Francis Mallman with Peter Kaminsky

“He was born in Uruguay and made his fame and fortune in Argentina, where there’s a lot more money and a much more affluent eating class. Another chef and restaurateur once explained to me that Uruguay is a poor country with few natural resources, dwarfed by Argentina to the South and Brazil to the North. But the one thing every Uruguayan man knows how to do is roast meat over a wood fire. It is their cultural claim to greatness. After catering to the highest echelon of Latin American society in a series of Eurocentric restaurants, Mallman said: Wait a minute – why am I sautéing like a French clone when we have this incredible Latin American tradition of cooking over live fire?…I picked him because he celebrates a style of cooking that epitomises the rustic and primitive, and yet at the same time he writes about live-fire cooking with great intelligence. And he’s the first guy to organise the various South America live-fire cooking methods into a logical, coherent system. Not to mention his food is amazing.” Read more...

The best books on Barbecue and Grill

Steven Raichlen, Cooks & Food Writer