Meat Of The Matter
Words by Josh Jones
Photography Stephanie Sian Smith
You’d think someone called DJ BBQ would have a background in fire. But for the ball of energy who’s more normally known as Christian Stevenson, it’s the opposite — he comes from the snow.
Getting his first snowboard in 1984, he chased winters around the world as soon as he graduated from college making snowboard films (including the much pirated ‘Day Tripper’) and music videos. But everywhere he travelled, he’d make sure to pack a grill in his van to cook barbecue for his crew. The mid- 1990s saw him presenting the BAFTA-winning ‘RAD’, a cult, late-night extreme sports TV show on the UK’s Channel 5. And he still packed his grill, forever trying (and mainly failing) to convince producers to let him bring his grill skills into the show.
When YouTube asked Jamie Oliver if he’d get involved with their new Food Tube venture, the celebrity chef knew who to call. Now DJing and barbecuing at festivals, Christian was Jamie’s first signing to it — his videos made him the number two barbecue channel in the world. A decade on, he’s published four bestselling books (with more in the works), is a judge at the Taste Awards, is TV show ‘This Morning’’s barbecue expert, hosts the ‘Bizarre- BQ’ video series with Ardbeg, and still hosts stages and cooks at major food festivals. We hung out with Christian in his back garden in South London on a sweltering summer’s day while he cooked up a brisket for us.
Have you ever got bad food poisoning from a barbecue?
Yeah. I did a pilot for Red Bull X-Fighters series where we were doing all the street food around Mexico City. So I ate a lot of crazy tacos. The trouble is they have plates but just put plastic over them and serve the food on that. When you’re done they pull the plastic off and put more on for the next food. The plates never get washed — that’s just how they serve the street food. I ended up in the hotel for two days rewatching ‘Game of Thrones’. Sitting on my own throne...
Is it right that we can sort of thank Jamiroquai for you ending up on the UK shores?
Yeah, Jamiroquai and the people around him. I was doing a snowboarding movie in America called ‘Blindside’ and I decided to come to the UK to find distribution. We did the movie and I loved English music so I came over and I wanted to meet a couple of the artists that were on the film’s soundtrack, like Swervedriver and William Orbit. I met the manager of Swervedriver who told me he was signing a new band and gave me a demo tape. I took it to Portugal to do some surfing and partying and it was by a band called Reef. I had my little Walkman speakers on the beach and I was checking out their track ‘Good Feeling’. I then got to meet their marketing manager at Sony who was like, “we gotta get you to go meet Jamiroquai — are you good to fly to Barcelona in two days?” We ended up shooting a video out in St Anton. We put a Walkman under Jay’s hat and he lip-synched to ‘Lightyear’s’ while sliding down a mountain. This was back in 1994. We did the Jamiroquai music video and I was always more behind the camera when it came to action sports but then I got a series on MTV with Kylie Minogue, and I did a pilot of ‘RAD’ for Channel 5 and it just took off. ‘RAD’ ran for 17 seasons over a decade. It all sort of came from us getting that work with Jay Kay. It was right at the end of those 1990s mega budgets so it wasn’t cheap but we did it for cheap. We’re skaters and snowboarders and are resourceful people. They kept putting us in these really fancy hotels like the Langham Hilton and we were like “can we just stay in the van and keep the money?”
Other than your family teaching you their tricks, it was your college roommate Rodney Bryan who introduced you to a lot of barbecue flavours, right?
Rodney is one of the smartest men in America. I remember when I finished school, I’d got my Bachelor of Arts in Radio, Television and Film and was like I’m outta here to snowboard in the mountains. Rodney did aerospace engineering. I met him in orientation in the first week of college and we just clicked. Rodney was one of the hardest-working dudes I’ve ever known. He taught me Carolina Pulled Pork and how it all works, using just the right amount of sauce to get that tang. We’d get the potato buns from the supermarket, some slaw, and cook a shoulder of pork all day on a Weber in the backyard. Rodney’s just one of the best human beings in the world, I’m still friends with him — I see him every Christmas.
