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Francis Mallmann grew up in Patagonia, trained in France and made his career in the French nouvelle cuisine tradition, with awards and all that came with it. Then he left it behind. He went back to fire and to the landscape he came from, and that turn is what the entire book rests on.
The seven fires of the title are seven methods. Parrilla is the grate over the embers. Chapa is the hot iron plate. Infiernillo, roughly little hell, is a structure with fire both above and below the food. Rescoldo means placing the ingredient directly in the ashes. Horno de barro is the clay oven, caldero is the cast-iron pot over the flame, and asador is the iron cross.
The last of these is the image everyone recognises. A whole lamb stretched out on an iron cross, positioned at an angle beside the fire for hours.
Mallmann appeared in the first season of Chef's Table. The book won a James Beard Award and is also so physically appealing that it sells itself to people who will never light a fire. Its aesthetic has been copied for fifteen years, and you recognise it as soon as you start looking.
Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 278
Language: English
First published: 2009
