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Podcast Episode Summary: This Is TASTE Episode 511
Episode Title How Big Green Egg Cracked the Home Grilling Code with Dan Gertsacov
Episode Description In this episode, hosts Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard engage in a lively discussion with Dan Gertsacov, CEO of Big Green Egg, the popular kamado-style ceramic charcoal grill. They explore the brand’s history, the unique customer loyalty it has generated, and the innovative approaches to outdoor cooking. The episode also features cookbook author Bryan Ford discussing his new book, *Pan y Dulce: The Latin American Baking Book*.
Key Themes and Discussions
Introduction of Big Green Egg
- Grill Overview: Dan Gertsacov explains the versatility of Big Green Egg, capable of cooking at temperatures ranging from 200°F to 1000°F, making it suitable for various cooking styles including smoking and high-temperature grilling.
- Historical Context: The design and functionality of Big Green Egg are rooted in ancient Japanese and Korean cooking traditions, modernized over the past 50 years.
Brand Loyalty and Customer Experience
- Cult Following: The term "Eggheads" refers to Big Green Egg aficionados, highlighting the strong community around the brand.
- Retail Strategy: Big Green Egg focuses on smaller, high-touch retailers rather than mass-market stores, ensuring personalized customer experiences and knowledgeable staff.
Dan Gertsacov's Background
- Transition to Big Green Egg: Gertsacov's journey with the company began from his passion for cooking and his past experience in strategic roles, including his tenure at McDonald's.
- Global Culinary Influence: His diverse culinary experiences contribute to his leadership at Big Green Egg.
Understanding Kamado Cooking
- Cooking Techniques: Gertsacov shared his personal favorite recipes and techniques, emphasizing the quality of ingredients and the importance of using lump charcoal.
- Smoking Tips: Ideal smoking temperatures and techniques for various meats, such as pork shoulder and brisket, were discussed, showcasing the grill's capabilities.
Bryan Ford's Cookbook Segment
- Introduction to *Pan y Dulce*: Bryan Ford discusses the significance of his book, which aims to capture the essence of Latin American baking traditions.
- Cultural Representation: Ford emphasizes the importance of representing black, brown, and indigenous experiences in baking narratives.
- Signature Recipes: He highlights standout recipes such as fugazeta, medialunas, and golfeados, encouraging listeners to explore Latin American baking.
Closing Insights
- Culinary Connection: The episode concludes with reflections on the joy of cooking and sharing food with family and friends, reinforcing the idea that cooking is a way to create lasting memories.
Key Takeaways
- Versatility of Big Green Egg: Its ability to cook across a wide temperature range makes it a valuable asset for grilling enthusiasts.
- Community Engagement: Building a loyal customer base through local retailers enhances the overall experience of Big Green Egg users.
- Culinary Exploration: The passion for food and cooking shared by Gertsacov and Ford showcases how personal experiences shape culinary journeys.
- Cultural Importance of Food: Both segments underline how food connects cultures and communities, emphasizing storytelling through recipes.
Additional Notes
- Podcast Hosts: Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard.
- Featured Guests: Dan Gertsacov (CEO of Big Green Egg), Bryan Ford (Cookbook Author).
- Production Team: Produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango, edited by Clayton Gumbert, theme music by Steve Rydell.
- Visit: For more culinary discussions and updates, visit [Taste Cooking](https://tastecooking.com).
This episode serves not only as a conversation about grilling and baking but also as a testament to the cultural significance of food in personal and communal experiences.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. So a big green egg and this style of cooking can go from 200 degrees if you want to smoke a brisket or ribs or do that kind of low and slow. So then get up to 800 or 1000 degrees if you want to do a pizza. And you can hit every temperature and then maintain every temperature in between.
0:54This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard. We've long been fans of the Big Green Egg, the Kamado-style ceramic charcoal grill and smoker that has a legitimate cult following. They are called eggheads for real, and leading the company is CEO Dan Gertzikov, who joins us for a really, really great conversation. Dan is a rare corporate executive who truly is a home cooking and food geek in the best possible way. We talked to Dan about how he came to the company through his love for the Big Green Egg and why the Atlanta-based company has a unique approach to generating loyalty. We also get into Dan's world travels and his previous time-leading strategy at McDonald's.
1:38I hope you enjoy this conversation. And to end the show, Chef Brian Ford talks about the history and culture behind his new cookbook, Panidolce, the Latin American baking book.
1:57Dan Gershko, welcome to This Is Taste. This is going to be a lot of fun. How are you? I am excited. Thank you for inviting me on. Well, first, I want to start by kind of just getting into the overview of Big Green Egg because I think some of our listeners know the brand, but they might not be aware of the history. It has a wide audience. It has a lot of professionals and restaurants. You'll see a Big Green Egg behind your favorite Japanese yakitori place, behind your favorite new American restaurant. But then, of course, it's in the backyards of millions of Americans. So tell us, how is it such a unique grill in this very crowded grill market?
2:34Yeah, well, what's important is a big green egg really set the standard and was kind of the first of this Kamado style grill in kind of Western society. Now, the Kamado grill is an ancient tradition that comes from Japan and Korea from thousands of years ago. What we've done is kind and this was now 50 years ago, update that ancient tradition with a bit of design and a bit of design technology. And when I say design technology, I'm not talking about, you know, adding a Wi-Fi app in 1974. I'm talking about using ceramics versus clay. I'm talking about making the oxygen flow from the bottom to the top.
