Smoking Beards and French Flair: Unearthing BBQ Secrets with Chef Frederic Casagrande

Embark on a delicious exploration as I, Carl Fiadini, invite you to savor the sounds and stories of the culinary world direct from Patrick Kelly Studios in Tampa. Chef Frederic Casagrande, barbecue maestro of Smoking Beard sits at the table of honor this episode, sharing his European heritage and the sizzling secrets behind his UAE barbecue success. The fusion of French finesse with the primal pleasure of smoke and char promises to excite your palate, with a sneak peek into a weekend menu that's sure to set your mouth watering for smoked short ribs and chicken. 

As we fan the flames of flavor, we celebrate the community that unites under the banner of good food. Join us as we reminisce about the World Food Championship in Dallas, where Chef Casagrande’s showmanship with a steak seared its way into our memories. Discussions reveal how culture shapes the chef's culinary vision, from his European roots to the bustling food scene of Dubai, all while plans for a special dinner event and themed podcast bubble in the background, ready to bring us together for a feast for the senses.

In this engaging exchange, we traverse the competitive world of barbecue through Fred's eyes, from tossing his hat into the pitmaster ring to the meteoric rise of his spice brand, Smoking Beards. We tackle the intricacies of marrying traditional French cuisine with smoky und

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:04

Hello, food Fam. This is the Walk and Talk podcast, your favorite food podcast, and I'm your host, carl Fiedini, welcome to the show. Today we're podcasting on the road at Patrick Kelly Studios in beautiful Tampa Florida. He's the host and founder of the Produce Industry podcast. Be sure to check him out. Find him on Apple and Spotify. On the menu this weekend and not today smoked short ribs and chicken. It's going to be a yum fest. We'll have the food photography ready for next week, probably come Monday. Thank you, peninsula Food Service for supplying the proteins for this weekend's production Today. Well, fire and smoke with Chef Frederick Casa Grande. Join us as we explore the story behind the brand Smoking Beards. It starts with mesmerizing blends of spices that has taken the barbecue world by storm. From his upbringing in France to becoming the UAE's barbecue champion, chef Frederick's passion and dedication to the art of cooking will leave you hungry for more. I know what does for me. Get ready to be inspired and indulge your senses on this mouthwatering adventure. Chef Casa Grande is on deck.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Jeff my man, my man, why don't you go ahead and pop the clutch? And I guess you know, do we let Patrick on a little bit today, or what?

Speaker 3: 2:31

I'm not going to turn his mic on yet, though I think we should, because you mean, yeah, we got to make payment for him for this, for giving us the use of the studio today. I know he didn't have to cancel a bunch of meetings.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Well, we are the number one podcast, I mean you know, he should be paying us a little bit Shots fired. You know what I'm saying. Shots fired, okay, oh my God. Men at Intra Music Pablo Vivas yeah, he does an awesome job so great. All right, I'm shutting off, but it's great. It is great. All right, patrick, you're on the air too. Welcome, patrick, kelly. Thank you for having me in my own studio. Patrick, kelly, patrick, kelly, patrick, kelly, patrick.

Speaker 4: 3:05

Kelly Patrick, kelly Patrick, kelly Patrick, kelly Patrick, kelly Patrick, kelly, patrick Kelly. So you're welcome.

Speaker 1: 3:15

So listen, all right, everybody out there like what the hell is going on. What changed, so John's not with us anymore. No, John, John's. John has the flu and we didn't feel like getting sick.

Speaker 2: 3:26

Yeah, well, we wanted to let him rest. That's true, I'm going to go with that one. Yeah, we'll let him rest.

Speaker 1: 3:33

And in the clutch, pk Patrick Kelly came through in the clutch with the hey, we're going to take over your space here and he went for it.

Speaker 4: 3:42

Anytime.

Speaker 1: 3:42

So thank you.

Speaker 4: 3:43

Anytime, anytime. I like having you guys here. I actually think it mixes up the office a little bit. I've got a lot of attorneys in this office and a lot of construction like design companies. So when they see like a bunch of people coming in with mics and boxes, they either think one, they're taking over the office Right, or two, what's happening. So I will tell you I am the most exciting and interesting person in this office, yeah, the most electrifying, yeah, anogenic. They all hear us right now. Like all of them right now are like what are they going to?