Some people think barbecue food can only be done one way but you went travelling and learned different cultures and how they cook with fire.
I’m always learning! I’m always travelling and there’s never any right way to cook something. I might have opinions on things and I prefer a live fire and charcoal and wood to gas, but I was in Memphis for the World BBQ Championships recently where I was reviewing ribs. I went to a place that did a one-hour rib. I was thinking there’s no way you can cook a rib in one hour. The guy whose father built the place was telling me they were all about the staff, giving them a month paid holiday, full healthcare, etc. There was a guy called Henry on the pit who’d been working there for 30 years and his son now works with him. The pit itself has charcoal on the bottom then 18 inches of grills, they put the rib bone-side down for the first 45 minutes, flip it to the flesh, add a vinegar mop, no seasoning until the end when they do a dry Cajun/Greek rub. And that’s the one-hour rib. And you know what? It was a banging rib. I spend hours on my ribs so was like, I have to rethink this.
When you were travelling were there any new techniques that really opened your eyes to cooking with fire?
Portugal changed everything. For one you get great produce there, but also it’s just being with someone with a different set up from yours and watching them cooking on it. I remember there was this guy with a big bucket of ash and I always thought you should keep your charcoal clean to get a good burn. But he was saying he wanted to suffocate his charcoal. He was trying to cook his fish and he wanted it hot but not too much and was using the ash to regulate the temperature. And that’s when I learned that lump wood likes to be in an ash bed. Too much oxygen will just burn it through but, with briquettes, they don’t want an ash bed — you’ll have a hard time getting them going. Lump wood wants a little ash duvet, but no covers for briquettes. I used to do a lot of snowboarding so we’d see lots of crazy cooking techniques. We went to Ecuador to climb four volcanoes and we’d see the guinea pigs on sticks over the pit. I love my life.
How important is smoke in cooking?
I look at smoke and fuel as an ingredient. We use Whittle and Flame charcoal — I’m cooking the brisket for this feature on their sustainable Whittlebricks, which last about three hours if the barbecue is open but can last nine hours if it’s closed. I think they’re the only sustainable brick in the UK, possibly the world. One of the guys who runs it is Matt Williams who’s also one of the top three thatchers in the world. If you buy charcoal locally then you’re looking after the woodland. A woodland that pays is a woodland that stays. They distill the wood like a whisky so it stays a bit lower in temperature. It still turns to carbon but it retains the woodnote flavours. For this brisket I’ve been putting Ardbeg whisky staves on top of the charcoal for the added smoky flavour. It’s a real whisky brisket.
Do you remember the first time you cooked a big brisket?
Yeah, I do. As it was my first time I didn’t know how to slice it, I didn’t know what I was doing and it rained the whole day. I did it for Food Tube and Jamie Oliver had given it to me. I’d never cooked it before but I tried it. I think the brisket is the Holy Grail of barbecue because they take so long. I had to get a smaller one for this Sandwich feature just so we could get it done in time.
Is there a particular breed of cow that makes the best brisket?
Well, you know, it’s really the fat. The brisket kinda holds up half the cow, which is why it’s so tough. A lot of briskets in the UK dry out too quick, and that’s because the UK has the best-tasting meat in the world — the animals are raised on grass and flowers and fauna and stuff. In America it’s all grain fed, which makes them fatty and bulks them up too quick. Feed ‘em fast, slaughter ‘em next. There’s a sweetness to that meat. I do like a Nebraskan corn-fed rib-eye or sirloin. I grew up on that sweetness, I know the taste through the fat but I think there’s more of a better dynamic flavour of fat in the UK, which you also get from dry-ageing and the fact the UK has some of the best butchers in the world. I have the best butcher in England right on my doorstep, Nathan Mills from The Butchery. He sourced me the leg of a 17-year-old Shetland cow that had been living on an animal sanctuary in Surrey for years. Just living a happy life, and at the end of that life we ate it. Because that’s the best use of that protein. I go onstage a lot with vegans and I always agree with all their points. And then I give them a bit more knowledge, why wouldn’t I want to eat the animal at the end of its good life? It would be a waste of the protein if we didn’t eat it but let it have its good life. It’s commercialised farming in meat and vegetables that’s gonna kill everything.
