In stories, recipes, and photographs, James Beard Award–winning writer Robb Walsh and acclaimed documentary photographer O. Rufus Lovett take us on a barbecue odyssey from East Texas to the Carolinas and back. In Barbecue Crossroads, we meet the pitmasters who still use old-fashioned wood-fired pits, and we sample some of their succulent pork shoulders, whole hogs, savory beef, sausage, mutton, and even some barbecued baloney. Recipes for these and the side dishes, sauces, and desserts that come with them are painstakingly recorded and tested.
But Barbecue Crossroads is more than a cookbook; it is a trip back to the roots of our oldest artisan food tradition and a look at how Southern culture is changing. Walsh and Lovett trace the lineage of Southern barbecue backwards through time as they travel across a part of the country where slow-cooked meat has long been part of everyday life. What they find is not one story, but many. They visit legendary joints that don’t live up to their reputations—and discover unknown places that deserve more attention. They tell us why the corporatizing of agriculture is making it difficult for pitmasters to afford hickory wood or find whole hogs that fit on a pit.
Walsh and Lovett also remind us of myriad ways that race weaves in and out of the barbecue story, from African American cooking techniques and recipes to the tastes of migrant farmworkers who ate their barbecue in meat markets, gas stations, and convenience stores because they weren’t welcome in restaurants. The authors also expose the ways that barbecue competitions and TV shows are undermining traditional barbecue culture. And they predict that the revival of the community barbecue tradition may well be its salvation.

Barbecue Crossroads: Notes and Recipes from a Southern Odyssey

Arts & Photography

Walsh, Robb

Photography & Video

University of Texas Press

Join Texas food writer Robb Walsh on a grand tour complete with larger-than-life characters, colorful yarns, rare archival photographs, and a savory assortment of crispy, crunchy Tex-Mex foods. From the Mexican pioneers of the sixteenth century, who first brought horses and cattle to Texas, to the Spanish mission era when cumin and garlic were introduced, to the 1890s when the Chile Queens of San Antonio sold their peppery stews to gringos like O. Henry and Ambrose Bierce, and through the chili gravy, combination plates, crispy tacos, and frozen margaritas of the twentieth century, all the way to the nuevo fried oyster nachos and vegetarian chorizo of today, here is the history of Tex-Mex in more than 100 recipes and 150 photos. Rolled, folded, and stacked enchiladas, old-fashioned puffy tacos, sizzling fajitas, truck-stop chili, frozen margaritas, Frito™ Pie, and much, much more, are all here in easy-to-follow recipes for home cooks. The Tex-Mex Cookbook will delight chile heads, food history buffs, Mexican food fans, and anybody who has ever woken up in the middle of the night craving cheese enchiladas.

The Tex-Mex Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Cooking Education & Reference

Ten Speed Press+

Texas cowboys are the stuff of legend — immortalized in ruggedly picturesque images from Madison Avenue to Hollywood. Cowboy cooking has the same romanticized mythology, with the same oversimplified reputation (think campfire coffee, cowboy steaks, and ranch dressing). In reality, the food of the Texas cattle raisers came from a wide variety of ethnicities and spans four centuries. Robb Walsh digs deep into the culinary culture of the Texas cowpunchers, beginning with the Mexican vaqueros and their chile-based cuisine. Walsh gives overdue credit to the largely unsung black cowboys (one in four cowboys was black, and many of those were cooks). Cowgirls also played a role, and there is even a chapter on Urban Cowboys and an interview with the owner of Gilley’s, setting for the John Travolta--Debra Winger film. Here are a mouthwatering variety of recipes that include campfire and chuckwagon favorites as well as the sophisticated creations of the New Cowboy Cuisine: • Meats and poultry: sirloin guisada, cinnamon chicken, coffee-rubbed tenderloin • Stews and one-pot meals: chili, gumbo, fideo con carne • Sides: scalloped potatoes, onion rings, pole beans, field peas • Desserts and breads: peach cobbler, sourdough biscuits, old-fashioned preserves Through over a hundred evocative photos and a hundred recipes, historical sources, and the words of the cowboys (and cowgirls) themselves, the food lore of the Lone Star cowboy is brought vividly to life.

The Texas Cowboy Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos

Baking

Who says cooking is for homebodies? Veteran Texas food writer Robb Walsh served as a judge at a chuck wagon cook-off, worked as a deckhand on a shrimp boat, and went mayhaw-picking in the Big Thicket--for seven years, he drove the length and breadth of the state looking for the best in barbecue, burgers, kolaches, and tacos; while scouring museums, libraries, and public archives unearthing vintage photos, culinary stories, and nearly-forgotten dishes. Then he headed home to Houston to test the recipes he'd collected back in his own kitchen. The result is Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook, a colorful and deeply personal blend of history, anecdotes, and recipes from all over the Lone Star State.

Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook, with More Than 200 Recipes

Cooking by Ingredient

The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook is a grand tour of famous Tex-Mex restaurants, taco trucks, cook-offs and tailgating get-togethers, with recipes to bring this popular American regional cuisine to your home grill. Sizzling fajitas are probably the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Tex-Mex's contribution to the backyard barbecue. But mesquite-kissed T-bones with grilled corn on the cob slathered in ancho chile butter is Tex-Mex too—and so are grilled jumbo Gulf shrimp with pineapple kebabs and red snapper fish tacos. In The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook renowned Texas food writer and James Beard Award winner Robb Walsh showcases the full spectrum of outdoor cooking in Texas and Northern Mexico in his unique style, with photos and 85 easy-to-follow recipes. The smoky and spicy flavors of the Tex-Mex grill evolved from the culture of the Latino cattlemen. Walsh traces the history of grilling in the border region and provides a handbook of techniques, step by step photos, and interviews with legendary Tex-Mex chefs. Here are all their recipes and more for grilled meats and seafood adapted for the backyard barbecue, along with the frijoles and side dishes, picante salsas, and festive tequila cocktails that fill out the fiesta.

The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook: More Than 85 Sizzling Recipes

Kingdom of the Dwarfs

A fictitious archaeological discovery reveals the history of dwarfs, their treasures, mining and metalworking technologies, magic, writings, kings, and underground world

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Centaur House

Wenzel, David

Centaur Books, Incorporated

This collection of 140 recipes were collected from an adventurous trip across Jamaica. Interviews and color photos of magic tonic-makers, persuasive fishmongers, and Rastafarian chefs provide a fascinating portrait of the island's multi-cultural culinary scene.

Traveling Jamaica With Knife, Fork & Spoon: A Righteous Guide to Jamaican Cookery

McCarthy, Jay

Regional & International

Crossing Pr

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Walsh, Robb. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Walsh, Robb

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Walsh, Robb. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Barbecue Crossroads: Notes and Recipes from a Southern Odyssey

Barbecue Crossroads: Notes and Recipes from a Southern Odyssey

The Tex-Mex Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos

The Texas Cowboy Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos

Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook, with More Than 200 Recipes

The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook: More Than 85 Sizzling Recipes

Kingdom of the Dwarfs

Kingdom of the Dwarfs

Kingdom of the Dwarfs

Traveling Jamaica With Knife, Fork & Spoon: A Righteous Guide to Jamaican Cookery