Barbecue Secrets or Rum

Barbecue Secrets

Author: Ronnie Shewchuck

Do you live for the joy of cooking outdoors? Get ready to turn routine grilling into "high ceremonial cooking," because Ron "Rockin' Ronnie" Shewchuk, international barbecue champion, is ready to share his recipes with backyard cooks. From stories of the competitive barbecue circuit to recipes that will blow your guests away, Barbecue Secrets is the ultimate guide to the barbecue lifestyle.

The book includes over 100 recipes for rubs, marinades and sauces, side dishes, seafood, desserts, drinks, and meat dishes. You will find the Classic Burger Deluxe, Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Championship Barbecue Chicken, and Texas Slow-Smoked Brisket. Recipes are categorized as Classic Everyday, Asian, Mediterranean, Southwestern, and Championship Q, making it simple for readers to identify related dishes and plan a menu with ease. "Rockin' Ronnie" provides an insider's view of the fascinating world of competitive barbecue. His humorous anecdotes and historical facts make Barbecue Secrets an essential guide for backyard gourmets everywhere.

New interesting textbook: Safety at Work or Effective Management

Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776

Author: Ian Williams

Rum arguably shaped the modern world. It was to the eighteenth century what oil is to the present, but its significance has been diminished by a misguided sense of old-fashioned morality dating back to Prohibition. In fact, Rum shows that even the Puritans took a shot now and then. Rum, too, was one of the major engines of the American Revolution, a fact often missing from histories of the era. Ian Williams's book—as biting and multilayered as the drink itself—triumphantly restores rum's rightful place in history, taking us across space and time, from the slave plantations of seventeenth-century Barbados (the undisputed birthplace of rum) through Puritan and revolutionary New England, to voodoo rites in modern Haiti, where to mix rum with Coke risks invoking the wrath of the gods. He also depicts the showdown between the Bacardi family and Fidel Castro over the control of the lucrative rights to the Havana Club label. Telling photographs are also featured in this barnstorming history of the real "Spirit of 1776."

Publishers Weekly

The Nation's Williams (Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families) offers a spirited-if rambling-discussion of the history and spread of rum, from the field-side stills of 17th-century Barbados to the scientifically calibrated factories of modern multinationals like Bacardi. His main point? That the "role of rum and drink in both causing and effecting the American Revolution has been filtered out" of our history books. Williams details the mechanics of the pre-Revolutionary triangles of trade: African slaves for the Caribbean sugarcane plantations were purchased with rum distilled in New England from Caribbean molasses. He deftly describes how the American colonists evaded British taxation of rum-making supplies, and relishes the notion of our patriotic forefathers as a bunch of rum-sozzled smugglers. His other discussions-on the use of rum rations by various countries' navies, the production of rum in other parts of the world, the efficacy of Prohibition and his own rum-tasting forays-are less focused. Readers also may tire of Williams's tendency to overwork the liquor metaphor: "cultural alembic," "heady cocktail," "good spirits," "the equation in a small tot," etc. 10 pages of b&w illus. not seen by PW. Agent, Colin Campbell. (Sept.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

All about the distilled spirit that fueled the slave trade and sparked the American Revolution. Nation correspondent Williams, author of foodstuff histories Salt (2001) and Spice (2004), documents the etymological origins of rum-"kill-devil" is one especially pungent early name for the stuff. In the Caribbean, especially Barbados, massive plantations grew the bulk of the cane that could be transformed into what the English for a time called "Barbados Waters." The brutal work of sugar production required untold numbers of slaves, a vital component of 18th-century trading among Africa, the Caribbean and the New England colonies. Williams highlights just how lucrative and corrupting the business was, comparing the colonial-era Caribbean to today's petroleum-enriched Middle East. He ascribes to the rum business the origins of the French-Indian War and the American Revolution. During the 1760s, colonists smuggled one barrel of rum for every two that were legally taxed, and their desire for cheap liquor whipped up plenty of anti-Crown sentiment. The story becomes less colorful as it comes closer to modern times: Life at sea just isn't as much fun once British and American navies stop issuing grog rations; and the consolidating efforts of substandard producers like Bacardi are hardly as interesting, though arguably less reprehensible, than the activities of those who sold "the rum that was made from the molasses that had been traded for cod . . . then bartered in West Africa for yet more slaves." Nonetheless, Williams (himself an avid collector of rumabilia) keeps his narrative chatty and informative to the end. Rambunctious, rollicking history, sodden with tasty lore.