Speaker 1: 4:19

say, now Are they putting complaints in, yet Only if you're in the hallway. Okay, all right, so let's get back to food. So today we are going to be talking barbecue. Yep, now, jeff, I know that's a that holds a special place in your heart Definitely Right, your cooking skills, um, I get. What do you, would you say?

Speaker 3: 4:38

you're traditionally, uh, classically trained Like 100% classically French train, just like chef on the on the line right now.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Yeah, but then. But now you said you know what, screw all that I'm just going for. Uh, I'm going for hot coals and stuff like this.

Speaker 3: 4:51

Yeah, I think that, like I've always stated, I think when you get back to the roots of being primal, when we get back to cooking with fire, when you have a, you know the switch, when you're in a kitchen and you turn it on and you can cook and you can do things all in a minute. It's different. Being trained in the French classic cuisine style, you definitely add an an an weapon to your repertoire. When you're going into into barbecue, there's so many things that some of the barbecue guys don't understand about cooking or don't realize they can do with cooking. Where we come in and kind of like, hey, this works in French cuisine and that style of cooking, and what if I do X, y, z and that helps us out in? We like in exactly what chefs probably gonna talk about, but the rubs and the spices and how we can manipulate flavor profiles to.

Speaker 3: 5:36

But then the barbecue aspect of it, you add complexity to it. For instance, tomorrow's men or those weekends menu, we're going to be doing a ravioli that's going to be smoked with pecan first and then that's the short rib. Then I smoked the actual to cut the cheese mix with a cold smoke. So it's a layer of smoke on type of smoke. It's similar to what we did with Bo Jackson's, the one dish I did that everyone was ran and raving about this of each day. There was four different types of smoke in that In the actual ravioli there's two smokes in that one.

Speaker 1: 6:09

So actually three. So I'm not going to be there for this production, but you will. You will save me a plate Like.

Speaker 3: 6:16

I have. I have a ton of cause I wanted to. I'd spent a while for me to, since I've done actually any pasta does. So I got Samolina flour, you know, had it shipped in and I ended up doing the dough yesterday and I bought a beautiful stamp. My buddy beach up in New Hampshire, actually Keith's, saracen's, sue's chef. He was doing a demonstration presentation over in cater source and he had these beautiful Italian stamps. Raviolis that were actually. You can pop it and it would automatically pop the thing out with spring loaded. That's what it was. I was like, oh my God, I gotta get me one as soon as this came up. As far as the menu was concerned, I'm like we are still doing this right now Cause you know why it's national ravioli day in coming up actually. So that's one of the reasons why we have paella on that menu. We have a French bread because that's a national French bread day and there was one other national day.

Speaker 1: 7:11

Yeah, but ravioli kind of steals, the that's under oh it will.

Speaker 3: 7:15

It will definitely cause. We're doing a blueberry demiglace reduction. That has time, so you have blueberry time. There's Uzu and actually the ricotta mixture with the caramelized onions, so there's smoked, that I smoked. So there's citrus, there's blueberry, there's thyme. There's going to be a lot going on in that dish Even I think this if you didn't have beef. Well, you know what I mean. We're going to convert.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Patrick, back to beef.

Speaker 4: 7:42

Yeah, I don't know. I wish, I wish, I, I wish I could. Honestly, I got you.

Speaker 1: 7:48

I told you that we were talking off air a minute ago and you you were, I don't know you kind of lit up when we started talking about the farmer craveable dinners.

Speaker 4: 7:59

I did. You know that's it's one thing in in the industry to talk about. You know fresh produce or even the cattle and beef industry. You know I have a podcast that's scheduled in the next week or so that you know I'm going to talk to a cattle farmer and he was. I told him my experience with beef and you know he asked me the questions and I told him you know stomach issues and he said, hey, totally get it, Totally get it. I want to send you some product. You know, have your wife try it and I do want to know he's like. But I do want you to do one thing for me. I said, okay, he goes, don't swallow it. He goes, get a little piece of that dehydrated meat. He goes, chew on it. He goes. Right, he goes, think about like, chew on it. And just like you know you chew on a cigar when it gets down to the bottom, he goes. I want you to just enjoy the flavor.

