Killing and Grilling
Pair your meats with blast beats
Look, I don’t know if the publishing schedule will ever get fully back on track. I did just free up all my Friday’s for the foreseeable future though, so maybe that’ll help. Regardless, I wanted to hit y’all with something before we hit the mid-year. This time around we’re talking about grilling, it is the time of year to do it after all.
I’ve got plenty of food experiments for you in the Baking the Fallen section, and lots of album recs since I’ve been so incredibly good at writing this regularly. Most importantly, I’ve got you covered with grilling and metal subgenre pairings. Let’s light this rocket.
Metal Subgenres to Pair with Your Grilling Efforts
There are few culinary pursuits more metal than grilling. It’s all open flames, dripping meats, and heavy smoke. Slapping the hacked-to-bits carcass of an animal over glowing embers is the most primal form of cooking, and the activity begs a soundtrack worthy of its brutality. Luckily, as a novice griller and an expert metal-listener, I can provide exactly that.
Now, this isn’t a grilling playlist. Those lean into friendly, approachable fare meant to be played during a family BBQ. Instead, this pairs your particular grilling subject with an appropriate metal subgenre. Let’s do it.
Burgers & Hot Dogs
There’s nothing more classic (and American) than slapping some glizzys on the grill (sorry, I couldn’t help it). It only makes sense to pair this activity with classic American dad metal. Now, that’s not a subgenre, but I think you know what I mean by that. I’m talking everything you grew up hearing, Metallica’s Black Album, Motörhead (yes, they’re British), and Pantera.
See, grilling burgers and dogs is a communal experience. It’s an activity often done with beer in hands and friends close by. Unless you’re hanging out with a very specific group of friends, or some very open-minded folks, you’ll wanna stick to the basics. After all, you don’t want to turn people off by blasting Afterbirth and you don’t want to ignore your guests by slapping in some headphones.
Veggies
This was one of the least intuitive ones, so I’m going with the first thing that came to mind. You’re gonna wanna play Korn, while you grill corn. Truthfully though, Nu-Metal is a good fit for this. Metal purists will say that nu-metal isn’t real metal, and some folks will say that grilling veggies isn’t real grilling. What’s more metal than pissing off as many people as possible all at once.
Veggies and nu-metal also pair nicely for the same reason dad metal and burgers do. Veggies don’t take long and are usually a side dish whipped up to serve a crowd. Given that the whole point of nu-metal is to be approachable and radio friendly, you could slap some classic nu-metal tracks into the same playlist you’re using for dogs and burgers.
Ribs
With ribs, we start to gently venture outside of the “grilling with friends” range. But whether or not we fully exit that realm depends on the type of rib (beef or pork) and the method of grilling (direct grill or indirect heat). Assuming we’re pairing all rib styles and approaches with a single(ish) subgenre of metal, I’m going to suggest power metal. This irrepressibly nerdy subgenre often features sword and sorcery elements, which makes me think of steamy taverns where jacked warriors are eating comically large ribs and drumsticks. You could take this a step further and move fully into viking metal, but I’m going to stick with power since I’m more familiar with the genre. Plus, you get a nice bonus in that power metal is a fairly wide umbrella, which pairs nicely with the large variety of cooking styles you can deploy when grilling ribs.
Chicken
Chicken can be grilled for friends, however, I approach grilled chicken in a utilitarian manner. It tends to be something I do for meal prep, since I want a delicious, flavorful meal in the middle of the week without having burn half my lunch break on making said meal. When I think of metal that reflects the purpose of grilling chicken, and the main elements of the act (speed, precision, and variety) I think of technical death metal. Now, you could consider prog metal here, but I think that pairs better with atypical meats, as prog is much weirder than tech death. You could also get away with some metalcore too. I think blasting Knocked Loose would work just as well as jamming to some Xenobiotic. Either way, both genres scream “I’ve got shit to do, and I’m gonna do it real hard.”
Seafood
Speaking of atypical meats, this is where we’re gonna get into prog metal. The only aspect of prog that doesn’t pair nicely with grilled seafood is the long average runtime of a typical song. However, you can take advantage of that by queuing up a single album and running through that while you whip up a killer piece of grilled salmon.
Outside of that, prog works really nicely with grilling seafood. When working with fish or shellfish, you need to work with immense precision. These meats are not forgiving. You overcook them and they’re virtually inedible. Prog metal reflects that high skill requirement and exhibits a stylistic flexibility that could be very useful considering that seafood includes everything from fish to squid, and cooking salmon is nothing like grilling some octopus.
Pulled Pork
The best way to cook pork is low and slow with a good helping of smoke, so the only acceptable pairing is stoner metal. The songs are long, loud, and meditative, which reflects the exact process of cooking a pork shoulder. Taking it a step further, I believe that pulled pork really shines when cooked using simple methods. Similarly, stoner doom shines when bands lean into the hazy, vibrating riffs. Wake up early, pack your grill (and a bowl, I won’t tell) and jam through Dopesmoker, Dopethrone, and Vaenir. By the time you get through those, you’ll be about halfway done with the shoulder.
