real meat.real fire.real barbaqoa.

Why fire

Cooking over a live fire is a skill, not just for entertaining, for survival.

Knowing how to build a fire, hold a temperature and cook a whole animal is useful at a backyard party. It's also useful when the power's out. Learn to Burn treats live-fire cooking as real self-reliance as well as a hobby for memorable times with family and friends.

The techniques come from barbecue cultures all over the world, from Mexican barbaqoa to Argentine asado to Southern pit smoking. There isn't a smoker or cooker Robert hasn't run.

not just for food. for life. for preservation.

Barbacoa started in the Caribbean. The Taíno word barbacoa meant the raised wooden frame they used to smoke meat and fish over a slow fire so it would keep. The Spanish carried the word and the method across the Americas.

In Mexico it went underground. Whole lamb, goat or beef wrapped in maguey leaves and cooked overnight in a pit lined with hot stones and coals, the way it's still done in Hidalgo and across central Mexico today. In Peru, pachamanca does the same thing with hot stones in the earth. Across South America, smoking and drying over fire kept people fed through lean months.

Peru gave the world something else too: ceviche, fresh fish cured in lime. It's the cool, bright side of a smoky table, and Peruvian-inspired ceviches are a big part of how Robert cooks.

Robert pulls from bbq techniques around the world, and from the chefs who shaped him: Guillermo Pernot having most impact at Pasión! and Cuba Libre for South American technique and his passion for Peruvian and Asian cuisines.