Speaker 4: 8:46

You know, yes, that's what he told me. So he and he sent me like New York strip and all that, but the, the farmer's craveable dinner, I can tell you this right now is that it just wowed me both times, Jeff, that's one thing I can tell you is that the first time was a nine course meal, right, and then the second time we did a six course meal. But I can tell you, every time was an experience, and the first time, you know, it's even funny my wife said this, carl, and I think you'll appreciate this I said which one did you like better? And she goes oh my gosh, she's like that's a tough one, right, and it's hard for us because we had, you know, we had Bo Jackson at the second one, but you know she goes. I think both of them were comparable because both of them had great people there.

Speaker 4: 9:36

The environment was amazing, amazing at the Cobb Club, and the food was amazing and the community was amazing, and I think that's what hits those farmers craveable dinners. Listen, it's not even about, oh, we're trying to serve this specific meal or the specific deal. No, what it was was we were bringing people together that enjoyed produce, that enjoyed meat, right, and they enjoyed being together. So I always say like you know the industry and our produce industry, carl and Jeff, they did something called lobby bar. Remember, I've been telling you about that. I was like we got to. I got to find out what the name was. They did it right after COVID, but what they did was they went to restaurants. Like guys, this is the new type lobby bar. Like we want to bring people out to the farm and have a true farm to table experience.

Speaker 4: 10:21

You blew my mind two times. And what did they say? Like experience wise. Like you go, you go to the same place. You're looking for the same experience. Just like when I go to the Dominican Republic I'm looking for the same experience as last year. So I can't be like, oh crap, right, every experience with this farmers craveable dinner has one up. The next experience.

Speaker 3: 10:43

Yeah, and I think that's where we want to go with the farmers craveable dinners, because that's where the we've missed out. As far as the industry is concerned, after COVID being four years out, we we lost the experiences, we lost the surface aspect of it. Then we are a service industry, you know. Forget about the what we can put on a plate, because that hasn't really changed that much.

Speaker 4: 11:02

It's more of the experiences and how we deal with the experience 100% agree with that and my hat's off to to you guys for that and I think that for the industry, if you're listening out there, this is what we got to do. You know, let's stop going to Charlie steakhouse. I mean, I know I love it. We're in the industry, we service some of these guys with produce and long horns and I love going to those places. But if you want to like a true farm to table experience with like I always said, it's like a reception after a wedding If you want that with your community, this is the way to go, cause if you go, like I said when we were with Bo, I called you, remember. I said I need you to give me five to six restaurants Remember Carl Sure and you go. I'm on it, dude. You called me back within like two hours and I was like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait, wait, wait, You're like what am I doing here?

Speaker 4: 11:49

You're like is this VIP? I'm like yes, and you're like dude, we got to and remember what I told you. We got to find a place, that where Bo can't be recognized, because we're trying to have business, we're trying to do things right.

Speaker 1: 12:03

I said come here, kid, we take care of everything. I said you know you're going to spend the cash anyway, just you know, put it this way.

Speaker 3: 12:09

We take it towards the family, that's it.

Speaker 1: 12:11

Keep it here. That's what I said. Yeah, look, man, at the end of the day, we need to start doing more of these things. Actually, jeff, we're on a call tomorrow, tomorrow, 12. Yeah, we're going to see about our potentially our next one in Orlando, which would be really awesome.

Speaker 4: 12:25

A farmer's grave in Orlando.

Speaker 3: 12:27

Yeah, yeah. So I've already put the peeps that need to know. The team already knows.

Speaker 4: 12:33

It might be VIP again. I should be in right. Yeah, listen, that's a look, it's a given. It's a date night for my wife and I.

Speaker 1: 12:41

Listen, I'm glad I can be that special connector.

Speaker 4: 12:43

Oh my God, like, listen, because, like you just said, you're going to spend the money anyways, and I think that's what's so special about it, is that I mean I even called Carl I don't know if he told you this Like I was like hey, how much am I paying for this? And he's like you're not, but it's the fact of the matter is it offered though Well you put it I offered many times, I know

Speaker 4: 13:02

you told me I offered many. I should have just become a sponsor of the event, but because you know I was getting clapped when I was walking. Hey, he's finally here, walking in anyways. But I just think that it sets the bar. When you're delivering your community, you know even the purpose of just getting together, because, again, we get together with our community as it is Right. Look at us today. Hey, I need help. You guys are part of the community. Let's, let's figure this out. Well, here's what I'm thinking. So 250 today for the room each.

Speaker 1: 13:32

And then 750 to be on the show.

