How did you end up getting involved with
Jamie Oliver’s FoodTube project?
I was
working on a couple of pilots with Jamie's production company, Fresh One. The
first one was called ‘GRILLS, GRILLS, GRILLS’. It was based around interviewing
musicians, artists and bands around food - I cook for them and they cook for
me. And at the end of every show, the band had to do a cover of Motley Crue's
‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ but substituting the word, "Grills". They could
also opt to cover the Jay-Z song of the same name. No one picked it up.
We then
did another pilot that was more in my realm of action sports - it was
positively received and we could be making that one next year. Fresh One was then
approached about doing an original channel for YouTube – and so Food Tube was
born. They asked me if I'd like to do a show for Food Tube and now we've
produced 11 videos, have over 200,000 subscribers, and we've had over 150
million views. It's only been 3 months.
You’ve proved to be one of the most popular
chefs taking part in Food Tube. Do you think it’s because of what you’re
cooking, or the unconventional way you go about cooking it?
Everyone
has turned out to be popular - and a couple of the dudes already had TV/Webshows
before coming on to Food Tube. I guess people relate to a bit of craziness and
they like meat. I'm all about cooking big hunks of meat, but saying that, my
FISH TACOS recipe got a lot of love and the most positive comments from the
community.
Is it dangerous cooking with fire and sharp
knives when you have a habit of wearing nothing but a spandex jumpsuit?
Hells
yeah! First off, my spandex catsuits are not fire retardant. So, it gets hot
when I'm near the firebox and cooker and the outfits don't retain heat when I'm
working outdoors in the winter months. As for knives, I'm getting some lessons.
Jamie put me in his butchery and restaurant at Barbecoa for a week. I learned
so much whilst hanging with world champion butchers and executive chefs. Amazing!
Your smoker looks like a hollowed
out steam train! Where the hell did you get that thing?
I
watched too many episodes of Man Vs Food. Seeing what they were building in the
States and not being able to find the same in the UK, we had to import our
smokers. We spent last summer researching - every night for 2 months. We ended
up buying three smokers/cookers from the man who builds more championship BBQ's
than anyone else in the world - Ben Lang, of Lang’s Smokers. His smokers are
3rd generation and he's been making ‘em for over 25 years. He rolls his own ¼-inch
steel. These babies are family heirloom.
Where is that little wood cabin
where you film many of your recipes?
That's
at a local farm. They are lovely people and that wood hut looks so rustic. They
use it to store all their firewood. It looks like the most Disneyworld joint
for a BBQ, minus the animated squirrels. We've had a lot of comments about that
place. The recipes shot at this location proved to be the most popular. Location,
location, location… and big hunks of meat.
What do you enjoy most about
barbecuing food? What got you started?
I love
working with fire and wood. I like the primal-ness of cooking with the
elements. It's very caveman. You also get much better flavour when cooking with
different types of wood. I will not cook on a gas BBQ. To me, there's no point
- you might as well stay indoors. My father got me started in barbecuing at the
age of 8. My dad learned to barbecue from Grandpa and he passed down the
knowledge to me. There are excellent photos of Grandpa BBQ'n in North Dakota,
South Dakota, and Iowa. Grandpa always had loads of ribs and chickens rocking
at the same time.
Where do your recipes come from? Are they
all handed down through generations or are they your own creations?
Some
recipes are handed down through the family, whilst others are developed through
trial and error. Working with Jamie and his crew has inspired me to try some
new stuff. Gennaro [Gennaro Contaldo - respected Italian chef and fellow Food Tube contributor] asked
me last week: "DJ BBQ, do you cook anything else but meat on your
BBQ?" And I said I love cooking vegetables - especially potatoes. Gennaro
got all excited and taught me a recipe where you shove a piece of chicken in a
carved out potato. Add garlic, rosemary, chilli, olive oil, salt and pepper to
taste. I did it on Friday and it was awesome.
Out of all your recipes, what’s your
favourite thing to cook?
There's
nothing like shoving a can of beer up a chicken's ass. Or nailing a big ol slab
of brisket where the thick layer of fat caramelises with the salt and pepper
turning it into ‘Texas Foie Gras’. Then I really like making breakfast and
diner food. Chilli and cheese omelettes are one of my favourite things to make
and eat. Wait… Fish TACOS!!!! Love them!
In parts of America, barbecuing is a very
serious business. Apart from only having about 2 minutes of sunshine a year,
are the Brits doing barbecues wrong?
The
Brits are embracing barbecuing but the supermarkets aren't helping. People
think, “Summer= BBQ” but that's not the case. Barbecuing should be 365 and the
supermarkets need to stock charcoal/lumpwood all year long.
What would you do if eating meat was
illegal and you had to become vegetarian?
Eat
Vegans! Then there's no one to complain. Apparently, plants feel pain. The
problem with vegetarians is they keep eating my food's food.
THE BOOM
OF THE BACON EXPLOSION
One
of the most popular recipes created by Christian Stevenson, aka DJ BBQ, is the
Bacon Fire Bomb – 3 pounds of woven bacon wrapped around pork mince, chopped
vegetables and chillies, covered in a barbecue seasoning.
This
meat extravaganza is DJ BBQ’s interpretation of the legendary (and now
trademarked) Bacon Explosion recipe. Back in 2008, a couple of guys from a website
called BBQ Addicts revealed the original Bacon Explosion recipe on their blog.
Unexpectedly (but appropriately), the American football-sized pork meal
exploded into an international phenomenon with media around the world eager to
know more about the (at least) 5000 calorie feast.
Although
the Bacon Explosion sparked worldwide interest, BBQ Addicts were not the first
to unleash such the recipe into the wild. For example, a blogger calling
himself Headless Blogger beat them to the potential heart attack with his own
recipes he called the Redneck Sushi and Ultimate Fattie.
Thanks
to the likes of DJ BBQ and his refined take on the original (hey, his version
contains vegetables!) the legacy and controversy of the Bacon Explosion can
continue to live on. Even if just hearing about the Bacon Explosion is
intimidating, we dare you to watch DJ BBQ’s Food Tube video without your mouth
watering…
