Carruthers John - Manbque: Meat. Beer. Rock and Roll

2014 by John Carruthers and Jesse Valenciana Photography Clayton Hauck Published by Running Press, A Member of the Perseus Books Group All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher. Books published by Running Press are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail . Library of Congress Control Number: 2013947419 E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-5181-4 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing Cover and interior design by Joshua McDonnell Edited by Zachary Leibman Typography: Avenir and Caecilia Running Press Book Publishers 2300 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19103-4371 Visit us on the web! www.offthemenublog.com CONTENTS Its Thursday evening in Chicago, and the suns throwing orange-red light on the sidewalks and three-flats still carrying the heat of the summer day. Theres an unmistakable musk of charcoal and cooking meat in the air.

As you turn the corner into a gangway between two buildings, acting on an invitation from a work friend, you start to hear conversation, punctuated occasionally by booming laughter and the crack of a beer cap. Coming out of the gangway, you see a diverse cross-section of grill devotees. The bouncer from the dive down the street is flipping burgers on advice from a guy in a button-up shirt and boat shoes; the grad student is passing around pork tacos on an improvised foil tray; and the restaurant line cook, still in his checkerboard pants, advises all who will listen that they are, indeed, the shit. But its not even the diversity of the group that you notice at firstits the sheer number packed around the grills and beer tubs at eight on a weeknight thats otherwise just like any other during the sluggish summer. There are already enough people here to start a poorly-advised professional flip cup league, and youre pretty sure that you wont be the last to arrive. Two flat-bodied charcoal grills with red-hot beds of magma throw blazing heat over a quickly rotating series of burgers, wings, fish, and whatever else people saw fit to bring and share with others.

Slightly off to one side, two guys, one in a Cubs hat, the other in a White Sox shirt, work together to coax every available bit of heat out of a weathered propane grill pressed into service by the number of people waiting for a sliver of open space on a heated and oiled grate. Cameras and floodlights capture the whole scene for a national TV audience, spreading the gospel of good food and cold beer just a little further afield. It toes the line between impressive and overwhelming. You wonder how youll negotiate space for your steaks. You wonder if youre going to match up to the guys who have clearly been doing this for years. As you reach deep into the overflowing tub of ice and beer, you realize that at least you dont have to worry about having taken a wrong turn in a neighborhood you dont know all that well.

No, youre in just the right place. This book, hopefully, serves many functions: a guide to the basics of grilling, a lesson in appreciating beer, and an encouragement to try different flavors and styles. But at the very beginning, the grilling club that spawned this book, ManBQue, was just a handful of guys burning bad burgers on the roof of an apartment building in Chicago, passing around some skunked cans of domestic grandpa beer. This wasnt formed as some weird No Girls Allowed clubit was a way to get friends together once we all started forming serious relationships, having kids, and building the kinds of careers that help you lose touch with old friends at an alarming rate. We werent much better at picking beer than we were at keeping the frozen boxed patties from bursting into flames. But along the way, it changed by degrees.

Now, were not sure the old versions of ourselves would recognize the monsters they created. And we still find the time to get together every month. We place the blame/credit on two things: an identifiable concept spread by word of mouth and the natural competitive streak that makes young men unbearable for much of their twenties. People like setting aside a night to get together with their close friendsgirls night, pub trivia, book cluband we stuck slavishly to the last Thursday of each month. Still do. Our friendsand wed contend that everyones friends are like thisstarted coming with the intent of one-upping each other.

So boxed napalm burgers begat patties hand-formed from supermarket chuck, which begat a home-ground patty, and so on. Well spare you the biblical listing of how we went from horrific food to published food, but it was a mixture of competitiveness and an ever-growing roster of great cooks, some of whom actually worked in nice restaurants. And thus we had a backyard grilling club with a downtown line cook sensibility. Then, before we knew it, people left Chicago, or found us online, and wanted to start new chapters elsewhere. So at the same time were throwing down in a sliver of urban backyard, there are groups of guys sharing our ethos and firing up grills in Los Angeles, rural Pennsylvania, and suburban Seattle. This isnt just a Chicago thing, or an urban thing, or a Midwestern thing.

People love to grill, people love to learn more about food, and theres nothing that passionate food people love more than showing up their friends. This book is culled from years of ManBQue MEATings, public events, and those nights spent ranting about food when one more beer turns into four hours of loud talking and manic gesturing. Our members have contributed some amazing dishes over the years, and weve done our best to track them down and harass them until they gave up the recipe. We credit them where due, as apology for the headlock and for making them cry. The best part of bringing this collection together was the opportunity to explore so many different types of cooking as filtered through that most American of lenses the backyard cookout. As a result, the foods as varied as our membership: slow-smoked Southern barbecue classics, fire-roasted Mexican salsas, sausages bound together with modern techniques that inspire shouts of SCIENCE! upon first bite.

If you cant find at least one new thing to try here, then congratulations, youre perfect, and probably have an appointment to get to, Mr. Ppin. Weve scaled down the recipes to normal proportions, as we assume you wont be feeding a ravenous crowd of six-dozen bearded guys emboldened by craft beer. They scale right back up easily, so should you find your backyard besieged by a crowd of wild-eyed carnivores, youll know what do to. Dont worry if you screw something upwe spent years doing that, and can attest to the forging fire of Watch out, that ones going to fall in the grillllllohfuck. The most important part is to have a good time.