Speaker 4: 13:34

It's 750 to be on the show. That's at this point, yeah All right.

Speaker 1: 13:38

So what we're going to do, this is what I think we should do. We should have a barbecue, you know, themed farmer's graveable I could definitely do that and we bring the smoker. We smoking beards.

Speaker 3: 13:53

We bring, oh you bring, gov the gentleman that's on the green room right now, or in the green room right now.

Speaker 1: 13:59

In fact, I don't want to wait any longer.

Speaker 3: 14:02

I want to, I want to I would like to bring our esteemed guest. Yes.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Chef Frederick Casa Grande onto the program. Welcome, chef. How are you man?

Speaker 2: 14:15

I am excellent. How are you guys?

Speaker 1: 14:18

Man, if I was any better, I would be you. Do you know what I'm saying? I know you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3: 14:25

Where is chef right now in the world?

Speaker 1: 14:27

Where are you right now?

Speaker 2: 14:30

Right now I'm sitting in Dubai. It's a half past 10 PM, the weather is absolutely lovely and I'm having a fantastic conversation with my friends.

Speaker 1: 14:44

I mean the ones that are not us right.

Speaker 2: 14:48

Yeah, no, I mean real friends. You know the ones that are there, right, I get you.

Speaker 1: 14:51

Listen, would you be up for coming over to do a special dinner event for the, with the whole podcast and everything?

Speaker 2: 15:00

Yeah, absolutely All right, all right.

Speaker 1: 15:03

So you know I'm up for everything. You know that, right, of course I do Listen. I've said this a couple of times when. So we met every okay so audience. You know Fred. We became friends with Fred during the World Food Championship in Dallas last November and I got to judge one of Fred's events and it was the live fire cooking man. It was so awesome.

Speaker 3: 15:32

I wouldn't know I was too busy working. Yeah, well, too bad, so was I, that's.

Speaker 1: 15:36

I had a job to do and I was you were eating. That was my job.

Speaker 2: 15:40

And that's his job, that's my yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:42

Yeah, but the whole. I'm trying to give Fred a ton of props, so there was a like 20. I think there were like 20 contestants out there. Fred was the only showman he saw me. Obviously he, you know, he sees that I'm a slob. So what he first thing he does, he looks at me, he, you know, with this inviting smile and as he's smiling and looking at me, he's cutting pieces of steak. He's cutting pieces of. So he was bribing you, he was absolutely doing that.

Speaker 2: 16:16

So I mean full disclosure for the audience. I did put my meat in Karl's mouth.

Speaker 1: 16:21

Oh, my God.

Speaker 4: 16:22

Yeah, I've been waiting for someone to finally reveal that.

Speaker 1: 16:26

Thank you, this is this is the only time what happened in Dallas.

Speaker 4: 16:31

It's not anymore, not anymore.

Speaker 1: 16:33

The millions of people now know. So this is the only time in the history of my entire life and, yeah, it was delicious.

Speaker 2: 17:23

All right.

Speaker 1: 17:28

You done, you done real good. Okay, I think it was a cool. I was at a cool, or what were you cooking? Do you remember?

Speaker 2: 17:38

The meat yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:41

It was outside skirt steak Outside skirt. Yeah, I'll tell you what man. That was a great experience. So, all right, listen, you know your ancestry. Obviously there's a French accent. I think you're Casa Grande, so you're Italian, you're French. I think you've got a little German sprinkled in there. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Your upbringing and cultural heritage how did that influence your passion for food and cooking? Is that? What kind of drew you into this?

Speaker 2: 18:14

Yeah, so I mean, obviously in France, cooking is in the very important parts of everybody's life, right? I mean we spend a lot of time eating, we spend a lot of time celebrating foods around the table. It's not uncommon that after a five course meal, after three hours around the table, you're talking about what the next meal will be. So I grew up in a family that loved food, loved eating, loved cooking. So very early I was immersed in my mom's kitchen, my grandparents' kitchen, and you know what it smelled. Amazing it was just. It was fascinating. And being born on the border between France and Germany, there were a lot of different culinary influences there at play. So I think very early I was drawn to cooking, but also cooking different stuff from different places.

Speaker 1: 19:14

You won a competition, a barbecue competition in the UAE, correct? Was that the Rotanas? Was that the Rotanas?

