Get Your Grill On

If you’re any kind of outdoor cooking enthusiast, you’ve got this book. If not, you’ve got one or five just like it. The drawings, photographs & recipes are fun to pour through. Meathead gifted me this one a few weeks ago. While flipping through I found two reasons that made it a tad more interesting. Visit with me on a little journey back to the later 1950s, won’t you?

Before I go right for the heart, here’s a photograph I dearly love. Check out that shiny rig! There’s no place on this planet I can go in and buy a pit that cool, sorry. And take a look at this old weber kettle, two tone paint baby! Ith pretty.

I have an older red one, but why did weber start using dark, blah colors? Would you rather have that two tone one? Or a black one? Sigh, I don’t get it. I can get my Pontiac Plibe in electric orange, but my kettle only comes in dark blue? Get with it Weber, high-heat paint technology has come a long way in 50 years.

Apart from the most excellent rigs, solid recipes and information, there were two things I thought interesting. Okay, we’ve all seen Alton Brown outdoors cooking food right? You remember him tossing his steaks directly on the burning charcoal, right? Everyone oooed and aaahhhhhhed. “Oh man, I’ll have to do that some day.” Says I. Well, way back in the stone age, in 1956, they were doing the same thing. And I have proof!

While we can all probably agree, humans have been cooking food directly on coals since we invented food. It’s kinda cool to show that Better Homes & Gardens was doing it when AB was in diapers. All the rage, I think not.

And here’s what made me say, “WHOA COOL!”

Maybe you’re suprised, maybe you’re not. Figured those chimneys didn’t hit popularity until about 30 some odd years ago. Hell, what do I know? But here it is 50 years ago, published. Isn’t that cool? So, if you’re on the net or in a real live used bookstore, and you see this?

Buy it, it’s Meathenge Approved.

xo, Biggles