This Summer’s Hot New Book? Barbecue!

Published 1 week ago1w ago • Bookmarks: 77

May 8, 2025

Shana Liebman’s stunning new cookbook, Barbecue, (her first), which she wrote with Chef Hugh Mangum, features over 270 recipes for grilled and smoked dishes from around the world. It will be published (internationally and in three languages) on May 15. Liebman is a writer and editor (and co-chair of the Irvington Theater) who lives in Irvington, and has written for many publications, including New York Magazine, Salon, The Independent, Food52, and her own blog, Monsters vs Dinner, recently spoke with The Hudson Independent about her immersion into the world of savory dishes.

Are you a lifelong barbecue chef?

I am not. I was raised in a house without pork. My mother, a former Orthodox Jew, considered bacon a sacrilege. When I got to college, I didn’t know how to scramble eggs. I remember calling my mom after my roommates and I bought chicken breasts at the grocery store. I needed help making them not raw. It was writing that I cared about. I obsessively wrote poems, stories, essays, and articles throughout high school, college, and young adulthood. It was how I made a living. In marriage and motherhood, however, I started to lose the time, the solitude, the stimulation. Instead, I gradually migrated to the kitchen. It became a place where I continuously found solitude, and myself.

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So who taught you how to cook?

My mom is a great cook, and I have always been passionate about good food. During the pandemic, cooking was my salvation. I cooked so much that I eventually decided to enroll in culinary school. For a year, I commuted daily to the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) on the southern tip of Manhattan (two hours each way) carrying a 40-pound backpack full of knives. I came home shaking with exhaustion, with little containers of demi-glace and leftover chicken stock. I learned how to bake, braise, and brunoise, and I was often brought to tears by comically stern instructors who humiliated us for simple mistakes and routinely spat our food into the trash. (I will NEVER cut the root end off an onion.)

Why barbecue?

ICE (not to be confused with the deportation agency) required all culinary students to complete a 200-hour externship, but working a 12-hour restaurant shift is tricky for parents of young kids. So I sat down with my career advisor, Robin (who was thankfully closer to my age than my 20-something fellow students). Robin’s culinary school friend, chef Hugh Mangum, had just gotten a book deal to write a barbecue “bible” with the esteemed publisher Phaidon. Hugh could smoke a suckling pig with his eyes closed, but he hadn’t opened a laptop in years. I told Hugh that I could help him write the book, not because I knew how to write a cookbook but because I knew I could figure it out. Plus, Hugh was a kind-hearted father of three boys, trying to keep his head above water. I could (two-thirds) relate.

Talk more about Hugh Mangum.

Hugh founded a wildly successful chain of casual barbecue restaurants called Mighty Quinns, which he started out of a truck at Williamsburg’s Smorgasborg, steps from the apartment where I was nursing my second son. I remember watching from my window as lines formed to the East River for his brisket sandwich. After many years running (and eventually selling) Mighty Quinns, plus several Food Network shows in which he seemed to win every competition, he moved to Connecticut with his family (and a 14-foot smoker) and opened a doughnut shop called Rise, where he does pop-up barbecues.

The book devotes a fair amount to the history of what you call “global barbecue.” What is that?

Global barbecue has a rich cultural history, from Ireland to Iran. For thousands of years, people have been cooking their food with fire and smoke, from lechon in the Philippines to kalua in Hawaii; char siu in China, barbacoa in Mexico, and churrasco in South America. This book covers all of it, from cedar-planked salmon to tea-smoked duck to grilled cabbage with Vegemite, plus necessary accompaniments, like Mighty Quinn’s dirty fries and Hugh’s mother-in-law’s sweet potato casserole. There are even grilled desserts like charred peaches with labneh (strained yogurt).

What did you learn while writing this book?

I learned so much, including how to make sausages from scratch and the difference between mici and cevapi. I learned how to cook an entire goat and dig the right hole for a clambake. I learned the difference between Portuguese grilled octopus and Spanish grilled octopus. I hunted down Jerk in the South Bronx and equites on the Lower East Side, dragging my sons along. I bought my first smoker and cooked nothing but grilled meat for months until my family begged for relief, for pizza.

You are a writer by avocation. How is recipe-writing different from expository writing?

I know how to write clear exposition, which helped me understand how to write a clear recipe. For example, if I tell you to sauté onions for 3-5 minutes, I also need to tell you what those onions should look like after 3-5 minutes. And what size pan you are using, how high the flame is, and what to do when those onions reach their desired color and consistency. What happens if they don’t? Should you take them off the heat? Out of the pan?

What are your expectations for this book?

It’s heartbreaking and a sigh of relief to let this baby into the world. Will he do well? What will the teachers say? I can only hope there will be lots of adobo baby back ribs and chimi burgers on the grill this summer. I think home cooks will find the book accessible, and barbecue pros will be impressed by its scope. Maybe some will use the book’s tips to try their hand at smoking. Maybe my mom will even try the recipe on page 175, the one for smoked bacon.

Barbecue is available on Amazon. Shana Liebman will sign books at Picture Book (inside Hudco) on May 16 from 1 to 2 p.m. and Rise on May 17 from 6 to 8 p.m.

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