As the kiwi summer kicks into full gear everybody in the country is prompted to revisit outdoor entertaining and of course cooking over various forms of fire

Local celebrity chef exponents like Al Brown have fully endorsed open fire cookery of some form with various publications however our favourite summer cookbook and in our view the legend of world open fire cooking is Francis Mallman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ8Htm4jAGc

Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way by Francis Mallman (2009)

As one of South America’s most famous chef’s and recently featured on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, you may have heard Chef Francis Mallmann’s name before. Classically trained in French cuisine and born in Argentina, it is not only Mallmann’s recipes that inspire but his life and philosophy.

Born in 1956, Mallmann opened his first restaurant at 19. Achieving such success, he was able to close for half the year to travel in Europe, training with Michelin-star chefs. During the 80s he was also featured on many TV shows in South America. However, after two decades of fame and spotlight he was "tired of making French food for wealthy Argentines."

His transition from classic French to traditional Argentinean style was a journey to find himself again. As he explains in an interview with The Splendid Table:

“[After] I went into training in France with the best star chefs of those times. I came back to become an arrogant French chef. I was for many years. I tried to copy everything I had learned in a very bad way.

Then suddenly I was fortunate. I got this prize in Paris. I thought, "What in hell am I doing? I'm 40. I've been cooking for 20 years. Who am I?"

So I said, "I better start thinking about having my own language in cooking." I didn't invent anything really. I just went down to my knees, looked around and remembered all the tools from my childhood. I looked around a bit into the mountains and saw what the natives had been doing.

I grabbed all that and I started cooking with it. But it was very slowly. It was a process that took the last 20 years. I feel that I just started. There's so much more to do because fire is such a fragile and beautiful thing. People think that it's a manly thing -- fire and you burn things. But it's, on the contrary, very feminine. It's very fragile. I love it. I'm learning a lot still.

Now in his 60s he explains in his book that he grew up in a log house in Patagonia, a rural part of Argentina known for its volcanoes. "In that house," Mallmann writes, "fire was a constant part of growing up for my two brothers and me, and the memories of that home continue to define me."

And this intersection of passion and history is what Mallmann’s book Seven Fires showcases. Serving as a cookbook-slash-memoire, you explore how his passion for food developed and the landscape that shaped it. Not only beautifully designed, it has almost as many recipes for roasted vegetables, appetizers, and salads as it has for beef, chicken, pork, lamb and seafood. Carnivores and vegetarians will find plenty of menu offerings that are unique to the Patagonian way of cooking, including burnt carrots with goat cheese, parsley, arugula, and crispy garlic chips, caramelized endive with vinegar, and burnt oranges with rosemary.

Although his focus is on the open flame (and methods similar to a traditional Maori Hangi), he gives plenty of suggestions of how to cook the same meals in your kitchen. It’s a beautiful book full of inspiration and we can’t recommend it enough! Enjoy!