THE BARBECUE BIBLE
By Steven Raichlen

With the ambitious title of 'The Barbecue Bible', US author Steven Raichlen's book sure has a lot to live up to. And it succeeds. Steven spent four years and travelled more than 300,000 kilometres visiting 25 countries to produce this magnificent 550 page publication.

This book, which has sold more than 2 million copies, was the catalyst for Steven's career as a leading barbeque writer and teacher. He currently has five books in Amazon's list of the 25 top selling barbeque books.

Australia is well represented in The Barbecue Bible with recipes for barramundi, beer-barbecued chicken, lamb steaks, Moreton Bay bugs and honey sesame 'shrimp'. All of Steven's recipes in this massive book follow the same pattern. A short description of the dish is followed with a list of ingredients (alternatives are listed for some difficult to source items) and an easy-to-understand procedure to follow.

Despite featuring 500 recipes, it is much more than just a barbecue cookbook. It's also a very enjoyable travel book that provides a cultural context for many cuisines such as Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese and Argentinian - to name just a few.

One of Steven's greatest strengths is that he never assumes his readers have any previous experience with barbecuing/grilling. His books always cover the basics of choosing and using barbeques and these sections are so informative that even experienced barbequeologists are likely to learn something new.

ORIGIN: United States
FIRST PUBLISHED: 1998
VERDICT: You will never regret buying this book.