What are your thoughts on lab-grown meat?
Oh, gosh. You know my university (Maryland) was the first one to develop the lab-grown steak? It’s one of the best farming engineering programmes in America. I remember when I was there, there was a cow with four glass stomachs and you could actually see into its stomach, digesting away. The problem with the lab-grown stuff, and I do get it, but there’s a lot of process to make it and that worries me. But how do you feed the planet? That’s the problem. Weirdly, I get a lot of work from the meatless meat brands. I know there’s a reason for that stuff and I’ll use it — I have a lot of friends who are vegan so it’s great for me to cook for friends. I’m always wondering why they want to meet with me but I guess they already appeal to vegans and they want to tap into the meat world via me. And, you know, I’ve got mouths to feed.
Do you ever realise that DJ BBQ’s become a brand bigger than a guy behind a grill?
It’s a brand but I still don’t look at it as just me. We have a team and you don’t get many brands where you get a really good 360. We do video content, behind the scenes, some adverts here and there, but you can also come to a festival, eat our food and come and talk to us face to face. And have a dance. I remember one time at Camp Bestival, Rob da Bank came over to my tent on a late morning Saturday and said he’d heard we had the best sound system at the festival the night before. How did a food tent do that? I told him we played to the crowd. We’re not pretentious anymore, we don’t try to educate people too much. We play what the crowd wants. We always love playing ‘You’re Welcome’ from the ‘Moana’ soundtrack because T-Bone on our team has a kid and he’ll sing every word. We learned a very valuable lesson after year one and that’s don’t do festivals where people are on drugs. They won’t eat till Sunday
Was there a moment when you realised you actually knew a shit ton about science because of all the barbecue skills you’ve acquired?
Like the red ring that appears on brisket is due to oxidation and you have to cook a brisket for so long because you need the collagen to break down. It’s just hanging out with charcoal guys and having them explain to me the terminology. The coppicers, charcoal-makers and woodsmen — I love hanging out with them, I love talking to doctors of dirt. I had one on stage with me, a guy called Toby, when I was hosting at a festival and the guy was like, “just to put it in perspective, we eat cows over here and in India they don’t, but there’s 15m more dairy farmers in India than there are people in this country. That’s how many people live in India, and they ain’t killing them.” He gave me all these crazy dirt facts and poohpoohed all the veganism bullshit. If you ever get anyone who’s a vegan, just talk to a doctor of dirt who’s got some balance.
Are people surprised when you can go deep into the science of what’s happening in the cooking process?
I think so. People might be surprised because I kind of sound like I’m out of ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’, I love wrestling and I have a kind of Southern accent. But I surround myself with really smart, good people and I listen. My dad always said that listening is one of the hardest skills there is. He told me to learn people’s names and listen to them. Because then I’ll gain knowledge and it’ll make me better. He told me to keep asking questions, that you can’t ask a dumb question. Because I get to host so many stages I get to find out a ton of stuff. You just keep hitting people for information and it’s so exciting when you find out stuff anew. I’m 54 and I don’t know dick, but I’m always learning, especially from the kids. I know a little bit of somethin’.
How do you replicate the adrenaline of your snowboarding days? Or do you just not need to?
I get the same rush when I’m cooking. I used to live for the winters — at one point I just chased the winters around the world but then I realised my knees didn’t like it. I’m 54 now and I still love skating but I just don’t chase those buzzes. I get a big buzz from cooking and throwing a party, DJing, putting out food and making people happy. That’s my buzz. I also get a buzz as a full time solo dad as well. Trying to keep this fucking motley crew intact. There’s three teens and me living in a three-bedroom house. There’s just us and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier. I’ve had so many happy moments in my life but it just keeps getting better. I’m just stoked. I wouldn’t mind a little bit more sleep — when it hits summer season I’ve got to babysit the smoker overnight so I usually get three or four hours of sleep a night.
