Smoke is the soul of true barbecue. As you climb the ladder of barbecue enlightenment, you’ll want to be able to smoke a variety of foods in a variety of grills and smokers. This show explores four diverse foods: ribs, turkey, salmon, and even a dessert—prepared in a traditional offset barrel smoker, a water smoker, a charcoal grill, and a stovetop smoker. Sorry…no gas grills allowed.

Meat on a stick represented the first technological leap forward in the evolution of barbecue. The popularity of kebabs and sates around the world attests to the universal appeal of skewered foods. So why do so many kebabs come on bamboo skewers with burnt ends or on metal skewers with raw onions, overcooked meat, and tomatoes that fall into the embers? If you’ve ever had trouble nailing the perfect shish kebab, or you want to expand your repertoire, this show is for you.

People may dream of smoking whole hogs and briskets, but admit it: what you really want to know for everyday use on a practical basis is how to grill the perfect steak. This show reveals all the secrets, from selecting the right steak to setting up the grill to the perfect seasoning and sauces. You’ll learn how to achieve perfect doneness every time using the “four-finger” poke test.

When I was growing up,” barbecue” meant chicken marinated in sweet barbecue sauce, burnt charcoal-black on the outside, still raw inside, and reeking of lighter fluid. Sound familiar? This show will teach you the right way to grill America’s favorite bird: on a charcoal grill, in a smoker, and on a gas grill.

A lot of people are intimidated by the idea of grilling fish. With good reason! When you grill fish, does it A) stick to the grill grate; B) break into pieces; C) come out raw in the center; D) come out hopelessly overcooked; or E) all of the above? This show will give you three great ways to grill fish without fear—or tears.

When I was growing up, the options for a vegetarian at a typical barbecue were limited to hamburger buns or potato salad. In many parts of the world…in India and Japan, for example…meatless grilling produces some of the most interesting food to come off the fire. So whether you’re grilling for vegetarians, or you just want to cut back on the meat sometimes, this sizzling show has you covered.

In Memphis, Tennessee, and the Carolinas, “barbecue” means just one thing: pork shoulder smoke-roasted until it’s so tender you can pull it apart with your fingers. But pit masters all over the world love this crusty, meaty, well-marbled cut, and today, I’m going to show you how to grill the perfect pork shoulder—American, Caribbean, and even Balinese style. No ifs, ands, or pork butts, about it.

Every self-respecting grill master should have at least one infallible rib recipe under his or her belt. Here are three that are guaranteed to make you look like a pro. Master grillmanship requires more than great recipes: this show will teach you all the techniques and technical know-how you need to nail the perfect rib.

Shellfish come from the water, but deliver their ultimate flavor through fire. Grill masters from California to the Mediterranean to Australia back me up on this. In this show you’ll learn to grill “drunken sailors” (tequila marinated oysters), ginger-mint buttered lobster, and a spectacular grilled shrimp cocktail.

Are we listening when you write in to the Barbecue Board? You bet! And one question you ask a lot is how to improve your rotisserie skills. Spit-roasting is one of the world’s most ancient and universal forms of grilling, and there’s nothing like it for producing exceptionally moist meat with a crackling crisp crust. Here’s the lowdown on spit-roasting duck, prime rib, and even baby back ribs.

The statistics are in and the winner is…definitely not lamb. Americans consume less than 1 pound per person per year. But on any given night, more pit masters around the world are grilling lamb than probably any other meat. The lamb zone begins in Morocco and extends east all the way to New Zealand. You cannot consider yourself a well-rounded grill master until you’ve mastered lamb.

Why do you want to learn how to grill? To expand your personal knowledge? To impress your family and friends? Admit it: the real reason you want to boost your barbecue skills is to show off at your next tailgate party. We’ve got you covered with three great dishes that are easy to grill in a parking lot and that will help you smoke the competition.

In barbecue, as in life, bigger is often better. Especially when it comes to beef. Every aspiring grill master should know how to tackle the big cuts—brisket, prime rib, and whole beef tenderloin. Big beef, like big game, will impress the hell out of your guests.

