Peace, Love, and Barbecue: Recipes, Secrets, Tall Tales, and Outright Lies from the Legends of Barbecue

by Mike Mills, Amy Mills Tunnicliffe, Danny Meyer (Foreword)

This unique combination of cookbook, memoir, and travelogue features 100 recipes, photographs, and behind-the-scenes stories from legendary pitmaster Mike Mills.

In Peace, Love, & Barbecue, Mike Mills, the unrivalled king of barbecue, shares his passion for America's favorite cuisine—its intense smoky flavors, its lore and traditions, and its wild cast of characters.

Through conversational anecdotes and black-and-white photographs, readers meet a diverse circle of colleagues and friends and join Mills in a behind-the-scenes tour of the barbecue contest circuit, with stops at some of the best “shrines, shacks, joints, and right-respectable restaurants.”

Also included are prizewinning recipes that have earned Mills his fame and fortune as a barbecue maestro. These 100 recipes will enable anyone with a grill to achieve champion barbecue flavor right in their own backyard. The selection features Mills own secret concoctions and treasured family recipes as well as choice contributions from his pitmaster friends, and it covers all manner of barbecued meat and fish, sauces and dry rubs, as well as the sides, soups, and down-home sweets that complete any great barbecue feast.

With its folksy, fun tone and its unique insider’s take on a hugely popular—and deeply American—subject, Peace, Love, & BBQ is perfect for barbecue lovers, food mavens, and cooks of all stripes.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Reference

360 pages, Paperback

Published May 20, 2005

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Please see: Mike Mills


In the world of barbecue, champion pitmaster Mike Mills is affectionately known as “The Legend.” He presides over the pits at his two nationally acclaimed 17th Street Barbecue barbecue restaurants in Southern Illinois.

In the early 1990s, he was co-captain of the Apple City Barbecue team, one of the most celebrated teams ever on the circuit. He is a four-time World Champion and three-time Grand World Champion at Memphis in May, otherwise known as the Super Bowl of Swine. He is also the 1992 Grand Champion of the Jack Daniel’s World Invitational Barbecue Cooking Contest and he won the Jack Daniel’s Sauce Contest that year as well.

Mike is the barbecue guru at and a partner in Blue Smoke restaurant in New York City. He was a founding partner in Memphis Championship Barbecue in Las Vegas. His book, Peace, Love, and Barbecue was nominated for a 2006 James Beard Foundation award and received the 2006 National Barbecue Association Award of Excellence. In October 2008 he was honored with the Pioneer of Barbecue award at the Jack Daniel’s World Invitational Barbecue Cooking Contest. Mike was inducted into the Barbecue Hall of Fame in 2010.

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is more than a cook book, but an love affair with BBQ.

[Ben Love · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than a recipe book; a definitive insight into southern barbecue and southern US living.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the Magic Dust and Lemonade recipes.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book exceeded expectations. Some of the recipes are a little dated but there's still alot of food information to be had. They stories and the who's who of bbq legends interviewed make up for any slight shortcomings in other areas.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this cookbook. It has great recipes plus lots of reading on the history of bar-b-que. I highly recommend this book.

[Randy Corley · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a long-term barbecue lover and recent backyard pit master, the stories were moderately interesting in getting some insight into the BBQ competition circuit. But where the book really shines is in it's recipes, and especially some of the side dishes that are just superb. The 17th Street Pit beans will be a staple at every future barbecue, as well as a number of the other dishes, and the Super Smokers chicken wings are just ridiculously good. While I'm personally convinced that the author giving away his authentic recipe for "Magic Dust" is one of the lies or at least tall tales described in the book's subtitle, it is still an amazingly good dry rub that will find many uses for a long time to come in my barbecues, whether or not it's the same as the original I had at 17th Street. I also appreciated the list of suggested barbecue joints, which I've made good use of on my travels, with the notable exception of not including a single listing from my home state of Oklahoma, where Dinks in my hometown of Bartlesville will always rate highly. In the end, my barbecue parties will never be the same after buying this book, and I mean that in a very good way.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cookbook that's put together right

I bought the kindle edition of this cookbook. IMHO (that's "Humble" in the South) I do LOVE bbq, having tried many Memphis bab joints. My husband and I are working our way over to Huntsville to try the recommendations from this book. I love the recipe hyperlinks that are combined at the end of the book. You can jump to any recipe via a hyperlink. I love the hyperlinks at the page numbers. Most of all- I just wanted to thank all the people who gave the recipes for all of us to enjoy and Mr. Mills/daughter and staff for their time and endless energy in visiting all of these places and putting the book together. What fun! I'm planning to try as many of the recipes as I can this Summer. Can't wait to try the lemonade, bbq rubs, sauces and vinegar flavored slaw.

[Brian Emgushov · Rating 2 out of 5]

So this book has some snippets of insights into the BBQ lifestyle. It provides snap shots of BBQ people, their restaurants/towns and of the competitions themselves with some recipes sprinkled through out. It is written in a folksey style with enough praise thrown around to keep everyone feeling good about themselves. I doubt it was meant to be read from start to finish. For me I find it easier to digest if I read a section, put it down, and come back to it in a few days to read a different one. That said I am really interested in trying some of the recipes.

[Desiree Kern · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is a combination of mainly Southern US recipes for BBQ, most of which were good. The rest of the book was a collection of stories and lies told by the family about their barbeque adventures. I had a hard time reading the stories, since I can only hear so many tales about great-grandma's secret steak sauce before I get bored. Some interesting recipes I plan to try this summer, but as far as reading quality... meh.

[Jon Packer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great balance of recipes and discussion, anecdotes and reflection. Not just a recipe book, not just a book about the culture. I really enjoyed this. Only downside is that it's perhaps starting to feel a little dated, it could do with a newer edition.

[Steff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't believe it's taken my this long to pick a copy of @17thstreetbbq's book. Can't wait to try some of the recipes.

[Jim Worthington · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a turning point in my love of smoking meat.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm hungry.