Food TV
Austin pitmaster fires up guest spot on upcoming Cooking Channel show
With years of featured appearances on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives; Chopped; and other popular shows, it's clear that food television producers can’t get enough of the Capital City. Now, the city is in the spotlight once again as Austin pitmaster Ted Prater makes a debut appearance on the Cooking Channel’s hit series Man Fire Food.
Hosted by Canadian chef Roger Mooking, the show takes viewers on a culinary trip around America, highlighting regional barbecue cooking. Unlike other similar show, however, it doesn’t always highlight the most obvious styles — focusing just as much on innovation as it does tradition.
Although brisket may be the undisputed ruler of Texas barbecue pits, the episode airing at 8 pm on June 5 goes whole hog with a half-hour focusing on the creative ways Lone Star chefs cook pork.
According to a Cooking Channel rep, Prater will be making simply seasoned, slow-smoked whole hog made into Carolina-style barbecue sandwiches. The dish is a natural for the chef, who hosted hog roasts for years before Bangers debuted its massive expansion, complete with an on-site smokehouse, in November 2018.
Adding to the foodie fun, the episode also makes a drive south to San Antonio to feature Pieter Sypestyn, the chef behind popular concepts The Cookhouse and NOLA Brunch & Beignets.
Sypestyn will be making a wild pig stuffed with chaurice, a hot and spicy sausage popular in Creole and Cajun cooking. The meat will then be added to a piquant tomato-based stew — in other words, just the sort of stuff one might find at the average San Antonio backyard barbecue.
Prater is only just the latest San Antonio chef to be featured on the fiery series. Previous seasons have highlighted Summer Moon Coffee and Andrew Wiseheart of Contigo.
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