Brisket
I haven’t attempted to grill a brisket just yet. So I’m in the realm of guesswork here. I think post-metal is a great companion to this cut of meat though. Like stoner doom, the typical post-metal album is deep, potent, and lengthy. However, while stoner doom is simple, post-metal is not. The average album in this genre could have everything from doom riffs to saxophones and blast beats, you never know exactly what you’re gonna get. Similarly, brisket keeps you on your toes. The temp needs to be right, the smoke needs to be going, the bark must be present. If you mess up anything, it might be edible, but it won’t be right. So follow the example of genre pioneers like Isis and Neurosis, or maybe even my favorite band in the style, Black Sheep Wall, and be patient, technical, and ever ready to change things up when the same old strategy stops working.
Some Music of Value
Idk about y’all but I know exactly what this album sounds like from the cover.
I’ll have a best of the half year coming up soon, so this won’t be very long. However, I don’t want to leave y’all without some decent recs:
Metal Stuff
Non-Metal Stuff
Baking the Fallen
Not so much baking going on lately, I tend to do that more in the fall and winter months. However, now that I have a house, and that house has a deck, I can FINALLY use my grill. For the past several weeks all I’ve thought about is grilling, how I can do it more, and how I can do it better. Here are a few smoky things that I’ve placed on a dining table in the past couple months, plus one baked good and some drinks:
Pulled Pork
Source: Perth BBQ School (technique, not recipe)
This was the first time I did a good job cooking pulled pork. I used the snake method described in the above link, plus a ThermoPro Bluetooth Probe (mine is the 2 probe version of this) to keep an eye on the pork and grill temp. I woke up early by my standards, got the grill moving and let it ride. Rarely did I adjust the vents, and the whole cook was done (initial cook, wrapped cook, rest, and shred) in about 8 hours. I’d like to have taken it to 14 hours total, but wanted to give the method a clear shot without tampering too much. Next time, I think I’ll omit the top row of briquettes, or I’ll start with the top vent half closed when I put the meat on. In any case, if you have a Weber kettle, give this method a shot.
Grilled Ribs
Source: Cooking in the Midwest
Thoughts: I really really wish that the above recipe included any sort of direction for charcoal usage, however, I was decently satisfied with this outcome. I got the grill way too hot and struggled to get it down to temp (it’s supposed to be a roughly 4 hour cook and mine was only 2.5 hours). Everything else was great, and even the meat itself was about in the right zone for a first attempt. I’m confident that the next time I give this a go, we’ll have some fall off the bone ribs with crazy flavor. Oh, I also made a bbq sauce for these ribs using the following recipe from Real House Moms. My wife loved the sauce and I think it’s solid. It was originally recommended as a replica of the Wood Ranch bbq sauce (California Santa Maria style red sauce) but I found it way sweeter than what I was after. Still good though.
Poppy Seed Cake
Source: The Cookie That Changed My Life by Nancy Silverton and Carolynn Carreño
Thoughts: BANGER. Really easy to put together by the standards of this book and super delicious. Silverton often uses the technique of whipping up egg whites before folding them into the cake batter and it really does make the cake much lighter and airier. The frosting is just fine, the cake is clearly the star in this one.
Sunflower
Source: The Action Cookbook Newsletter
Thoughts: Not gonna lie, I don’t know what cocktail that’s a picture of. My gut says that’s a mai tai, which is obviously not the Sunflower. Regardless, I wanted to highlight the Sunflower cocktail crafted by Action Cookbook. While I won’t reveal his recipe here (you should sign up for the newsletter, I linked it above, hint hint) the gin forward cocktail is well worth spending the time and money putting together. It’s the perfect Spring/Early Summer drink, so get to making it before it’s time for cold lagers and spritzes only (at least where I live).
Mint Julep
Source: The Action Cookbook Newsletter
Thoughts: Obviously Action Cookbook didn’t invent the Mint Julep, but his version of it is undoubtedly an improvement on the classic iteration of this drink. It follows the core essence of the drink, but elides the frustrating and messy process of muddling sugar or sugar syrup with mint leaves. Instead, ACB uses a homemade mint syrup to deliver the trademark fresh mint punch, without any of the mess. There, I’ve revealed part of the secret. Of course, you still need to sign up for his letter to see how said syrup is made.
Alright everyone, that’s it for this round of Apotheosis and Baking the Fallen. Hope you’re all enjoying your summers and not working too hard (it’s hot out there after all, don’t wanna overheat). Keep an eye out for my long delayed flowchart project and, likely more imminently, the best of 2024 so far.