Fort Myers Florida Weekly

The rise of HOMO BARBECUEUS





 

 

IN THE WORLD OF FOOD GRILLING, BARBECUING and smoking, Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa is hallowed ground. There, at least a million years ago and possibly longer, inhabitants not only created fires but they probably cooked over them, anthropologists have learned.

Those creatures were not merely a species known as homo erectus. They were also the progenitors of a new subspecies of human we at Florida Weekly refer to as homo-barbecueus.

As it turns out, Wonderwerk’s fires burned through time into the early 20th century when a farm family with more 10 children took up residence to represent the last human cave dwellers there, according to Discover magazine. But those ancient flames somehow cast the long light of human experience far beyond the cave and into our contemporary lives.

Grilling, smoking or barbecuing meats, vegetables, fish and fruits has become not just a food necessity or even a food art, but a food science among aficionados, a fact we explore this week in the words and experiences of four masters of cooking over controlled heat with wood, charcoal or gas.

Though each has a different style and even a different grill, they seem to have a few secrets in common: Controlled heat, for example. A moisture source such as water, apple or grapefruit juice. Wood preferences when it comes to smoking (citrus wood, oak or cherry, for example). A willingness not to touch or turn grilling foods any more than necessary — often only once, they say. Generosity (all of them share, fortunately for the rest of us). Hours-long patience, in the case of barbecuing rather than grilling.

What’s the difference?

“Grilling is fast,” explains Chuck Rinehart, a Charlotte County master who built his own trailer-towed grill and smoker with a friend 18 years ago.

“But barbecuing is loading, and the long slow cook that makes the meat turn out so much better.”

They also display a charming humility about their personal evolutions as masters.

“Grilling is probably one of the things I enjoy doing the most, because it’s very simple — it goes back to the basics, back to that thing about the cave man, although we’re not cooking over an open fire, now,” explains Greg Strahm, a talented amateur chef who offers personal cooking classes in his Hobe Sound home. Mr. Strahm was busy testing a five-course meal last week to be served at a $500-per-plate charity fundraiser.

“Once you do it a few times, and you keep working on your technique,” he suggested, “you get to a point where it becomes second nature.”

Well, maybe. But don’t expect that to happen right off the bat, warns Luc Martin, an engineer for WGCU public radio on the southwest coast and an award-winning barbecue chef who works with a team of three others when he competes (they call themselves, “Last Place,” a misnomer if there ever was one).

Mr. Martin nearly always shares what he grills.

“There were a lot of bad trials and very, very nice friends about it,” he recalls of his first efforts, made in 2011 or 2012 after he began to watch competitive chefs on television, and decided to take barbecue seriously.

“Now that I look back on it, I apologize to all my friends who sampled my first experiments. I’ll try to make up for it.” Lucky friends.

For those with a hankering to get better at producing delicious grilled food themselves, we offer a helpful glimpse of tools, techniques and the tastes of people who have learned the art.

And for those who wish to eat more fine barbecue, here are some tempting recipes to recommend to the cooks among us.

“Give me six hours and I will give you the most succulent fall-off-the-bone ribs you’ve ever tasted,” exclaims Michael Knox, an IT expert and owner of Knox Business Solutions by work day, but a master of the ancient art of barbecue on his highly rated Big Green Egg (a ceramic grill) any other time he can.

“Twelve hours and my pulled pork will pull you back into the kitchen for seconds.”

Let’s salute them all, wherever they are or wherever they came from: Long live Homo Barbecueus!


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