Speaker 2: 19:26

No, no, no. So the Rotana was the first competition I attended, so I started food competitions in 2021. I didn't win the first one, so you know I was very disappointed, but then you know it's sports, so there can be only one winner and I really enjoyed the experience of competing in food. The competition that I won was the qualifier for the World Food Championship in the UAE in 2023. So that was June last year.

Speaker 1: 20:00

What was your inspiration to actually get into the competition?

Speaker 2: 20:06

Well, the inspiration for the first one was very clearly my wife. So it was a competition organized by a hospitality group called Rotana here, and they were looking for the best amateur pitmaster in the United Arab Emirates and she heard of that competition. She's saying you know, there is this competition and, like you know, I'm not sure I should do that, I'm not really into competition, just like you know, greeting in my backyard for my friends, and that she tells me you know the looks wipes can have sometimes you are competing, of course. So I did compete. Well, it's usually because they want to get you out of the house for a little while.

Speaker 3: 20:49

I think or get the prize, yeah, or the grand prize, or the grand prize, so you have a company.

Speaker 1: 20:57

You have a company, Fred, it's Smoking Beards, which is an awesome name, by the way and I have to say, let me just sidetrack your beard. Your beard is fierce, Just saying.

Speaker 2: 21:11

Thank you. Thank you, yours is not bad either. It's okay, it's all right.

Speaker 1: 21:17

So you know, I'm trying to come, see, come I'm trying to use when I'm older, you know, and I older you already are when. I grow up, I want to aspire to have Fred, to have Fred's beard. Yeah, no, but then he has a cut. His company is Smoking Beards too Like it's so awesome.

Speaker 3: 21:36

It's awesome.

Speaker 1: 21:37

Yeah, it's all about marketing. It is, and he's fantastic. They do a terrific job, by the way. What's your Fred? You were I'm going to put it on the description what's Smoking Beards on the Instagram? Right? Smoking that beard? Yeah, okay, excellent, and Smoking Beards came from where? Where did the name come from and what are your products?

Speaker 2: 22:04

So the name, the whole idea of Smoking Beard, actually came from a coffee meeting. It's going to be a very funny story that I was just dating with my future wife and she asked me okay, so what are your plans for the future? What are your plans? So I'm like, yeah, you know, we're going to finish the coffee and then we're going to take the bike and go here and go there. And she's like, no, no, what are your plans? So obviously it was like a job interview, so I talked about my aspirations to yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:34

So I talked about my aspirations and I'm like you know, one day I'm dreaming of having my own place, my own restaurant, like a jazz lounge, a figure club, something like that. And she's like okay, so what are you going to do to make it happen? And after half an hour of conversation we went with the concept of doing something a bit more serious, with barbecuing and, step by step, building a plan to enter this food and beverage industry. And on the spot, we were brainstorming about the name and she was looking at the beard she was looking at, funnily enough, you know, when you smoke a brisket, you can shower as many times as you want. Your hair and your beard will smell like smoke for a couple of days.

Speaker 2: 23:22

And she's like smoking beards. She plays with the word and at some point I was like you know what? That's an awesome name. And on the spot, with my phone, I read the domain name and, just you know, the same day we registered the brand and the trademark. So that's how, off the cuff, it really popped up and that's a brilliant story.

Speaker 1: 23:48

So your main products are what?

Speaker 2: 23:54

So the cornerstone of the smoking beards lineup are the spices. Because what happened during the first competition? So I created a dish. The dish was good but although it didn't win everybody who tried it, the judges and the audience over there were like man, the spices are awesome, where can I get them? And there was so much traction around the spice rods that I created for this recipe but maybe I want to something there. So we started producing a bit more of that and selling it. So end of 2021. And you know, in a couple of months we sold hundreds of those buckles which led to the establishment of the company. Now we have a lineup of three spices. So the second one is called the Southern Kiss and the third one I created for the World Food Championship, so for the UE Championship, and then the one in Dallas last November, the Bayou Blaze.

Speaker 1: 25:01

And where is your product available? Where do you find the spices?

Speaker 2: 25:05

So currently we're selling in the UE, of course, in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, we're selling in Philippines, we're selling in France and I am working on penetrating the North American markets. So I'm hoping that very soon those spices will be available to you guys in the US.

Speaker 1: 25:26

Yeah, we might be able to actually help you along with that. Also, do you find that obviously it's a grocery retail item, but do you have any push for food service?