3:14So, but this is the concept of Big Green Egg is rooted on thousands of years of tradition of ways that people have been cooking over live fire in a modern context. And that was modern in 1974 and modern in 2024. Now, over the last 50 years, what's happened, Big Green Egg has become the vehicle for people to make memories, as you described, whether that's a memory at a restaurant and the service they provide, or a memory in their backyard, whether it's that Thanksgiving turkey, that Christmas roast, or just Tuesday night, you know, burgers and hot dogs. It's become the ways that families, friends, and neighbors come together.
3:53Now, I get the question, well, what about, you know, is it the same as a gas grill? And the answer is it's not for two reasons. One, because of the flavor that comes from charcoal versus gas. And this is lump charcoal, which is just carbonized wood. When people think charcoal, like, oh, briquettes. Well, briquettes have generally fillers and stuff you don't want on them. If you have to put lighter fluid on something to catch it on fire, you don't want that lighter fluid in your food. So this is carbonized wood or lump charcoal. So that's number one. And number two is the ability for it to change or retain heat, which is different.
4:35So a big green egg and this style of cooking can go from 200 degrees if you want to, you know, smoke a brisket or ribs or do that kind of low and slow, but then get up to 800 or a thousand degrees if you want to do a pizza. And you can hit every temperature and then maintain every temperature in between. And you don't get that with most other style cookers, either, you know, a gas grill will get hot, but it can't go low. A, you know, a smoker can get, or a pellet grill generally can do low heat but can't get hot. And the versatility means you only need one grill, and in our case for a lifetime, because we have a lifetime guarantee, is how we believe so much in the quality of the product, and you can do all of it on it.
5:21This is the grill you're going to be giving down to your grandchildren. I really like that overview, and I think you've answered some questions right away, the versatility going low and going high, and it really opens up a lot of opportunities for low and slow smoking, or as you said, pizza or any of the high temperature roasting or grilling that we love. Take us back a little to the history of Big Green Egg when you launched in the 70s. Tell us a little bit about your founder. Yeah. So Ed Fisher launched this business. A great story of entrepreneurship was living in Atlanta, Georgia, 40 years old and wanted to be an entrepreneur.
5:57And a friend of his were selling Japanese pinball machines on the West Coast and convinced them that this was a market in the East Coast. These are called pachinko pinball machines. They've since become collector's items. But in the 70s, this is what you wanted to put in your family room, you know, in your finished basement. And he was selling these from Japan. And on those loads coming over, they loaded some of these Kamado cookers, these clay Kamado cookers. And they were completely new. I mean, there was some of this had been seen in, you know, kind of World War II and the Korean War, some American servicemen had brought back some Kamado grills, but there really wasn't a brand or a place to go buy them in the United States.
6:39And so Ed Fisher put one of these Kamado cookers outside of his store in Atlanta, Georgia, was a way of driving foot traffic into the store and said, I'll put out some chicken wings. And if people like the wings, they may come in to try. It always starts with chicken wings, man. I feel like that's like a really good choice there. You got to smoke some chicken wings. You're going to get some folks in your door. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. He was a man ahead of his time here. So, and in the seventies, I don't think chicken wings were necessarily as popular as they are today. So he was definitely ahead of his time, but it was the chick what happened.
7:13And like any good entrepreneur, people started tasting the wings and he noticed that people wanted the grill potentially more than they wanted the pinball machine as, you know, gaming and other kind of more technology-driven games came into vogue in the late 70s and early 80s, you know, pachinko pinball machines were out of vogue, but people kept coming back for the wings and what can I do on this cooker? And as an entrepreneur, he pivoted the company. He said, okay, I'm going to focus in on these Kamados. Now, the iconic name of the Big Green Egg, and then, you know, my background is at Google and bigger companies.
7:49I was a CMO, everybody does market research and we're going to hire this agency to do branding and all these insights. Great. The way they came up with the name is that they had to put out a newspaper ad in the early eighties. And the newspaper guy said, look, you can't call it a Kamado. Nobody, that Japanese word, nobody understands here. You got to give it a name. And his insight was, well, it's big. I like the color green. It looks like an egg. Let's call it a big green. Yeah, that's Ed at his best. He's still around. When I was down at the Egtoberfest, he was rolling around in the golf cart and talking to a lot of fans.
8:24And I wanted to ask him, I didn't get a chance to, but maybe you can answer for him. How do you land on green? I mean, you say he likes the color, but there's something kind of, there's something comforting. It feels like it's secure. Obviously the military uses that color. I think blue or red would be a little more, I think offensive. How do you, what is up with the green part of it? Right. So yeah, Ed is 90 years old and still active and, you know, driving his own car and comes into board meetings, a very active and great. Cause we can engage him and ask him these questions that started 50 years ago.
9:04Now his, his answer is that he felt in the eggs that were coming from Japan or the Kamados that were coming from Japan did come in other colors. So they were coming in red and yellow. And we have some of these in our museum in Atlanta, where people can come and see these kind of, you know, now 50, 70 year old pieces of clay art. And the insight around green is that he not only did he as a favorite, but he had not really, he saw it as a really provocative, engaging color. It was almost brash that we would make a thing in green. Now, while it was called the Big Green Egg, even under Big Green Egg, there were initially some other colors.
