Hoax Exposed?

     Epicurious.com recently reprinted an article by Adina Steiman.  It was titled  "Beer can Chicken is a Hoax."  That caught my eye because among my modest collection of cook books I have Steven Raichlen's Beer-Can Chicken and 74 Other Offbeat Recipes for the Grill.  It was a Father's Day gift way back in 2002.

     In the introduction to that tome Raichlen states that the process of roasting poultry using a half empty can of beer is..."startlingly simple:  You grill a chicken upright over an open can of beer.  What results is the moistest, most succulent, and most flavorful chicken you've ever tasted."  

     He goes on to make the claim that the rising vapors impart a delicate beer flavor, simultaneously keeping the bird juicy and tender.  And because steaming takes place inside the chicken, the meat stays moist but the skin doesn't become soggy.  And this is all because, "...You roast a seasoned chicken in an upright position on an open can of beer."

     Ms. Steiman takes exception to that premise.  She begins her argument this way..."The chicken that came off the can never tasted that much better or worse to me than the average barbecued bird."  She then cites the findings of the award-winning editor of amazingribs.com - a person with a rather dubious moniker, Meathead Goldwyn.  The name alone makes me wonder what award he might have received.  But apparently he co-authored, along with Greg Blonder, Ph.D., a recent publication, Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling.  It seems their goal is to debunk many time-honored but wrong-headed ideas about outdoor cooking, beer-can chicken being one of them.

     In an interview Ms. Steiman conducted with Meathead she got the low-down on what she termed, "...the biggest grilling hoax in recent history."

Tomorrow: The facts about beer-can chicken