Planet Barbecue! - Steven Raichlen

The most ambitious book yet by America's bestselling, award-winning grill expert whose Barbecue! Bible books have over 4 million copies in print. Setting out-again-on the barbecue trail four years ago, Steven Raichlen visited 60 countries-yes, 60 countries-and collected 309 of the tastiest, most tantalizing, easy-to-make, and guaranteed-to-wow recipes from every corner of the globe.

Welcome to Planet Barbecue, the book that will take America's passionate, obsessive, smoke-crazed live-fire cooks to the next level. Planet Barbecue, with full-color photographs throughout, is an unprecedented marriage of food and culture. Here, for example, is how the world does pork: in the Puerto Rican countryside cooks make Lechon Asado-stud a pork shoulder with garlic and oregano, baste it with annatto oil, and spit-roast it. From the Rhine-Palatine region of Germany comes Spiessbraten, thick pork steaks seasoned with nutmeg and grilled over a low, smoky fire. From Seoul, South Korea, Sam Gyeop Sal-grilled sliced pork belly. From Montevideo, Uruguay, Bandiola-butterflied pork loin stuffed with ham, cheese, bacon, and peppers. From Cape Town, South Africa, Sosaties-pork kebabs with dried apricots and curry. And so it goes for beef, fish, vegetables, shellfish-says Steven, "Everything tastes better grilled."

In addition to the recipes the book showcases inventive ways to use the grill: Australia's Lamb on a Shovel, Bogota's Lomo al Trapo (Salt-Crusted Beef Tenderloin Grilled in Cloth), and from the Charantes region of France, Eclade de Moules-Mussels Grilled on Pine Needles. Do try this at home. What a planet-what a book.