9:45You can find Big Green Eggs produced by Big Green Egg that are in blue. They've almost become unicorns at this point. They're collector's items that get traded on marketplaces. In the mid-'80s, as we started to move in the early-'90s to ceramic, we narrowed it down. we're going to make all green, knowing that we were going to do this lifetime warranty. So the idea was, given that we're going to be producing the same product for a long period of time, we wanted to anchor the color on one thing that could be consistent. And that's where the big green egg, its iconic shape, its iconic name, and its iconic color comes from.
10:22And for a little FYI, we have trademarked not only the name, but the design of a green Kamado cooker in the United States. Any Kamado cooker that you may see in the United States, if it's in our color green, would be a trademark violation. We've been able, because it's in our name, we kind of control, you know, we have authority over that color in our space. Yeah, you guys have a few attorneys looking at the internet for those, I'm sure. Let's talk a little bit about your unique model on the retail side, which I learned about when I I was down visiting with your team. It's a very cool concept that the big green egg cannot, it's not sold at like mass market, big box hardware stores, the Lowe's and the Home Depot's of the world, at least now.
11:13But you're focused on smaller retail, more higher touch places where the employees can hand sell these eggs and of course display them in these unique ways. Am I correct in this assumption? that's exactly right the experience we want for a customer is that when they come in and this is a considered purchase right i mean you can buy a throwaway grill that you're going to rust out in a couple years you can buy that online you can buy that at you know any of those big box stores but it's not you know it's like i said it's going to be almost recyclable in a few years um hopefully the this is a considered purchase that like i said you're going to be given to your kids and they're going to be given to their kids and as a result people want to know and walk into a store and say, how do you cook on these things?
11:58And what we want as Big Green Egg Experiences for that, you know, associate to pull out their phone and say, look what I cooked this weekend. And here's what I love to do on my egg. And those experiences are real. Like if you, we have 5 ,200 dealers across the United States and a couple thousand and 50 other countries around the world, those experiences are real and they're authentic. They're not getting, you know, an extra a bonus, if they pretend to take out a picture, it is a real authentic person sharing what they like to cook and then helping people sort through, okay, how do I deal with lump charcoal?
12:36How much do I add? The general questions. Now, the internet has been incredibly helpful for that, right? You can jump on YouTube and get a lot of explainer videos, but there's still that in real life human connection. You want to go into your, whether it's your local specialty barbecue store, a pool store, a spa, a local hardware store, and you want to have that local person in your neighborhood. And that's a second piece of it is not only the customer service, but that connection with the place, with the neighborhood. We believe that that is an important value for the company. That's how we've always sold.
13:13And that's how we're going to continue to sell. We are the only a major brand in the outdoor cooking space that has stayed consistent and true to that go-to-market, to stay loyal to that local dealer and also have distributors in a territory to make sure that that dealer is getting the best support. Yeah, I love it. It's pretty folksy. And that's a good thing in our retail market that is becoming more and more algorithmic in some ways. And I got to meet some of your retailers when I was down in Atlanta at Eggtoberfest. And it's cool. It's like my dad sold furniture locally growing up. And you build that community at these barbecue stores, just like my dad did at his furniture store.
14:00And I want to ask you about online, though. I mean, are you selling the Big Green Egg online? What's your strategy online? I'm just curious about that. Yeah. And I referenced quickly, but my background is at Google and I was a chief digital officer in the restaurant industry. So my background before getting here is much more on the e-commerce tech side than it is on the, you know, selling ceramic cookers in stores. So we do think as, you know, modern consumers, it's an omni-channel experience. And what does that mean, omni-channel? That means you may see something, you know, catch an influencer or some social media with the post and then you'll do some research and then you go to your friend's house and see it in real life.
14:44And then you do some more research online and then you get into a store that may be your journey, or you may be going into a local hardware store to find something else and you gravitate towards the aisle. And the first time you see it is there. In any of those cases, we want people to be to, for all stages of the process, whether it's research, whether it's a consideration and getting, you know, recommendations or it's the purchase to be able to have all options, including online. So to answer your question, you can go to biggreenegg.com and everything that we sell as a brand, you can find and then find how you want to buy it.
15:26So our first option is, do you want to go to your local store and pick it up? Because we agree that that is a great experience for it to have that personal connection. If you said, no, no, no, I can't get to the store. I want you to deliver it to me. If you wanted your egg delivered, we would have, we have a local white glove delivery service that'll bring it to your backyard and set it up in your backyard and give you a little mini class on how to use it. If you said, no, no, I can't, I don't want, you know, just drop it in the mail. We'll drop it in the mail. You know, like, oh, we can't drop a ceramic grill in the mail, but if you wanted a hat, a spatula, you know, some of the smaller stuff that we sell, we'll do that as well.
16:02Yeah, it's not really a male kind of Amazon thing. It's quite heavy. If you've ever been around a ceramic grill, they're quite heavy. I want to ask you— That's a positive. The heaviness, sorry, is just—that is a positive. Even though, you know, you've got to move them around, this is a lifetime purchase, and it's going to retain the heat given the thickness of that ceramic. Yeah, I like it, Dan. I like the idea of passing it along. I think it's great to invest in quality, and I think our listeners will appreciate that. Let's talk food. let's talk cooking. I know a little bit about your background.
