Customer Reviews

Magic of Fire: Cooking on the Open Hearth : One Hundred Recipes for the Fireplace or Campfire

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Cooking in fire and coals wasn't important to me until I ate in a humble farmhouse kitchen in the mountains of the Veneto a few years ago. The flavors of woodsmoke in the roast squab and the wild-mushroom risotto were magical. They transformed simple, lean ingredients into something amazingly rich, complex, and soul-stirring. I was haunted for months after by the memory of those flavors. Then I had one of the greatest meals of my life at Chez Panisse, which featured flame-broiled rabbit sausages and coal-roasted lamb, which was finshed in the kitchen fireplace in a puff of rosemary smoke. From my vantage in the dining room I watched the utterly simple preparation, an immemorial process, and vowed to learn whatever I could about hearth cooking. In lieu of a grandmother with traditional hearth-cooking skills, I had books, and The Magic of Fire continues to stand out above the others.

This book teaches almost everything I've needed to know to cook with fire. It starts with a lucid little essay [TOO little: I would have loved something deeper] on hearth cooking, aptly weaving the poetics of the practice into the pragmatics. It introduces the tools of the craft and provides a quick peek at various hearth-cooking methods. Again, much more detail would have been welcome, but this is a tantalizing glimpse into a craft that can absorb years of practice. There are a couple of pages on the fire itself, and a few coy words on the complications of preparing multicourse meals. Then to the food.

The food: 100 recipes of heartbreaking simplicity and flavor. Have you ever eaten a sweet red pepper roasted to blackness in wood coals? One ingredient, simply transformed, may be the most delicious vegetable you'll ever eat. Unless you've had the great fortune to have eaten a young eggplant prepared the same way. Roasted garlic-sage duck will scent the neighborhood like no lighter-fluid-marinated hamburger patty aver will. And, if you crave an instant return trip to the north Veneto, try the grilled polenta with porcini. It is unaccountably good.

You are unlikely to find such pleasures from such simple preparations anywhere else. A warning: complications, both financial and conjugal, may arrise if your dedication to these hearthside pleasures leeds you to tearing out the patio in preparation for building a dedicated outdoor fireplace and bread oven. But great pleasures are a path of no return.

I purchased this book from Amazon.com last month, and am I glad I did! It is fantastic. I have spent years cooking over fires while camping, backpacking, backyard barbecuing and more recently, demonstrating cooking over the fire in historic sites. This book contains what none of the other books on hearth cooking do--how to work with the fire. I have shelves of cookbooks that talk about recipes from colonial times, but not one of them tells you how to actually use the fire to prepare the meal.

To begin, it is a BEAUTIFUL book. The illustrations are worthy of their own frames for hanging. The book is well organized, and you can chose to read first about food and then about fire, or the reverse. The author instructs us in the proper use of equipment, but makes it clear that the average kitchen contains the necessary implements to get started. Mr. Rubel has obviously done a lot of traveling, because he brings us delicious food from all over the world. The recipes are clearly described and easy to follow. You feel you know the author personally after reading the book, because he tells you when he first encountered the food, and why he loves it. The range of recipes is wonderful. You can start with flat unleavened bread cooked directly on the coals (yes! you can do this in your living room!) and progress to Pot au-feu. There are menus for every taste and palate.

I have made quite a few of the recipes, and they have all been resounding successes. What is so deceptive about this book is its elegant simplicity. You might think a mere onion, thrown onto the coals is just a cooked onion. But it is not! ROASTED food tastes very different from baked, and this is true for all vegetables and meats. The carmelization that takes place over the fire cannot be duplicated by any other heat source, and that is literally the MAGIC of fire.

"The Magic of Fire" reveals the secrets of successful and delicious cooking with fire. It is a beautiful book, illustrated with absolutely lovely drawings. But it is so much more than just a coffee table cookbook. It offers the novice hearth cook practical advice about how to get started and how to succeed. It offers the experienced hearth cook an opportunity to both refine and expand techniques and repertoire.