Speaker 2: 25:43

So locally I do. So. I do private catering, I do private chefs, even supper clubs, pop-ups and so on and so forth. But I also do residencies. So I'm currently at the back end of a three month residency as a guest chef in a gas truck hub in Dubai. So I've created a menu for them and I've been training the kitchen staff and the whole brigade and we're cooking that, which is a barbecue inspired menu. We have six items there and you know patrons absolutely love it.

Speaker 1: 26:18

Fred, what is your favorite barbecue style for yourself?

Speaker 2: 26:24

no-transcript, but I like it. I like every style. I would say probably Texas barbecue, because this is what I've learned first, you know. But I like big cuts of meats. I obviously drawn towards rib eyes, tomahawks and stuff like that, but yeah, I like just a good juicy piece of meat with a nice crust.

Speaker 3: 26:56

So you've done into the sauces, then Are you into sauces?

Speaker 2: 27:01

as well. Not so much, I'm more into dry wraps than sauces, but I've done sauces I mean. Interestingly enough, Jack Daniels asked me to do a barbecue sauce a couple of months ago for the Steve Harvey open fire food festival, which was a big hit as well, you know.

Speaker 1: 27:20

I saw that. I saw on your I think it was Instagram with Steve Harvey and all that. That looked amazing. I wish I was there for that.

Speaker 2: 27:28

Yeah, I mean we're doing it again next year. So as soon as I know the dates, I'll let you know.

Speaker 3: 27:35

Perfect. So when you're doing your barbecue, do you? The style that I would like to know is do you do offset? Do you do like? What kind of equipment are you utilizing? Santa Maria, you do an offset.

Speaker 2: 27:50

So I'm lucky that I work with, with a local manufacturer. So those guys are amazing. Both of them are Americans. It's called exit 10 and they manufacture greens and smokers. What they've built for me. We call it the green reaper, the barbecue from hell. So it's kind of a huge contraption. That has one of those cranks you know and two scissors lift so I can. I can lift it like a period.

Speaker 3: 28:22

So you're doing similar to the Santa Maria.

Speaker 2: 28:25

Similar to the Santa Maria yeah gotcha. But I have such a big cooking surface on that that I usually only use half as direct. I, I agree, I use coal to start the fire, but then I I green on wood and then, you know, I just play with direct fire. In direct heats I have some space on the sides to to let the meat rest. It's extremely practical.

Speaker 1: 28:52

But do you make fun of people who are using you know smoke with you know, like a trigger or gas or gas or something like that Is that? Is that what you do secretly?

Speaker 2: 29:04

No, no, no, absolutely not. Like you know, full disclosure here. I have a, I have a Weber summit, so that's you know, the huge gas green. I have a pellet smoker as well as a as a wood smoker. I think each tool has a use. You know, if I want to smoke racks of sausages, maybe it's easier for me to just fire the pellet smoker, but but for my briskets I use the, I use the offset.

Speaker 1: 29:37

What's your? What is your most favorite rub? Like what? How are you? How? What's your foundation, your base?

Speaker 3: 29:48

Yeah if you want to let that secret out.

Speaker 1: 29:49

Yeah, I mean, look, I mean everybody has a secret. Everybody has a secret. Break it here first. I'm just saying, Fred.

Speaker 2: 29:57

No, no, I I'm biased. I use a lot of my own rubs. I I love the original. It works. It was created for for rebies and briskets and absolutely works miracles on those needs, so that that would be my go to my go to mix.

Speaker 3: 30:16

How did you get involved with barbecue Cause you're classically trained, correct?

Speaker 2: 30:22

Yeah, I've done. I've done a lot of classical training in France and here.

Speaker 3: 30:26

Right, what made you go? Oh, barbecue.

Speaker 2: 30:31

You know it's the fire. I mean, I heard, I heard you guys have this conversation and I fully agree with what was said. There is something completely primal Look at the kids when there is a bonfire. Yeah, exactly. We've drawn into that frame right.

Speaker 1: 30:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:47

And I think it's, it's inherited from from thousands, tens of thousands of years, where fire is the protection and fire is what make like, what makes ingredients edible. So it's it's at best it's a seasonal activity in France because the you know, I come from northeast in France and the climate is not really good, so most of the time you cannot barbecue. And then I moved to Dubai in 2008 and suddenly I had a backyard and I had some 364 days a year and it was amazing. So I this is really where I started playing with the fire In a desert in a desert.