16:35You're pretty, you're pretty nice in the kitchen. We'll say I've heard some rumors, Dan, and you lived in all over the world. So you have like a real global approach, but I have to ask you for our listeners, you know, what are, what are a few of the things that you cook first in your own big green egg? And second, what's your setup at home in Atlanta? What's your green egg setup? It must be pretty cool. so my my history of getting involved in the brand is I I owned a big green ag I owned one for about 12 years before I joined the company so I'm literally you know I loved it so much I started to work for the company so that and I do like many of your listeners I'm a foodie I thought about in my my teenage years of being a chef until I ended up in culinary school after college and realized it wasn't that I wanted to be a chef I just wanted to be a foodie and I wanted to explore culture through food.
17:25And so I've been doing that for the last 25 years and all the places I've lived and I have a life goal to try to learn 50 cuisine. So I go to a place and learn about their food. And about 10 years ago, I started, I was living in Argentina and got exposed to live fire cooking there. It's a huge part of the culture there as it is in the U S it isn't really all over the world, South Africa, Australia, every culture in the world puts fire to food. And that's when I started to anchor in on the ritual and the importance and how making a fire and the patience to prep a meal for your family, friends, and neighbors was an act of love.
18:02And I started getting deeper and deeper in that and collecting different styles of grills from the Argentine open fire Santa Maria grills to the clay cookers. And we had to have in Columbia to Japanese styles. and I wanted a Kamado grill. And when I came across the Big Green Egg community is what drew me to the product. And so I started working with it. Now, the things that I most like to cook is I am very much, given where we lived in South America for so many years, we are very much a meat and potatoes kind of family. So I do quite a bit of steaks. We do have, while we are in a lot of restaurants, in a lot of steakhouses, we have people consistently say, I don't know why I'm gonna go out for a steak.
18:45I can make as good of a steakhouse steak at home that I can go out in the expense of going out for a steakhouse meal. You can make that with a quality piece of meat and a quality grill like a big green egg. You can make that at home. So I am very big on just steaks. My favorite cut is a Brazilian cut called picanha, which has become much more available in the United States. A top sirloin cap with a fat cap around it. And the best way to do that is, in my experience, both living in Brazil as well as here in the U.S., is on a rotisserie. So you continue to hit the fat, drops off the meat, and it renders, but you're also getting those flames kissing the beef.
19:27So that's my favorite cut of meat to do on the grill. I'm also a big pizza guy. So we do a lot of family pizzas on our egg, and we have a whole setup, you know, ceramic stone and wedges and ways in which to use your egg. Literally anything you can make in an indoor kitchen, whether that's baking bread or making a pie or sauteing and stir frying, everything you can do in an indoor kitchen because the egg retained heat and can go in multiple temperatures, you can do outdoors. How about smoking? Let's talk about smoking a little bit, because I think that's something we assume just looking at it. I think unfairly, we assume it's just a smoker, right?
20:07Of course, it's not. You've laid that out. But how do you smoke using the Big Green Egg? Yeah. I mean, smoking is twofold. One is at the temperature, right? So you want to get anywhere between 200 to 275 degrees, 275 a little bit on the hotter side, but you really want to keep that temperature, the sweet spots like 225. And so one is maintaining 225 over long periods of time. You can set your charcoal in a big green egg, set the temperature and in an XL egg, you could hold that for 12 or 18 hours. So the one is a temperature and the control of the temperature. And the second is the smoke that comes from both charcoal and wood.
20:50So in the case of my, it's kind of for me, the trilogy and smoking, you can smoke a lot of things, right? But we'll keep it legal here. The pork shoulder is a place to start. I think it was a very forgiving piece of meat, got a lot of interstitial fat. You want to, you know, I do do a dry rub, or dry brine the night before on my pork shoulder. So some of that, the salt will penetrate the pork. And then you want to make your own or use your favorite barbecue rub and then put it out onto your egg. And that will go, depending on the size of the pork shoulder, anywhere from eight to 10 hours. And then you're going to want to, depending, you're looking for a temperature now because you had your temperature of your grill, your big green egg at 200, 225, you're looking for an internal temp of about 202 degrees.
21:43And that's really where you get a lot of the interstitial fat as rendered. It's the most moist part of the pork shoulder. I love that recipe. It sounds really, really exciting. Yeah, it's a great way. And then ribs and brisket. That's how you start. I won't go through a recipe on each one as you want to, but pork shoulder is the way to start. You graduate it into ribs. You can look up three, two, one way of doing ribs. Look it up online. Very straightforward of three hours to smoke, two hours to cover, one hour to rest, and then briskets. And I have challenged myself to try to make the perfect brisket.
22:17It is more than doable on Big Green Egg. I went and worked in a brisket barbecue restaurant in San Antonio, Texas, prepping about 50 briskets a day to figure out how much of the fat capped you. My God, was that like your own hobby or is that like part of the CEO role? No, I mentioned that. A little extra credit here. 50 cuisines. This is South Texas cuisine was number 42 on my list of 50. I just did number 45 last week. So I go to different places around the world to learn about their food. I've been to 29 countries at this point in many countries, given I've gone back to. I've done five regions of Spain and three regions of Japan and three regions of Italy.