The title, "The Magic of Fire", clues the reader to the other dimension of this book: the spiritual aspect of cooking over an open fire. Open fire cooking links us with cooks through tens of thousands of years. "The Magic of Fire" manages well the delicate balance of being both pragmatic and inspiring. Recipes range from the traditional, such as skillet corn bread and chicken roasted on a string, to the more unusual, such as grilled porcini mushrooms and ember-roasted brisket, fish, and vegetables. Each recipe usefully indicates which open-fire methods are suitable. And best of all, the recipes, when used, yield delicious results! "The Magic of Fire" is a book that informs the mind, refreshes the spirit, and takes the palate on an adventure.

This is *THE* most beautiful and romantic book I have ever read. I am in process of reading it cover to cover currently, and am relishing every moment. The author is well educated on his subject and adds his own personal touch to each recipe. His stories bring each dish to life and add an unimaginable depth to what might have turned out to be "just a cookbook." This book is the best and cruelest tool for would-be hearth cooks. It sweeps us away to a time that we modern day folk still feel in our blood. It's a perfect combination of practicality and base information, and romanticism in cooking.
You'll never look at Ramen the same again!

I literally gasped when I first saw William Rubel's book, The Magic of Fire. Beautiful to look at and to old, a pleasure to read, erudite and original, I know I'm not the only person who read it and though, "I wish I had written this!" This ibrilliant book brims with wisdom, passion and practicality, for it does teach us to cook in the most fundamental of ways -in the hearth. Step away from the eight-burner range and look to your fireplace -with book in hand, of course-to discover the real hearth in the home.

Congratulations and many many thanks to William Rubel for this genuine treasure.

This is written by a man who thoroughly understands his subject. The well-produced, beautiful book will take you from being the owner of a fireplace (or, for that matter, any contained open fire) and make you into an accomplished open-fire cook. Rubel shows clearly that open-hearth cooking is not only an old-fashioned way to cook, but a method which offers unparalleled control of the cooking process, sufficient to entice those without any interest in its history. Having lived for 5 years "in 1867" in a one-room apartment on Boston's Beacon Hill, lighting by candle and oil and heating and cooking on an open, Rumford fireplace, I think I can offer a unique perspective on Mr. Rubel's methods and practice. Buy this book--you will not regret it!

Thank you Mr. Rubell! I have been trying recipes from this book for years, and finally had the guts to try the Cold Mountain brisket, for a house full of people. This takes courage, as it involves throwing a huge hunk of spice-rubbed meat directly into the fire, then building a blazing fire on top of it for 45 minutes. It was amazingly delicious. People couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. I want to work my way through the whole book, from the simplest 'hearth cooked eggs' to the most complicated, like the 'pan d'epices', which is just a ridiculous process involving many days.

Best thing about this book: it's just a starting point. Once you get comfortable with the drama of cooking in your fireplace for guests, all sorts of possibilities emerge.

I volunteer at a Historic Site on weekends. Lately I took training there on hearth cooking, as one of their buildings is a 1840's era kitchen where all cooking was done in a fireplace. I went searching for recipes for this type of cooking. Although this book is not focused on historic recipes only, it does turn out to be a wealth of information on this method of cooking. The descriptions are very well done, the paintings and sketches are simply wonderful and the recipes will keep a person busy for a very long time. This book would be "the best" I would recommend for anyone wanting to do hearth cooking.

As a cook I like being able to step away from the stove, the variation of cooking with different "media", the experimentation. I never imagined that I could make anything other than barbeque over an open fire but Rubel's receipes and instructions are so clear and assuring that I surprise myself with every meal I've made. The recipes are outstanding! The paintings by Ian Everard are gorgeous. The actual writings, history and presentation make a beautiful package. In addition to buying a cookbook you are also buying an art book. Leave this one out before dinner for the guests to see.

The Magic of Fire is that rare coffee-table sized book -- it's the one you are going to use for more than just drooling over the pretty pictures. (Mind you, the pictures are quite droolworthy.) Rubel carefully describes the techniques of hearth cookery, and then provides a number of recipes to practice upon. Tantalizing glimpses of how fire is and has been used around the world add more spice. A must read for anyone who loves traditional foods, or even just the warmth of a good fire. I recently took my copy with me to the mountains, just because I'd have a chance to play with a campfire, something I can't do at home, and found myself looking at the fire in whole new ways.