When it comes to flavor, you can’t beat meat that’s still attached to the bone. This simple truth is appreciated by anyone who has ever barbecued a rack of ribs, grilled a long-bone veal chop, or roasted a whole leg of lamb. Grilling and, more importantly, serving meat on the bone, transports us to a time back before the invention of knives and forks when barbecue buffs ate with their hands, chewing the fire-roasted meat right off the bone. Discover your inner caveman.

More taste than time? There’s no excuse not to fire up your grill. Travel the world’s barbecue trail and you’ll discover that in many countries, grilling is the original fast food. Here are three grilled masterpieces that let you assuage your hunger without making you break a sweat—basil-grilled tuna steaks, chicken breasts grilled under a brick, and coconut-grilled pineapple for dessert. Because there’s simply no reason not to fire up the grill when you get home from work.

Back before there were supermarkets (or barbecue grills), grill masters hunted, fished, gathered, and grilled in the wild. This show celebrates the primal pleasures of cooking wild foods with live fire. It starts with—what else?—wild salmon from the Pacific Northwest grilled on cedar planks with a juniper and wild berry glaze. Our next course is grilled elk loin, marinated in wine and wrapped in bacon, and grilled wild mushrooms foraged in the forests of Washington State. Steven will even show you a wild dessert—a smoke-roasted wild fruit crumble.

Seafood may come from the water, but nothing brings out its briny succulence like the high, dry, smoky heat of the grill. This truth is readily apparent on the beaches of Brazil, at the waterfront grill stalls in Asia, and the seaside communities of the Yucatan. Here are three great grilled seafood dishes that solve the age-old problems of fish sticking to the grill grate or breaking apart when you go to turn it: Brazilian coconut grilled shrimp, Asian garlic grilled halibut, and snapper grilled in banana leaves, Yucatan-style. And grilled asparagus rafts make an appropriately nautical accompaniment.

Grilling brings out the cowboy in all of us. After all, smoked brisket originated in Texas cattle country and barbecue was brought to Missouri with the great cattle drives along the Chisholm Trail from Fort Worth to the meat-packing houses in Kansas City. This show will make you at home on the range, or at least at home with some of the smoked and grilled foods traditionally associated with America’s cattle country: Hellfire T-bone steaks (with grilled jalapeno poppers to keep them company), smoked brisket, and, the newest addition to the “range”—free-range chicken grilled with herbed butter under the skin.

Barbecue means meat to millions of grill masters, of course, but it’s also about vegetables. Just ask one of India’s 300 million vegetarians, who love tandoori (Indian barbecue pit cooking) every bit as much as a carnivore does. When it comes to bringing out the caramelized sweetness of a vegetable, nothing beats the searing heat of a grill. In this Episode, Steven will show you a barbecue where vegetarians will not feel like second-class citizens. On the menu? Grilled eggplant “caprese” salad; Indian pepper, tomato, and paneer cheese kebabs (served with Indian grilled puff pastry); and a “carb-haters” sandwich—grilled portabello mushrooms cheeseburgers.

Beer may be the beverage served at a lot of American cook-outs, but much of the world’s barbecue trail runs directly through regions famed for their wine. This show will focus on the important role vines and wines play in barbecue—the former as a wrapping and fuel; the latter as an ingredient in marinades and sauces. Trout grilled in grape leaves; red-wine marinated filet mignon; and an interesting twist on “beer can” chicken, made with cabernet sauvignon. So the next time you fire up your grill, don’t forget your corkscrew.

Many of the world’s great grill cultures cook their best barbecue on the rotisserie. Consider Brazil’s rodizio, Greek souvlaki and gyro, and Morocco’s majestic mechoui. To judge from your many e-mails, spit-roasting is a live fire cooking method our viewers would like to know more about. In this show, you’ll learn how to grill a sausage - and cheese-stuffed rib roast, how to grill a Greek-style whole hog over a wood fire, and how to make Moroccan-style lamb ribs—cooked to a turn on a gas-fired rotisserie.

Barbecue neophytes and brining are a little like teenagers and sex: the minute they learn how to do it, nothing else seems to matter. Brining may seem like a relatively modern technique, but it’s centuries, if not millennia, old. In fact, that’s the origin of the English word pickle—pockel was the Old English word for brine. Brining has the dual advantages of keeping intrinsically dry foods, like pork chops and chicken breasts, moist on the grill, and it also adds an extra layer of flavor. In this show you’ll learn all about brining and marinating, including a wine-brined butterflied leg of lamb, bourbon-brined pork chops, and a “brine” you actually inject into a turkey with a hypodermic needle.

