The Franklin Barbecue Collection

Author Biography

Aaron Franklin is one of the biggest, most recognized names in barbecue and the wider food world. His restaurant, Franklin Barbecue, has won every major barbecue award and has been in magazines ranging from GQ to Bon Appetit. The line to get into his Austin, Texas, hotspot is as long as ever, and the restaurant has sold out of brisket every day of its existence.

Jordan Mackay is a James Beard Award-winning writer on wine, spirits, and food. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Wine and Spirits, Food & Wine, and Gourmet, among others. He has co-authored a number of cookbooks, including Secrets of the Sommeliers, a James Beard Award winner; Two in the Kitchen; Franklin Steak; and Franklin Barbecue, which spent twelve weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Excerpt from Book

From Franklin Barbecue: The notion of putting everything I know about barbecue into a book is a daunting one. Not because I know so much--I''m still learning--but because of the nature of barbecue itself. It''s because the printed word--definitive, exacting, permanent--is in many ways antithetical to the process of cooking barbecue, which is, for lack of a better word, loosey-goosey. So many people want to have a recipe, but with all of the variables in barbecue--wood, quality of fire, meat selection, type of cooker, weather, and so on--there is no "magic" recipe. It just doesn''t operate with absolutes of temperature, time, and measurement. In fact, there are no rights or wrongs in barbecue (well, that may be a stretch), no "just one way," and certainly no simple "black and white." You''re much better off with general knowledge of what you want and an arsenal of tricks to have up your sleeve. So unlike most books that you may flip through a few times and then place on the shelf to display with the others, I hope this one will live a good portion of its life out in the field, be it in the kitchen or out by the smoker. These recipes aren''t really recipes but more of an idea of how I go about cooking barbecue and some guidelines. Now, this book is not a survey of barbecue traditions across the country. While I''ve been all over the United States and have eaten lots of great barbecue, there''s really only one tradition that I know intimately: my own. My style is steeped in the tradition of Central Texas, but it''s also got some wrinkles that I discovered along the way. So, with the greatest respect to all of the other styles around the country, in this book, all I discuss is what we do. Yes, I am wedded to the tradition of great Central Texas barbecue and the principles it holds--brisket, oak, open flame--but I''m also always willing to try something new or look into new designs that might make things cook faster and better. And my hope is that by being hyperdetailed and specific about my techniques, I will help you in your cooking and in your ability to develop your own style too. At Franklin Barbecue, the only thing we''ve got is the dedication to make the best food we can and to keep it consistently the same every day (which itself is the biggest challenge). It''s that dedication that keeps us evolving as cooks and constantly thinking about new ways to do old things. You''ll notice that there''s a serious thread of do-it-yourself running through this book. That''s because one of the words with which I''ve been known to describe myself is cheap . For large stretches of my life, I didn''t have the cash to buy things I wanted, so I often just figured out how to make them myself. In the process, I sometimes discovered how to make them better or at least how to tailor them to my own needs. However, while I participate in DIY culture and continue to build stuff all of the time, it''s by no means necessary to take this approach in order to benefit from this book. I say, use whatever equipment you''ve got on hand; ideally, the information I present here will help you make the best of it. Most barbecue books I''ve looked at are organized around the major food groups: beef, pork, poultry, and so on. (At least, those are my food groups.) In this book, which isn''t heavily focused on recipes, I''ve taken a different approach. It''s a more elemental and theoretical breakdown of the barbecue process. In each chapter, I drill down into some fairly technical information with regard to how the process of barbecue works. It can get a little geeky, but I hope that in a way the geekiness keeps you engaged. I include this information because I myself love the technical details. Understanding how something works is the first step toward successfully replicating and improving it. The first chapter is an extended telling of my own story. I include it at this length not for the purpose of vanity, but the opposite--so that everyone can see how you don''t have to have much money, history, training, or even time to become proficient at barbecue. I really just want to show how a love for barbecue coupled with enthusiasm can equal really good-tasting smoked meat. If I can do this, you can too. The second chapter is all about the smoker. In Texas, this piece of equipment might be called a smoker, cooker, and pit all in the same sentence, but whatever you call it, barbecue practitioners have no end of fascination with these clunky steel constructions. Everyone who designs and builds his or her own smoker does something a little bit different, always looking for that tweak that will improve its performance. In this chapter, I talk about various kinds of smokers and various modifications you can make to improve the performance of an inexpensive off-the-rack smoker you might buy at an outdoors store. I also give a very basic template for how to build your own smoker from scratch. It''s by no means a blueprint but rather intended to give you an idea of what to think about if you undertake such a project. While smoker construction sounds--and is--fairly ambitious, I can tell you that I''ve built very heavy smokers in my backyard with a cheap welder, rope, and a tree branch to hoist pieces up. Chapter three is about wood. Wood is our sole fuel, but it''s also arguably the most important seasoning in the food. Without wood, barbecue wouldn''t be barbecue, so we have to take the wood we use as seriously as we would any ingredient in any dish. Just as you wouldn''t saut

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