Pat Martin—a Nashville pit master with more than a dozen barbecue spots across Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and South Carolina—would be the first to tell you that if you’re looking for a quick chicken thigh grilling guide for Father’s Day, his new book is not it. He will even admit that Life Of Fire: Mastering the Arts of Pit-Cooked Barbecue, the Grill, and the Smokehouse can be at times “arduous,” as he puts it.
Martin does barbecue—as in meat cooked slow in a hand-built pit or on a spit—and specifically West Tennessee–style whole hog barbecue. His book includes a dissertation on that topic, pretty much, from curing your wood to keeping yourself in coals with your very own burn barrel. The rest of Martin’s book is an education, too, even the r...