Roger travels to Texas, Hawaii and more to celebrate the art of pit cooking.
Roger visits Popeye's in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and Epicure Catering in Omena, Michigan, and lends a hand to the owners of both restaurants.
Roger is put to work at Perini Ranch Steakhouse in Buffalo Gap, Texas, lighting up burn barrels for the metal pits. Then, dessert is baked in a coal-covered cast-iron Dutch oven. Also: a restaurant in Pinedale, Wyoming, where steaks are skewered on pitch folks and deep-fried in giant cauldrons.
Roger is on the lookout for truly unique rigs, like a steel contraption that can cook up to 1,000 pounds of food in Denver and an impressive barbecue trailer in Texas.
Roger learns that everything is bigger in Texas. Included: he meets the pit master at "Armadillo Palace" in Houston and gets to see his custom rotisserie trailer in action, when they roast a 250 pound side of beef. Also: Roger helps the chef/owner at "Cured" restaurant in San Antonio slow roast a 230 pound hog in a large outdoor cinder black pit.
Host Roger Mooking tours the facility at Jacobson Salt Co. in Notards Bay, Oregon, and learns how to make sea salt from the owner. Later, he helps a Portland-based chef stuff a 20 pound halibut with lemons and herbs, encrust the whole fish in salt and roast it over a wood-burning fire.
Chef Roger Mooking travels to Llano Soco Ranch in Chico, California, where he helps stew roast a 30 pound porchetta. Later, he offers a hand to caterers in Sandy, Oregon, preparing to serve roasted mussels and a stew made of white bean, chorizo and clams.
A trip to North Bend, Oregon, finds chef Roger Mooking helping to roast a school of salmon for a traditional tribal feast. Then, in Los Angeles, the owner of "Pok Pok La" shares the secrets to his famous whole roasted chicken.
Roger Mooking hang with two chefs, who are putting a whole new spin on rotisserie cooking in the great outdoors. Included: succulent legs of lamb in Alexander City, Alabama; and a Charleston restaurateur's backyard contraption for roasting whole strings of ducks and chicken.
Host Roger Mooking cooks up two whole hogs in two different ways. Included: he visits MOPHO restaurant in New Orleans, where chef Michael Gulotta's Southeast Asian spit-roasted pig is a twist on a classic Southern tradition. Also: Mississippi chef Miles McMath hinges two steel troughs together to make a convenient and quick cooking oven; and fries hand pies for dessert over an open fare.
The owner of a butcher shop in Georgia prepares more than one dozen rabbits, rotisserie-style, with bamboo polex; and in Plano, Texas, Roger visits Smoke to take a stab at cooking flank steak and chicken on swords.
Two Southern ladies famous in the world of barbecue. Included: smoked ribs at Mary's Old-Fashioned Pit Bar-B-Cue in Nashville; and pork shoulders, pork ribs and a whole stick of bologna cooked by a legendary pit master in Brownsville, Tennessee.
Savory and sweet flavors are found in Florida, where Roger meets a young pit-master who pulls pork with a power tool and digs into a sandwich called the Hamaburger. Later, a farmer presenting the tradition of making cane syrup is visited in Dade City.
In the Season 5 premiere, Roger Mooking meets a chef who uses a unique coal-fueled contraption, called the Cross Table, to roast butterflied pork marinated in bold adiote paste; and later, he simmers a seafood paella in a massive pan. Also: a trip to the OverBird in Birmingham features a meat-lover's feast of lamb, rabbit and beef, along with seasonal veggies.
