Peter Kaminsky - The Essential New York Times Grilling Cookbook: More Than 100 Years of Sizzling Food Writing and Recipes

In his introduction to this comprehensive and unusual (Ill get to that) collection, Peter Kaminsky delightfully details the history of The Timess writing about grilling and barbecue. (The latter, as aficionados know, is a very different thing from the former.) Whats left to me is to praise whats here, detail why I believe it to be unique (a word were not really allowed to use at The Times), and single out some of my favorites.

The collection is unusualand truly uniquebecause it spans so much time and so many different personalities. I was literally enamored of Craig Claiborne when I was in my 20s; he was nothing short of a demigod to me, and at a time when barbecue meant burgers and franks, he affected my restaurant-eating and cooking life like no one else. But when I finally met him (I was nearly 40 by then, and he almost 70) I wasnt surprised to find out that, aside from a love of food and the craft of writing about it, we had little in common.

Later on I came to admire other Times food writers, but I would say most especially Florence FabricantFloFab. She and I have been colleagues of sorts for going on 20 years. (I was a late bloomer.) Yet again, our styles could hardly be more different.

There have been new additions to the roster, too (I include Julia Moskin among these, even though shes been on staff for something like ten years at this point), which has allowed us all to discover new approaches and a greater variety of wisdom. I might single out Steven Raichlen, along with John Willoughby and Chris Schlesinger, grilling specialists who brought super-knowledgeable credibility to this kind of writing in The Times pages over the course of the last quarter-century or so.

The same could be said for almost everyone represented here: I know most of them, and have shared meals and stories with them. We come from different places, different backgrounds, and even different eras. The only common ground here is grilling, writing, and The Times.

Which means what? That in every single year represented, the Magazine, Living and Dining editors of The Times made an effort, every grilling season, to pull together the best grilling (and, yes, barbecue) recipes they could find. Some years this was a few recipes, some years 20 or 30 or more. (There was a summer not long ago when I was told that I personally was contributing too many grilling recipes. Who knew there was such a thing?)

The point is this: over some 90 years, The Times has run thousands of recipes for outdoor cooking. Whats here is far from all of them, but a selection of 200 chosen wisely (if immodestly; several of my own pieces are included), I might addby Peter, himself a longtime contributor and an important part of not only the food sections but the paper in general for many years.

And we are not talking only about recipes here. Unlike many collections, this one features full stories, stories that often contain information and tips that can be valuable once the cooking process begins, even before the grill is lit, stories that could stand by their own, without recipes at all. So when seen as a kind of greatest hits of Times writing about grilling, this collection becomes even more unusual. One of the earlier pieces, by John Willig, begins thus:

One of the most alarming aspects of these troubled times is not, as one might be led to believe, the rock n roll singer or Khrushchev or even Brigitte Bardot. It is the spread of outdoor cooking and the way people now regard it as an Art.

Kinda great, no? And if you swap a couple of names it could have been written yesterday. (Be sure to check it out; its a great read.)

None of this is to say, of course, that the recipes and general cooking instructions arent the stars here; I believe that they are. Youve got a fine DIY guide to barbecue sauces by Dena Kleiman (who, I do believe, got it right); the great Molly ONeills essential guide to the basics of grilling vegetables, and the Lee brothers take on hobo packs; a comprehensive piece by Ms. Fabricant on grilling fish with, of course, terrific recipes; and Ms. Moskin writing what amounts to all about jerk.

It is indeed a stunning collection, filled with joys and surprises, a delight to browse through or read almost as you would a novel. It spans more than a century and a half, and though there is an ostensible focus on New York, what we can see here is the true evolution of the barbecue or cook-out into an understanding of the difference between barbecuing and grilling and the progression of the foods of choice. Whereas they were once almost exclusively hot dogs and hamburgersand as American as boththeyre now as varied as roasted eggplant, grilled mackerel, and barbecued tofu, and they come from every place on earth.

Mark Bittman