Great Seafood Grilling: A Review of Genevieve Taylor’s SCORCHED
Genevieve Taylor has a close association with Weber in the UK. A live-fire expert, she is also a traditionally trained chef and appears at barbecue venues throughout Europe. In addition, she is a frequent contributor in barbecue forums and outdoor cooking events. She just released Scorched (Hardie Grant/Quadrille, 2024), the third in her series of live-fire cookbooks with a specific focus, which—in this case—centers on seafood. Following the tone and approach of previous cookbooks Charred and Seared, Taylor is “here to hold your hand and to give you the knowledge you need . . . ” (p.6). Together with photographer Jason Ingram, she accomplishes that goal admirably with clear instructions and ample photography. It’s fun just to page through the book.
Her route to exploring seafood is anything but usual. An expansive opening section explains her rationale for buying only certain types of seafood, methods of refrigerating and freezing fresh seafood, and the role sustainability should figure in your purchases. Whether you agree—or whether you’ll follow through with her advice—is the purchaser’s responsibility, but Taylor’s ruminations will provoke your own thinking beyond following “sustainability” as a popular slogan.
This opening section also includes lots of knife techniques for gutting fish, and although her instructions are easy for anyone to follow, she admits parroting some YouTube videos would be easier. Within the limitations of this print medium, however, Taylor gives different enough written explanations so supplement any of the reader’s video investigations. For instance, when she instructs readers on cleaning fish, she gives full verbal explanations, although I would have preferred a few extra close-ups of the procedure.
I recommend reading this section twice. It’s crammed with useful information related specifically to seafood and live-fire cooking. For instance, Taylor explores the use of baking pans with fish on the grill and the best ways to dry the fish out, information I haven’t seen in any other barbecue cookbook. (You don’t want sticking fish, and wet fish is often the cause.) Taylor even shows her technique for “gronch”—her word for “shove and push . . . With a little more vigour than is ‘perfect’” (p. 27) to remove or flip fish on the grates. Again, she packs in a lot of useful information, like how to light a wood fire for live-fire cooking rather than charcoal cooking. (I’m not sure it’s still in effect, but Weber used to cite wood fires in its kettles as voiding the warranty; I don’t know the rationale either since wood burns cooler than charcoal.) Taylor explains clearly the need for clean fuel sources, important in their own right but even more so given some of her recipes, like “Charcoal Salt-Baked Bass and Mojo-Rojo New Potatoes” (p. 59). The fish is baked in a cast iron pan filled with fine-powdered lump charcoal—think caveman style in a pan. She does romance the grill quite a bit—she’s at home with the “barbecue”—which sets her apart from chefs who look uncomfortable with live-fire cooking.
Still, I can’t help wondering how step-by-step directions with accompanying photographs on each step, shot from the perspective of the griller instead of a third party, would have greatly enhanced the book (Jamie Purviance’s Weber’s Way to Grill and Weber’s Ultimate Grilling made sizable contributions in this area.) It’s just hard for novices to see how an experienced chef manipulates a knife when they’re not looking over their shoulder and mimicking the same action. At the same time, I realize such additions would have added a lot of pages and beaucoup expense to the book. Book publishing has changed a lot since Weber published their bulging American cookbooks that became known for their luch and detailed photographs. The trend is to print thinner and lighter books.
I have a few quibbles. The point size of the text is at least two points too small for comfortable reading in low light. In my first reading, I noticed a few typographical errors, like a missing word from a sentence. There are only a few, and on subsequent readings, I didn’t notice any others. Also instructive for the reader to remember is that this book is a product of the UK, so some of the food terms may be unfamiliar to American readers, and fish varieties may be unavailable to Americans. Taylor understands those differences and so suggests substitutions interspersed within the recipes, such as “Round Oily Fish” (p. 67). In fact, she organizes chapters within grilling methods that invite substitutions, such as “Whole Fish” (chapter 1), “Bits of Fish” (ch. 2), “Fish on a Stick” (ch 3). Additionally, the publisher cites all measurements in both imperial and English standards. Again, these are all minor points and do not detract from the final product.
“This book is definitely an important resource for any Weber griller. ”
With Jamie Purviance’s work with Weber completed, I anticipate grillers will feel the absence of a traditionally trained chef who is also a live-fire enthusiastic. Genevieve Taylor in Scorched deserves your support. This book is definitely an important resource for any Weber griller.
