This story originally appeared on the Gents Cafe Newsletter. You can subscribe here.
From primal origins, cooking over flame became something else beyond the early 1950s – a gendered, cultural construct. Or barbecue, to you and me.
The briquettes are piled high; paraffin lighters nearly match their number, and even wild fanning with a kitchen tray fails to bring ignition. “Sod it!” says Dad. “I’ll get the petrol.”
And so, another summer lunch explodes into life. Its menu barely changed from the weekend before. Friends round the pool. Foil-wrapped potatoes with chive butter. Copious amounts of meat – some marinated, some burnt, some underdone. Little chicken wings; lamb chops; flat burgers; spicy sausage. And always, a form of dressed salad alongside, with everything coming together in an uneven flurry.
That was my experience of barbecue in the early Nineties, growing up. Some 40 years prior, in 1952, the entire concept came of age when Illinois metalworker, George Stephen, replaced his outdoor brick fireplace with a buoy-inspired invention that produced the Weber Kettle. Symbol for an American dream grounded in middle-class suburbia – a place where white-collar men strode out of stifling offices into the freedom of their great big backyards, to perform as much as provide. Here, they were ‘grill-masters’ – replete with full aprons and cold beer. All the trappings of ‘the good life’ distilled into scenes of sun-kissed domesticity. The manicured lawn, the adoring wife, the smiling kids with neat hair…
But cooking over flame has always spelled so much more. A link to our ancestral past – physically and spiritually. Not to mention the alchemy of direct heat and wood-scented smoke. “Grilling is cooking at its most explicit,” food writer, Michael Pollan, explains. “The transformation of raw into cooked taking place right before our eyes.” And so, we turn to page 105 of Francis Mallmann’s excellent Mallmann on Fire for his Calves’ Liver a la Plancha with Pimentón Oil, Onions and Crunchy Potatoes. The sort of dish that suits a September still framed by blue skies and fields baked golden crisp. Viscerally appealing; robust and refined; a Venetian classic transported to gaucho country.
From Provence to Patagonia, Mallmann cuts a romantic dash with his poncho and grill-anywhere cuisine. Ever-ready with a smile and cigar; complemented by literary references and lusty glass of red. Let’s take his lead.
Parboil potatoes, then season and halve; slice red onions before finely chopping fresh rosemary. Mix each with extra-virgin olive oil, and add to your red-hot plancha. When browned, throw on the liver to sear – a minute or so on either side for a good, even crust. Drizzle over homemade pimentón oil to serve. Simple pleasures.
‘Making meals that let fire work,’ Mallmann notes, ‘is timeless magic’. Enough to inspire the chef in all of us.
I’ll drink to that. ¡Salud!