22:59this is the way that i travel i travel to learn about local culture through their food and really how they put fire to food okay i think you got it we got to answer the question why i'm at the big green egg uh because i get to work on my hobby okay okay we got to talk about this dan i mean this is very cool so you have this this project 50 cuisines through travel through tasting and i'd love to get into how you've determined these cuisines because you know south texas barbecue specifically san antonio is extremely specific are each of the regions this specific and and let's go over like four to five of them i'm just really curious i love it i know you've got foodies on your podcast i've coached a lot of people and when they find us so i made reference i was in culinary school in Thailand and really like, wait, I wanted to be a chef, but this isn't what I thought being a chef was like.
23:56I was having kind of a moment at age 22 of saying, do I want to do this with my life? And I, what I realized I had this epiphany in a bar in Bangkok where you've heard that story before of, uh, I don't have to be a chef to travel and learn about food. And I wanted to, this is pre Anthony Bourdain and pre all those cooking shows. And, but it was quite clearly then became a fan of later in life. But that was the insight that I could, it is my vacation every year I can decide where I want to go and I can find somebody to, to, to help teach me. And early on, and this is like the late nineties, early two thousands, kind of pre, you know, mass internet, it was much more difficult.
24:35I was using, you know, kind of lists of cooking schools and then reaching out to the place. And, and, and I crafted it both with my own wishlist of things that I was curious about, but then I adapted it to wherever I needed. I was traveling for work in Italy later in life and I was like, okay, I'm in Italy, what can I learn? And clearly there's 10 or more cuisines just in Italy, regional cuisines that you can learn. So my curiosity outweighed my specificity, if you will. So in Italy, are you thinking North or South? Are you doing Frioli or are you doing Puglia? What are you thinking? I did a month in Siena.
25:16I was in between. I was heading to business school, so I had two months to travel. And I spent a month of that anchored in Siena and going to the Dante Alighieri cooking school. That was a formal cooking school for a month program. I went back maybe five years later with my, you know, then I think we were yet not married, my, uh, my fiance at the time. And we were in the Amalfi coast and we found a cooking school with a friend of mine's aunt from Italy, who was, uh, one of the best cooks I've ever, you know, come across. And then five years later, we went to Sicily and I talked to the Airbnb host.
25:53they said is there anybody in your neighborhood that can give me a cooking class and you know she turned to me and said well my grandmother is the best cook i know would you take a class with her and so i did and and look in all of these cases i am compensating the people i'm buying the ingredients but it's part of the fun is going to the market and and understanding how you know what produce to buy and how they you know pick a tomato and you know some of these things is all part of the cultural experience. So I have both gone to places as a destination, but then in the destinations I'm in, you know, express my curiosity.
26:29So you asked me for a couple examples. I'll give the, I just retold a story last night. I'll retell for your, for your audience of what was my, my worst cooking class that turned into my best cook, one of my best cooking classes. and this was in um the fukoka japan yeah which is a wonderful region island off the west coast you know it's an island uh kyushu island um and i was i knew i had to be there for work this is i've been in the rest i was in the restaurant industry for about 10 years and we were in japan in 2019 pre-pandemic and we had a meeting in kyushu and i went i didn't know much about kyushu i went online and said what's the most popular cuisine and it turned out this is the birthplace some tonkatsu ramen or pork bone ramen.
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27:14And I, well, I'm a huge ramen fan. I was like, okay, I'm going to learn how to make pork bone ramen. And the, like the, the prodigal son of Fukuoka is the founder of Apudo ramen who started there and then expanded around the world. And so I went through every angle of my LinkedIn network and otherwise to get me connected to this guy? Can I learn from this guy? And I hit, you know, walls every time. And it was going to be impossible. So I went online and found a cooking school on top of a restaurant that was giving ramen classes. I showed up, you know, I was there for work, but then at four o 'clock, workday ended and I did like a five hour cooking class.
27:54And I'm in the middle of the class. We do some gyoza, we make the noodles, we get to the broth, which is the heart of the recipe. and the teacher was very, let's say, protective of the recipe. He said, I can't share that with you. It's our, you know, generations. It's been on our, in our restaurant and our family, you know, we can't share. And at that point, I have to admit, I'd been to a lot of cooking schools, but in no cases were people not willing to share. I kind of was like, look, I flew 12 ,000 miles to be here. You know, I really like, so I was on this kind of, this is, this is one of those unfortunate situations where I came all this way and I'm not going to learn it.
28:32And then out of the, and this is the world of serendipity. I'd been there for a few hours, but I had not noticed there was like a side kitchen and a door opens up and a series of chefs come out. And, you know, especially in Japan with the amount of respect they show each other, I could tell the guy in the middle was not only the guy, but it was the guy that I, the founder of Apudo. It was a guy that I was yearning to meet was right there. I turned out by happenstance to be in his cooking school in his restaurant without knowing it. And when he came out, I took the initiative to say, you know, my three words in Japanese, sumi masen, excuse me, excuse me.