Speaker 3: 31:32

He's playing with fire.

Speaker 2: 31:34

Not too hot, because, because, why not Right? You know, there is no such thing as a barbecue season.

Speaker 3: 31:42

Right, that's how it is here in Florida too.

Speaker 1: 31:48

But if you weren't but listen if you, if you weren't going to do, if you weren't going to be in, you know, doing a barbecue or smoking, what would you be cooking?

Speaker 2: 32:02

What's your own favorite? What was your favorite? Before barbecue Um, you know I like French cuisine a lot, obviously because this is what I've been exposed to most of my life. So spending the hours preparing a good beef bourguignon or something like that, it's delicious. We have a lot of meat and wine based stews in France. They're absolutely insanely delicious succulents.

Speaker 3: 32:36

Have you tried to replicate some of the cuisine that you did in France, but by barbecuing the protein and then building from there, like doing a beef bourguignon? With smoked beef instead of doing a braise.

Speaker 2: 32:51

Yes. So I mean, I've experimented with pulled beef to do like smoked pulled beef, to do the bourguignon. There's pulled lamb as well. That works in a similar way. So there is a lot of experimentation and playing around that you can do. It works the same, because the concept of those two is that you stew the meat for a very long time to make it softer, which is exactly what you do when you smoke a brisket for a long time. You take a piece of meat that would otherwise be very tough and you make it super soft and delicious, except that you infuse it with those smoky flavors. So you cannot really adapt the recipe one for one, but you can create something else that is inspired by that.

Speaker 3: 33:45

Exactly what wood do you have that you use and what's your favorite type of wood to smoke?

Speaker 2: 33:53

with Well, so here we have a supply problem, right, because there is no forest in the UAE, so we cannot really find good smoking woods domestic, so all the wood that we can find for smoking is imported. I use English oak. I think it's a wood that is very well balanced. It's not overpowering, so it works with pretty much everything, and the one that I have is extremely dry, so there is a very good quality smoke and it almost leaves no ash at the ends, which is good as well.

Speaker 1: 34:37

Are you bringing this English oak to Indiana, or what?

Speaker 3: 34:43

Probably not.

Speaker 2: 34:48

If I was closer to the US, I would have different supply chains, for sure. Yeah, but I want the English oak.

Speaker 3: 34:54

He wants a taste that would be like for English oak, because here in Florida we have oak that's indigenous. We also have some cedar and some cypress that we have here, which is really different. But then we also have the hickory, the misci, the cherry, the pecan.

Speaker 2: 35:13

So I have an assortment of all those woods in smaller chunks and in chips so I can always add, I mean layer the smoke in different flavors but the volume smoking. I mainly use oak. I would suspect American oak is probably the same flavor profile.

Speaker 3: 35:35

It's very neutral in its smoke. It doesn't overpower the meat Like hickory and misci, I find sometimes it takes those types of woods actually become the star, not the protein, where I think the protein should be the star and the smoke should be the supporting actor.

Speaker 1: 35:52

I like that.

Speaker 4: 35:54

I actually do like that.

Speaker 2: 35:57

That's the problem I have with many sauces. It's like as soon as you coat your protein with the sauce, there is a tendency that the sauce might become the star of the dish.

Speaker 3: 36:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:12

This is something that's quite difficult when you do spice mixology, when you create a spice rub. It's something that adds flavor, that adds enough flavor that it does make a difference and that you can still feel what the meat is.

Speaker 1: 36:28

Oh, you always have to definitely feel that Karl knows that. Yeah Right. So I think smoking beards should be like the official feeder of the Walk and Talk podcast.

Speaker 3: 36:43

I'm okay with that. After Dallas, I'm so okay with that. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 36:51

Oh, my God, those days were so long, chef. What do you got coming up next? What's your next pick thing? The Walk and Talk show After today.

Speaker 2: 37:03

After today, we're waiting for the episode to air in the UAE and rise to fame thanks to you guys.

Speaker 3: 37:13

No, thanks to you.