Spice may give barbecue its personality, but smoke is its heart and soul. This truth is obvious to anyone who has spent time in American barbecue country (in Texas or Kansas City, for example). What you may not realize is how universal smoking really is. In this show, you’ll learn how to smoke Cousin Dave’s chocolate chile ribs in an offset barrel smoker, Chinese-style duck in a water smoker, and ginger-stuffed smoked pears in a kettle grill. And because, as Raichlen’s rule states: If something tastes good baked, fried, or sautéed, it probably tastes even better grilled.

When we were growing up, barbecue meant chicken that was burned black as coal on the outside (the result of applying the sweet barbecue sauce too early), served half-raw inside, and perfumed with the scent of lighter fluid. If this sounds familiar, listen up. Here are three great fail-proof ways to grill chicken—yakitori-style, herb-scented game hens on the rotisserie, and Malaysian-style spatchcocked chicken.

A football game would be a sorry experience without tailgating. And tailgating revolves around grilling. Of course, just as the meaning of “football” varies around the world, so does what you grill. Whether the ball is oval or round, whether the game is football or soccer, this show will help you smoke the competition. Next up: grilled quesadillas; burgers two ways; and grilled pork chop “calzones.

Smoke is the soul of true barbecue. As you climb the ladder of barbecue enlightenment, you’ll want to be able to smoke a variety of foods in a variety of grills and smokers. This show explores four diverse foods: ribs, turkey, salmon, and even a dessert—prepared in a traditional offset barrel smoker, a water smoker, a charcoal grill, and a stovetop smoker. Sorry…no gas grills allowed.

In 1516, a Spanish explorer encountered a band of Taino Indians roasting game and seafood on a wooden frame over a smoky fire. They called the cooking device a barbacoa-the origin of modern barbecue. This show takes us to the birthplace of barbecue-the Caribbean-where you'll learn to make Jamaican jerk chicken, buccaneer baby back ribs with pineapple barbecue sauce, and a Raichlen classic: shrimp grilled on sugarcane.

Gaucho describes the cowboys of northern Argentina and southern Brazil. These rustic cattle herders developed a simple yet powerful style of grilling over an open wood fire, a tradition still celebrated around Planet Barbecue today.Here are three indispensable gaucho favorites:Chicken roasted in a salt crust, from Uruguay's celebrity grill master, Francis Mallmann; the monster beef ribs that made the reputation of Brazil's famous grill house, Fogo de Chao; and a dessert from Brazil's cattle country, a pineapple you roast on the rotisserie.

Since Roman times, the Italian focus-hearth-has made monumental contributions to the world of live fire cooking. A new addition to the Primal Grill equipment collection, an authentic Italian-style wood-burning oven, inspired this shows menu: two versions of Italy's iconic food, pizza, cooked on the floor of the oven but easily adapted to a conventional grill; wood oven-roasted sweet and sour duck; and monster bone-in pork chops glazed with a reduction of red wine, honey, and balsamic vinegar. Benissimo.

The whole world grills, and a few countries smoke. But only one place on Planet Barbecue has highly evolved traditions of both-the U.S.A. (Of course, in the South, Midwest, and Texas, smoked meats are better known as barbecue.) In previous seasons of Primal Grill, we've shown you how to barbecue the familiar-chicken, ribs, and brisket. So here's a look at some less well-known regional live fire cooking: lobster the way we do it on Martha's Vineyard (my summer home); Texas beef clod-a massive cut from the shoulder that handily feeds a carnivorous horde; and Puerto Rican pork shoulder, seasoned with oregano and garlic, basted with annatto oil, and spit-roasted until the skin is shatteringly crisp and the meat fork-tender.

More than 5000 years ago, a potter in Central Asia made a tall, urn-shaped, incredibly efficient clay barbecue pit-the origin of the Indian tandoor. Today, tandoori, Indian barbecue, is enjoyed from New Delhi to New Caledonia to New York. This show features tandoori salmon (washed with garlic water and marinated in spices, yogurt, and chickpea flour). Next up, two traditional Indian charcoal-grilled breads made from the same dough: naan and flaky, puff pastry-like lachha paratha, followed by fragrant Persian-inspired saffron chicken tikka kebabs. Best of all, each recipe can be cooked on a conventional grill, too.