29:07You know, I've flown from the United States to Japan. You know, I'm excited about your food, but can you share what is in your pork bone broth? What's in the tonkatsu broth that his teacher wouldn't share with me? And he said, oh, of course I'll share it. Come with me. And he spent an hour in the side kitchen teaching me every step along the way of how they make this famed tokatsu broth. Now, that is the life of travel and serendipity, because if I had reached out to him, if I got it introduced to him, he may have shaken my hand and moved on. But because I happened to be in the place when he happened to finish and he was in a good mood at the moment, he spent that personal time and it turned into one of the best cooking classes I've ever taken.
29:49I love that story, Dan. It shows, it's a great lesson when you're traveling and you're, you're doing it for food, which many of our listeners do. It's, it's just great to be aware of your surroundings and, and, and be a little journalistic. You know, you're really, your instincts, um, had you looking around the corner, had you asking that question, had you going into that, that private lesson. And I, I love that, that instinct. And I think we all can take a little bit away from it. I want to close and ask you a little bit about cookbooks. Um, you know, we publish cookbooks here at Penguin Random House.
30:19And you're definitely a lesson of the game. I'll do it again. You're definitely a student of the game and you clearly have a cookbook collection. I'm just, I'm taking a guess here. Oh, yes. I have a major cookbook collection, not only published by folks like yourselves, but my own recipes. I have 45 of these documented from the last 25 years. So I'm a big cookbook fan. So tell us what's on the shelf. Do you have anything that pops out that you turn to any cookbooks that you, that you love that are new to the market. I just like, love to, to get your take. Yeah. I, I, um, what I love about the way the cookbooks have emerged, uh, really, I mean, for history, but also in the last 10 years, 20 years, maybe is that they are now, you know, beautiful photographic journalism, you know, not only beautiful food, but beautiful travel.
31:13There is real content beyond the recipe about the culture and in the place. And so there is a series of cookbooks that I collect more to learn about the cuisine. So one of my favorite ones, and she is kind of both her cookbook as well as she was an inspiration, is Fusha Dunlop, who was one of the first foreigners to get to go to Sichuan province. Now, that was also one of my favorite. I did go to Sichuan province and and, and didn't, you know, enroll. I was there for a couple of days. She enrolled in, you know, multiple months, but her cookbooks that, and bringing back some of that Sichuan cuisine, I think I really enjoy about, uh, Szechuan cooking.
31:56She's got a new one called invitation to a banquet. It's incredible. That book, it is such as like her life's work, um, invitation to a banquet. It's like her memoir, uh, you know, packaged with some other recipes. That's a terrific book. The other one that I, uh, one of my favorites, I've been done some work as an advisor to the James Beard foundation and James Beard himself has, uh, it was a prolific cookbook off it. I mean, it was really the first kind of celebrity star of cooking before the James Beard house and the foundation that does the awards and so forth. And he is one of my favorite barbecue Cooks books is James Beard on barbecue.
32:34It's now a collector item.
32:41Barbecue with Beard is the title of the book. You can find it in used thrift stores. It's from the early 50s and late 50s and early 60s. That's another one of my favorites, which is more of an historical one, but he shares a lot of the old time recipes. You know, Big Green Egg. Also, we have a whole series of cookbooks with some of our favorite chefs that are big, you know, foodies and fans of the egg. So I can't, you know, not mention those as well. There's so much content out there, both in written form, but also, you know, part of your, when different than a recipe you find online, when you go to someone's home and you see either their collection or you see their coffee table book, they're telling you something about themselves that is beyond the content and the recipe.
33:34They're sharing one of the things that they're curious about. One of the things, my prize collection is the series, which is, I think, one of the most amazing set of books is the Modernist Cuisine, right? Which was published now years back. It's a five-volume set of not only the science, but the art of cookbook. I think it's from 2011. Nathan Mervold, who is an old Microsoft exec, was so obsessed with cooking that he both worked on the book and commissioned a friend of mine, Chris Young, and another woman, Maxime Billet, to work on this, I wouldn't call it a trilogy, whatever the... I mean, it's a five-part series, and then they've got their big bread book as well, their series.
34:24So yeah, modernist. But if you want to learn about the science of cooking, I think the modernist cuisine. And if I go in anybody's home and I see they have the collection, it's like kindred spirits. So it's like this person's in the know. Yeah, it's a good call. And it seems like having that tech background, you probably vibe a lot with the energy around modernist cuisine. I can't let this go, Dan. And you spent considerable time working at McDonald's in Latin America. And I rarely get the opportunity, I think it's the first time on the show, to speak with a senior executive from McDonald's. And I know you're not there now, so obviously you're not speaking for the company now.
35:02But I just would love to get your take on how this brand has remained relevant. But also, like, what do we not quite realize as the common, you know, QP cheese fans, you know, shouts to that. I just had one recently. They're quite good. I just would love to get your take. What don't we know about McDonald's? Yeah, no. And I somewhat fell into that situation. This is now going back to 2014. One of my mentors is a gentleman who's the master franchisee for Latin America. I was living in Bogota, Colombia. I had left Google. I'd been in Latin America. I had done a fintech startup. This gentleman was an investor in the company.