Do you feel like you’ve levelled up a bit? You did a decade with RAD, then a decade with Food Tube. Now you’ve got best-selling cook books.
I’m not a competitive person any more — Jamie Oliver had some good advice for me, which he got from Sir Paul Smith. He told Jamie to quit trying to be number one because all you’re doing is worrying about being number one. Just be happy with being two or three or even top ten. If you’re trying to be number one all the time it’ll just stress you out, so sit back in the top ten somewhere. Jamie took that on. He also gave me some really critical advice that changed my life. We were on a chairlift in Italy, snowboarding together, and he said, “You know what your problem is, Christian?” I was like, “What?” And he told me that I have to be awake to make money. I told him that’s how it works, I get paid to host and cook and DJ. But he said I need to learn how to make money when I’m sleeping. And that is through books. And he put the phone call in to Penguin to get me the deal. And then I knocked him off the top spot. I just enjoy life and have some fun, but it really felt good when I went number one with my latest book. We’d done so well on the three before and this was our difficult fourth album. But then some of the best albums are the fourth: ‘Morrison Hotel’ by The Doors,‘Lifes Rich Pageant’ by REM, ‘Big Red Letter Day’ by Buffalo Tom, Kings of Leon’s biggest album was the fourth.
And you went to number one with yours!
Yeah! But you try and stay at number one and people like Tom Kerridge keep coming back because he’s got nine festivals going on and he’s on TV. We’re up against juggernauts like Tom and Jamie Oliver and Gordon. Actually, T-Bone who’s my partner in crime, was hosting Pub In The Park with Tom Kerridge and he was all nervous as I usually do that. He didn’t know how to introduce Tom Kerridge so we decided to have some fun with him. We introduced him as a chef who “did have a number one book in the country yesterday. I’m sure he’ll get back there” — of course that day we were number one and the next he went back to the top. Just a little bit of smack talk. I remember when I got custody of the kids and I was looking at trying to change my lifestyle and not travel. I went to Octopus as I wanted to do a book. They said they were going to sign me and were going to give me a deal in three weeks. Three weeks later there was no deal and I asked what happened and they said they were talking to the board of directors and they thought I’d cannibalise their stocks. They do Weber, Richard Turner and a lot of similar people. I couldn’t believe they thought I’d take away from them and outsell them. I wasn’t there to take from the pie, I want to make the pie bigger and elevate the scene. Right now the scene is just June to September but it should be all year long. Who wants to sit around hot coals in the hot sun?
I remember going on ‘This Morning’ and Phillip Schofield was like, “Why do we always call DJ BBQ on the hottest day of the year?” I want to stand around hot coals in the spring and autumn. I want to do Christmas dinners on it. The success of ‘Fire Food’, which was our second book, has become a little bible so it was actually outselling our new book at one point. I’ve got a whole load of ideas of what to do with DJ BBQ and not just with me. I’ve got kids coming up into the company, T-Bone’s family, it’s not just me anymore. It was in the beginning, just me and a bunch of people but it doesn’t need me to be the face of it all the time. T-Bone’s the face, our super French DJ, Olivier is the face of it when he’s DJing, and my son Blue shoots all the media for us. He’s going to be doing all the front-of-house stuff on the festival circuit with his friends. It’s all organic. I can’t do the jumps anymore because it hurts for weeks after.
If you could be the best snowboarder in the world but had to give up one meat, what would you banish out of existence?
Oh, man! I can’t give up beef. Pork’s how we make our money, and how can I give up bacon? How important is chicken? It’s the most Googled food in the world. Can I give up goat? I guess you need one of the main four. I could give up lamb but it’s one of my favourites. I think I’d have to choose between the top five proteins of beef, pork, poultry, lamb and fish... I’d have to give up lamb. I really had to think about that. I could marry lamb fat but I’d give it up to be the best snowboarder in the world. But you know what? The best snowboarder in the world is the one having the most fun. And that’s usually me.
Ardbeg sent DJ BBQ into the wild to find pioneers of the grill and fellow smoky flavour fanatics for their new video series, Bizarre-BQ. Find out more here.