Some of the worlds biggest flavors come hot off some of the worlds smallest grills. Proof positive? Sizzling beef sates-cut from well-marbled rib eye steaks and masterfully spiced with cumin, coriander, and turmeric from tiny Singapore. From Guam, where the sun first rises on American barbecue, comes a main-course chicken salad like your mother never made: smoked chicken with freshly grated coconut and vivifying doses of lime juice and chiles. Cambodia boasts some of the world's best grilled corn (basted with coconut milk), while Malaysia gives us a unique way for preparing swordfish: slathered with lemongrass paste, then wrapped and grilled in banana leaves-a popular Asian technique that not only keeps the fish moist, but that keeps it from sticking to the grill grate.

Whether you're a vegetarian, feeding someone who doesn't eat meat, or simply crave meatless grilling from time to time, this show is for you. Smoked egg pate from Israel. (Think of it as turbocharged egg salad.) Grilled tofu with pineapple, cucumber, and a chili-peanut dipping sauce from Malaysia. Grilled bananas with a spoon-licking caliber coconut-caramel sauce from Thailand (as good for breakfast or a snack as a dessert).

Long before Spanish culinary mad scientist Ferran Adri stunned the world with his foams, infusions, and molecular cuisine, grill masters from the Iberian peninsula were setting the world of barbecue, well, on fire. Like Basque grill master, Victor Arguinzoniz, whose grilled shrimp calls for olive oil and txakoli wine misted from spray bottles. Or Matias Gorrochatequi, whose salt-grilled steaks are a masterpiece of fiery simplicity. (Serve them with calcots, flame-grilled green onions dipped in romesco sauce.) Catalan cream, crusted with spiced raw sugar and dramatically caramelized with a fire-heated iron disk, brings the meal to an unforgettable close.

Africa. Where mankind, grilling, and civilization began. Today, we take you to this mysterious, multi-cultural continent, where complex flavors and grilling techniques show just how far we've evolved since a human ancestor called Homo erectus became the first animal to cook his dinner. For starters, a South African specialty-incendiary piri-piri chicken wings. Then a Cape Malay twist on shish kebab-sosaties-pork and lamb skewers perfumed with red wine, dried fruit, and curry. From Nairobi, our grand finale: Kenyan spit-roasted lamb with sweet sour mint glaze-a reminder of the once-long reach of the British Empire.

When it comes to European grilling, Italy and Greece grab the headlines. Here's a look of some of Europe's lesser-known grilling traditions. From Belgium, its briny oysters grilled with an uncommon (and uncommonly delectable) combo of ginger, soy sauce, and fruit jam. Serbia gives us boned chicken thighs, stuffed and grilled with bacon, ham, and cheese. And from Germany comes the best barbecue you've never heard of'spiessbraten-butterflied pork shoulder stuffed with onions and garlic and spit-roasted over beech wood. Finally, straight from a wood-burning beehive oven, experience a mixed vegetable grill with Brussels sprouts. You saw it here first on Primal Grill.

Ozzies (Australians) and Kiwis (New Zealanders) may live half a world away, but they're every bit as grilling-obsessed as we North Americans are. Case in point: an Australian favorite, the proverbial "shrimp on the barbie", grilled here with basil and prosciutto and flambeed with Pernod. Or apostles on horseback-New Zealand sea scallops marinated in wine and grilled with smoky bacon. Grilling doesn't get much more primal than lamb on a shovel (chops grilled over a wood fire on a shovel blade), a specialty of the Australian Outback. G'day and good grilling.

Cook indoors and you often cook solo. Light a grill and you cook for a crowd. This show focuses on grilling for parties. Mexican grilled fish tacos, for example, where a single dish becomes an entire meal. Or burgers, ranging in size from bite-size kobe-style beef sliders to plate-burying, garlic- and chile-laced Bosnian pljeskavica. Smoked turkey makes another great dish to grill for a crowd: The Primal Grill twist comes from a brown sugar and orange marinade and tangy orange slather sauce.