Steven Raichlen's Project Fire

Used on six continents by traditionalists and cutting-edge chefs alike, grilling with wood is the world’s most ancient cooking method, and, to my mind, remains the best. While propane offers convenience and charcoal burns hot, wood is the ultimate fuel. Delivering both heat and taste, wood smoke contains more than a thousand flavor-producing compounds.

Brisket is simultaneously the easiest and hardest meat to barbecue. Easy, because it requires only three ingredients: salt, pepper, and wood smoke. Hard, because unless you master the fire, airflow, temperature, the stall, the wrap, and the rest, you wind up with a mouthful of misery.

Steinhatchee, Florida, population 1500, perches on the north shore of the historic Steinhatchee River where it joins the Gulf of Mexico. What better place to tape a show on the spirited seafood-rich grilling of the Gulf Coast?

Forget about red meat and black and blue steak. Today, we’re grilling green with vegetables we love to cook over live fire, like asparagus, corn, and mushrooms, and with foods that are less likely candidates for grilling. This show celebrates meatless grilling in all its verdant glory.

T-bones? On it. Porterhouse? Got you covered. And, yes, we can handle a rib-eye. But how about upping your grill game with steaks you may not be familiar with, such as secreto or spinalis dorsi?

This show takes you back. Way back. To a time when our ancestors did their grilling in the fireplace, or on fire-heated stones around the campfire and directly on the embers. I call it primal grilling, and it’s about to make you a barbecue rock star.

I’m always fascinated by the food cultures that arise on national borders. Consider that fusion of Texas barbecue and Mexican spice we call Tex-Mex. In today’s show, Tex meets Mex as we explore how American barbecue techniques can enhance classic Mexican dishes.

You don’t need a degree in smokeology to name the big three of barbecue: Kansas City ribs, Carolina pulled pork, and Texas smoked brisket. But what about some of the lesser-known styles of regional American barbecue?

Gators fans and sports lovers of all persuasions get pumped up for tailgate parties because a good barbecue makes the perfect prelude to the game. In this show a Project Fire first: the grilled mojito cocktail. We explore how my home state of Florida re-imagines three tailgate classics. Get ready for pork shooters stuffed with shrimp, cheese and Andouille sausage followed by Miami wings blasted with fire water. And luscious, smoky hamburgers like you’ve never experienced. The secret? Lace them with chopped barbecued brisket. It’s game on at Project Fire.

The pork shoulder, aka Boston butt (named for the wooden barrels they were once shipped in), gives us Carolina pulled pork. The majestic beef shoulder becomes a Texas barbecued beef clod. As for lamb shoulder, Moroccans cook it in a fire-heated underground clay oven to make their legendary mechoui. This show explores the richest, meatiest, most flavorful cut you find in the meat department: the shoulder.

Long before there was modern fusion cuisine, people cooked Chino-Latino. It originated with Chinese laborers who immigrated to Cuba and Trinidad and elsewhere in the Caribbean to work the plantations. They developed a unique mashup of Asian and West Indian cooking—the subject of today’s show on Chino-Latino grilling.

Miami is the southernmost metropolis in the continental United States. But often my hometown feels like living in a foreign country. English is not the predominant language here, and our food culture is firmly anchored in Latin America and the West Indies. Our Miami Spice menu begins with Florida lobster grilled with rum butter baste and mango salsa, then plate-burying island spice beef plate ribs. Our grand finale? Turkey adobo with garlicky mojo de ajo.

Steak. It’s every carnivore’s dream and every griller’s triumph. Now this epic meat is about to receive the Raichlen treatment in a show that looks back on how steak has evolved through three iconic TV series: Primal Grill, Project Smoke, and Project Fire.