35:48And in a conversation, he said, look, I want you to come work for me. And my response was, but wait a second. My background's in digital and tech. My hobby is to learn about local food. And no offense, but I haven't been to a McDonald's in 10 years. I don't go to much fast food at all. I'm really about local cuisine. And his response with a lot of insight was, your background experience is going to be disruptive. Our company and industry needs disruption. And I'd rather do it from within than do it from outside or be disrupted from outside. And so I joined, and that was his case for me. And I joined as a chief digital officer and spent five years there and became the chief marketing officer for 2 ,500 McDonald's, the largest franchisee, individual franchisee in the McDonald's system.
36:36And I ended up having ketchup in the veins. I really enjoyed my time there. And like you, I didn't know, you know, I kind of had this perception of McDonald's from the States. Now, in Latin America, and now I've seen all over the world, McDonald's as a brand shows up in a very locally relevant way. While it's true, a Big Mac is a Big Mac is a Big Mac. And you can get 60, 70 % of the menu anywhere. and that's a refuge for some people when they're traveling, 30 to 40 % of every McDonald's menu around the world, it's going to be local. It's going to be adapted to the local taste, the local, you know, whether ice cream was a big business in Latin America for McDonald's, not as big in other parts of the world.
37:23We had espresso machines in our McCafe in Argentina, because people, that's a style versus drip coffee in Mexico or drip coffee in the McCafe's United States. So McDonald's has brand guidelines, but lets the franchisees and in the countries interpret those so that they're relevant. What is true that it always is focused on, you know, I'm loving it. It's always focused on the experience of, um, that you get at a McDonald's. And I'll just give you one example of one of the, you know, one of the things that we did at McDonald's, which is an insight, which, which, uh, what was really valuable to our work and Latin America is that when I can't, you come at the time, you get out of the airport in Buenos Aires and there's two billboards you see as you leave the airport.
38:10The first is a McDonald's billboard right behind it as a Burger King. And when I joined as, you know, my, as CMO, I was always frustrated because we'd have a picture of Big Mac and at the time it was, you know, whatever the car, you know, the inflation in Argentina, I don't even remember what it was, call it 20 pesos just for any round number. And that was our billboard and the billboard behind it from, you know, Burger King, all they had to do was say, you know, Whopper 19 pesos, right? They would just try to do the same thing, just a little bit cheaper. That was their strategy. And when I took on the role, what the insight that I got from working there was the next billboard was a picture of a son and his dad after a soccer practice, sharing a memory around a Big Mac.
38:54and then we put making memories for 20 pesos. And the billboard behind it was a whopper at 19. Burger King could not create, it didn't have the memory context, the experience context at a McDonald's. We call that treated in the game. That was a good move, Dan. I enjoy that. And I have to mention, Gary He's new book, McAtlas, covers over 50 countries worth of McDonald's. the book is coming out this fall and I hope you can get a copy of it. It's pretty, pretty. No, I would love that. It's right on my alley. It's a McDonald's. You know, the last thing I'll say is that it's a focus on quality, you know, and they are going through something right now.
39:37Yeah, they are. In the United States. But that, that is the worst nightmare of any McDonald's franchisee is a nightmare that's playing out because you're working with third party providers, you put in quality standards, you know, you are doing things at scale. And the fact that they're almost, those are so few and far between when they happen, that is a testament to the quality. And when they do happen, how they can now isolate it to make sure that it's as isolated from a quality standpoint. So their focus on quality, and even when they do, you know, you're going to serve billions of burgers a day, there's going to be quality issues outside your control, how quickly they can address it and restore trust in the brand is really a reflection of the company.
40:20Yeah, Daniel's referencing a recent outbreak in America. There's been a lot of headlines about a foodborne outbreak, but it seems like that might be under control. Last question about McDonald's, the app. I mean, it's really, really exploded in popularity and the hard pivot to this app and really kind of forcing consumers to use the app is a stroke of genius to me. Right. I was on the team, the original digital team. I was representing Latin America, but we were part of the global chief digital officer's extended office. And when the app was designed and how we thought about it, there's a couple of things there.
41:01And while there are strong incentives to use of the app. It is really about the experience the customer has with on the app and why choose the app. So the same is true with the kiosks, these big iPhone looking, you know, screens that you see. And we had franchisees that would come to us and say, well, wait a second, I made all this investment in the drive-thru. Why are we having to put out, don't we want to force people through the drive-thru? Why would we do an app? Why would we do the kiosk? And the answer is we want to provide more options to the customer on whichever of those situations is the most convenient because McDonald's is premium quality at a convenient price and a convenient experience.
41:46And so if it's convenient to go through the drive-thru, that's what you want to do. If it's convenient to order ahead and have it shuttled out to your car, that's what we want to do. If you want to come in line to the store and order, or even if you want to stay in line, if you don't want a technology experience, you can do that too. And I think adapting first around the customer and second around your operation was what made the McDonald's investment in digital pay such great dividends. There is habitual use of McDonald's, you know, but on average, it's twice a month. You know, many people think that people are, you know, going and they're, look, there's within an average, there's people that go twice a week and there's people that go once a year, but the average is twice a month.
42:32And the goal was how can we earn that third visit based on connecting on loyalty, connecting on convenience, connecting on quality, connecting on value for money. How can we earn that third visit? And that's where the app has really come in. It's been a frequency builder, which is crucial in any retail business, but especially the rest of the world. It's major momentum from the app. And I'm super impressed with just the way this heritage brand has really been savvy with digital. So credit to you, Dan. Last question about McDonald's, I swear. The Shamrock Shake, did it ever make it in the 20 countries you covered in your Latin America?