Speaker 2: 37:17

No, I mean, jokes aside, there is a lot in the pipeline. If you followed my feed on Instagram, you saw that the past couple of months have been incredibly active and there has been a lot happening. So right now, as I said, I'm finishing my residency in JV's Gastropod. By end of March, I'm going to take two weeks of leave where, hopefully, I'm going to be grilling that just for pleasure, and then we're going to start the next phase of smoking beards. I mean, there is a lot of retail and wholesale activities that may come to fruition from a spiced perspective. The next residency I can't talk about it right now, but very soon we'll be able to announce that and we're looking at barbecue classes with some of the culinary institutes around here. So definitely, barbecue is going to be even more prominent on the UAE food scene.

Speaker 3: 38:27

Is there a type of UAE barbecue or is there one that's starting at? Could you Be the father of that cuisine or that type?

Speaker 2: 38:41

I would say culturally, in the Arab world they've always grained meat, but it's not what you would expect as a barbecue type of cuisine in North America. So it's more, you know they have those kofta, which is kind of minced meat with spices.

Speaker 4: 39:00

Yes.

Speaker 2: 39:03

So, and also because of the type of meat that are used and the cultural appetite, it's more on the well-done side, and so when the locals do barbecue, this is the type of stuff that they are doing on the grill, which is not the ribeyes and the brisket and so on and so forth. So all these type of American barbecue are relatively new in the country, but it's really it's becoming a big thing, and for the past three years you can see a lot of steakhouses and even smoke houses popping around in the country.

Speaker 3: 39:46

So there's not one definitive, like here in the States, as you know, there's Texas, there's Tennessee, there's Kansas City, north Carolina or the Carolinas with the Mustards, then there's Florida with the Floribian. There's not one that's like coming up to be like that's the UAE kind of way of doing things, or is it finding itself? I guess is a good question.

Speaker 2: 40:10

Yeah, I think. I think it was still in the early stages. So there is definitely an Arab way of doing grilling. I would not qualify that as barbecueing, because it's something different, but everybody who also it's, because the way of the UAE operates right. I mean, they have no exactly, but between 15 and 20% of local population. The rest is expats, and those expats come from all over the world and they stay in the UAE maybe, you know, one year, five years, 10 years and everybody brings their own culture, everybody brings their own cuisine. So you have people who come and they will start barbecuing with their own style, depending on where they come from. Other people see that, they learn from it and this is how you have this, you know, hot spot of many different cuisines that collide and that sometimes creates some very nice associations. I got to see, I'm really hoping that in the coming years, yeah, something local emerges as the UAE style.

Speaker 1: 41:19

I need to figure out how to get you some Creekstone Farm beef. I think you would.

Speaker 3: 41:24

It's Indiana, we can get it up there. When he's in Indiana for the World Cup, I'm talking about over there.

Speaker 1: 41:32

I don't know that's.

Speaker 3: 41:34

We're going to figure that out, yeah we got to figure some stuff out involved Very fast plane.

Speaker 1: 41:40

Okay, uh, true story. Very fast plane, don't have time for a time to work.

Speaker 3: 41:47

You ain't going to be on a slow boat, I'll tell you that much.

Speaker 1: 41:50

All right, I appreciate you being on the show. Can you one more time?

Speaker 3: 41:57

Where can everyone find you besides Instagram? Yeah, whatever that is.

Speaker 2: 42:03

Um, so I mean online. We have a website, so it's smokingbearscom. Instagram is the best way to reach us. That's smokingbears, and if you are lucky enough to be around the UAE and in Dubai, just give me a buzz online and I will tell you where to find me, and I agree for you.

Speaker 1: 42:24

Well, someday we're going to come over there at some point, and be sure, by the way, don't forget to say hello to Tarek and Ola for us. I will, I will definitely. Yes, certainly Patrick. He's still here, I guess, but listen we appreciate you, man, for using your space. Jeff, as always, you're awesome. Chef, thanks for staying up for us.

Speaker 3: 42:47

We appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 42:49

I was just going to give you the idea. I do it to you all the time. Oh my God, always jumping in front of me. Dude Chef Frederick Casagrande, Thank you for being on the program. Thank you for waiting up all night for this.

Speaker 2: 43:04

We appreciate you, man, and we can't wait to see you. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 43:07

Cannot wait to see you again.

Speaker 3: 43:10

Looking forward to it Breaking some bread.

Speaker 2: 43:12

So indeed is. In 232 days. I see you there, he knows it.

Speaker 1: 43:16

We will see you there. And guess what we are? Oh, peninsula Food Service, make sure you're going out there. Chefs, go see him, we are out.