The Thrill of the Grill [antikvár]

Jnkoduciion I'll try any kind of food at least once—particularly after a long day of surfing and a couple of rum drinks. Back in 1978, during my first stay in the tropics, this particular combination set me on a path that led to this book. I had quit a humdrum cooking job and headed down to the Caribbean— Barbados to be exact—to spend the winter with the two great loves of my early life: overhead waves and low 80s temperatures. Being a misguided youth, I managed to exist on hamburgers, potato chips, and Cokes for the first month. Eventually, however, I bowed to financial needs and the entreaties of my newfound local friends and began to eat the food they ate. I started frequenting the same restaurants they did and cooking with ingredients from the open-air markets. This was the first time I had immersed myself in another culture and its food. One fine Sunday afternoon shortly before I had to leave to come back stateside, my buddies and I were out back grilling some dolphinfish. Some of our Bajun friends showed up, among them my sometime culinary guide. He brought out some small, lantern-shaped red and yellow peppers. "Best in the world," he said. "Check 'em out." I trusted the guy, he had always come through before, and, like I said, I'll try any food once. So I chopped up the peppers, added some lime juice, mango, and herbs, and ended up with a yellow-orange relish. I whipped some of it on the fish, took a big bite, and it practically blew my head off. Sweat poured down my face and every cavity in my head opened to twice its normal size as my mouth tasted a great, distinct, aromatic flavor. The culprit was the Scotch Bonnet, the World's Hottest Chile Pepper, and I loved it. Soon I was happily splashing this sauce and any other fiery hot condiment I could find on everything I ate. That was the beginning of my fascination with hot foods and tropical ingredients. At the time, however, this fascination seemed to have little connection with my life as a professional cook. After starting out as a dishwasher, I had gone to the Culinary Institute of America, where my training had mostly been devoted to reproducing the classical recipes and techniques of Escoffier. Being a chef, it seemed, consisted of re-creating the past. I learned what my teachers had to teach me, but I can't say that I was inspired by food—until I returned from my Caribbean trip full of memories of spicy foods, exotic ingredients, and raw, strong flavors. 13