Man Fire Food: le feu sacré

Roger Mooking visits two caterers in the South specializing in live-fire cookouts. In Chattanooga, he helps an Argentine grillmaster char steak empanadas and slow-cook beef short ribs. In Columbia, SC, Roger and a farm-to-table chef make surf and turf.

Roger Mooking visits two Texas pitmasters who give breakfast a wake-up call by adding barbecue. He helps make pulled pork pancakes with whiskey butter in Waco and wagyu beef sausages for breakfast tacos in Fort Worth.

Roger Mooking visits Chef Lee Anne Wong in Maui and helps her prepare a tropical feast of beer-can chicken and mahi-mahi fillets wrapped in banana leaves. Then, in Bellaire, Texas, he and the owners of Blood Bros. BBQ make brisket burnt ends in bao buns.

Roger Mooking visits two food trucks in Texas serving up ethnic eats. He meets up with a pitmaster known for combining authentic Texas-style barbecue with Mexican dishes. Then he cooks with the owners of a truck serving authentic northeastern Thai dishes.

Roger Mooking cruises the Florida coastline for fiery cookouts that bring the heat. In St. Augustine, he loads up a Peruvian-style pit roast and makes arapaima fish fillets. Then he checks out a Fort Lauderdale barbecue joint.

At a nonprofit organization to support veterans in Georgia, Roger Mooking helps cook a whole mutton and slow-roast veggies for a cookout. At Bob Sykes Bar-B-Q in Bessemer, AL, he loads 250 pounds of salted pork into a 15-foot pit.