Christmas gift from my husband, and it is one of my favorite cookbooks! It has everything from appetizers, drinks, salads, main dishes and even desserts! My absolute favorite dish is the Grilled Pork with Fiery Salsa. It takes a bit of work, but the results are worth it! If you don't like your salsa so fiery-use a chile such as jalapeno instead of the habarenos as the recipe suggests-we have tried it both ways, and it turns out great everytime! (We are fire eaters though). The North Carolina Vinegar Sauce is just as good as I have had in the Carolinas. The variety of barbecue sauce recipes is an appealing part of this book as well. Many recipes are preceded by little vignettes about their origin-it is a combination travel book as well as a cookbook. With this book your taste buds can go from Jakarta to Greece and on to Morocco in one week if you wish. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves to cook, eat or just read about the different foods of the world.
Impress your friends April 7, 2000
31 out of 31 found this review helpful
I live near the ballpark and before games people come over for BBQs. I got this book as a present and I can't give it enough accolades. Everything that I have tried in it has gotten me rave reviews. The first recipe scared me because the maranade looked like this green scary stuff, but after cooking the Jamaican Jerk Pork it was gone in ten minutes and they were asking for more. This book has more than just great dishes like the Steak from Hell and the Bulgarian Burgers (which are excellent and suguest you try), but it has a plethora of tremendous sauces and dips from the miso sauce for the eggplants to the Oxsana guacamole. I never really cooked vegetables on the grill before this but now I do all sorts of things. The recipes are easy to follow too because I'm a single guy and have no clue on cooking. This is definitely a necessity for anyone who BBQs.
For browsing and cooking September 1, 2006
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
For me, cookbooks have two functions. The first is to act as a spur to the imagination. A properly provocative cookbook would be one you could browse through with the same pleasure that you might take in reading an adventure novel. You get to have the excitement without the danger (or the calories). As an added benefit, you increase the store of ideas from which you put together your own cooking. Seen in this light, a book that offers
you recipes that you might never make or suggests ingredients that you could never find is doing you a favor: it is developing your imagination. Maybe I don't have Chinese five-spice powder or galangal, but I wonder how that recipe would work with dried ginger or a cinnamon, salt and fennel mixture.
The other function, of course, is to provide the cook with recipes and information on the craft of cooking. There are certain constraints on the cook's imagination and some experiments not worth pursuing. A good cookbook tells you what works and what doesn't.
As a bonus, sometimes a cookbook is just plain fun-to-read.
As a writer of wine books, I try to spur the imagination, suggest the limits and come up with a good read. Let's see how Raichlen's The Barbecue! Bible measures up.
First, there's the matter of the title. No, I don't mean the annoying exclamation point. I mean the suggestion that this might be a book about the slow-cooked barbecue of meltingly tender pork ribs and chicken thighs. It ain't. But in America these days, we understand barbecue to mean the food and techniques of cooking outdoors on a grill. Quibble dismissed.
Next, the range of recipes is impressive. No matter how much or how often you grill, there are bound to be dozens of items and ideas in this book that you never thought of. How about rum barbecue sauce, grilled pineapple, shallot relish, or grilled Yorkshire pudding?
In terms of technique, you can't do better. There are a few simple things to be learned: direct and indirect methods, the uses of smoke-wood and otherwise-the matter of marinade and rubs and the questions of timing. Raichlen covers them all in a breezy, journalist's way that tells you what you absolutely need to know.
Naturally, I was disappointed that in the drinks section he fails to mention the best accompaniment ever devised for grilled foods: rich red wine with a nice smack of tannin. That aside, an excellent book and the only one on grilling that most of us will ever need.
Lynn Hoffman, author of The New Short Course in Wine and the novel bang-BANG forthcoming from Kunati Press.
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