43:12No, that was one that we didn't. We tried, but I'll tell you, we had people that were such fanatics of the McFish that it was at one point, we thought, hey, we don't have enough usage of the McFish, let's take it off the menu. and we almost had people rioting in our store, right? So there are certain products that as a restaurateur, you may do your ROI analysis and say, this one's not leading, but they bring people into the store. They have loyal followings. We also, our ice cream business is really unique about Latin America, the cone business, because it's an aspirational brand and you can have an experience with McDonald's, even if you're just four in the afternoon.
43:54So there were certain things that didn't make it. The McRib was very successful in Brazil, even if they didn't have a culture for barbecue sandwiches. We had some very good success with that. There are certain things at play. And I think in today's connected world, that generation behind us is really connected with things that are happening in Korea, show up in here. Things that are happening here, show up there. If you ever get to Chicago in the headquarter location, the brand new headquarters in the west loop of McDonald's in the basement of the building, they have a McDonald's with food from all over the world.
44:33Oh, Dan, I have been there. Don't you know, I've made a pilgrimage to this very special McDonald's, the rotating menu of international favorites. I love that. It's definitely within walking distance of downtown or a short Uber ride. I love that you mentioned that. Yeah, that's a great way to connect. And that's what's special about McDonald's. But McDonald's is, again, and I think hospitality in the restaurant industry is incredibly important and, you know, a differentiator. Hospitality starts at home. And that's also to bring it back to Big Green Egg. That's what we're also trying to create is when people show a love for cooking and the joy of cooking and they share that with their family, friends and neighbors.
45:15Those are the memories that Big Green Egg enables. That's why Big Green Egg has been such a staple for the last 50 years. And in every, you know, not every home, but in a lot of homes around the world. And that's what's going to take us going forward for the next 50 years. It's about refreshing our connection to live fire cooking, refreshing our connection and really connection. I think we we've become disconnected with the more that we are IT connected. and Big Green Egg and the experience of cooking outdoors is a refuge from all of that. It's a place to disconnect so you can reconnect with what's important.
45:52Yeah, Dan, this has been such a cool convo. I mean, I love that you're really rooted in culinary and your love of food is obvious and it's rare to speak with an executive who has this deep passion. So it sounds like it's a great fit over at Big Green Egg. On This Is Taste, we ask guests about their starting taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? I'm ready. The best fruit. A lulo or a sour salt from Columbia. Amazing choice. Explain, describe, give us a little detail on the flavor. Sweet, sour, all the same time. It is an incredible, the best drink, fruit drink you ever had is a lulala, which is a blended version of this with just enough sugar to cut the sour.
46:40but my wife's license plate, my wife's Colombian, my wife's license plate is lulala. So if you see that around Georgia, you know, that's our, that's our mini-man. That's a very cool vanity plate. Okay. The worst vegetable. Worst vegetable. I am going to go with Brussels sprouts. I like them once, but I don't want to see them on every menu and you can, it's overshot. I think we have overdone the Brussels sprouts. The ubiquity is annoying. I agree. I just had some great ones from the farmer's market, fresh picked. And when you can get that, they're great, but great, good call, the ubiquity. The best dessert.
47:14I'm going chocolate fondant. The getting that, when you can cut that open and you just get that lava flowing out, that experience, and obviously the taste, a little bit of ice cream cannot go wrong. Your favorite city outside America to visit for food. Wow, this is a rapid fire. I can't do rapid, but Lima, Peru. Okay, please tell us. One of my favorites. Oh, my gosh. So I've spent a lot of time in Peru and done cooking school in the north of Peru, Mancora. And then in Lima itself, you get a combination, even obviously South American culture, but you get a combination of Japanese. So they have a big, they call it Nikkei cuisine.
47:54So beautiful Japanese sushi fusion. Chinese, we're from a chifa, which is a Peruvian version of a Chinese restaurant, with the Andean influence of their potatoes and some of the best. you know in their their case uh ceviches tiraitos in the world so you get the quality product with this confluence of uh ethnic influences in one place and it all becomes peruvian it's one of my favorite places for any of your listeners we can i'll follow up with my top five or five favorite restaurants um in lima with an incredible foodie i love this your last one your favorite sandwich? Cheese steak. Got to keep it real.
48:33I'm from the Northeast. I think I love my, you know, Philly's famous for them, but there's a lot of great cheese steaks outside of Philly. I'm from an Italian part of Rhode Island where the steak and peppers, or we would say steak and peppers would be, you know, with cheese on it. I think it's just, for me, it's memories. And that's what food is about. You know, the smells, the sounds, like every memory of my favorite memories growing up were meals in our home. It was holidays. It was going out, but it was anchored in food. And that's why I'm trying to share that passion for food with others. I love the non-Philly cheesesteak too.
49:13I'm a big fan of you calling it out. It's such a good call. Great. I'm happy. Let's keep going. We can keep going, but you know what? This has been such a wonderful conversation. It's great to get to know you, Dan. Thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I look forward to an egg moment with you and many of your listeners. Absolutely. Appreciate it.
49:45Yeah, my name is Brian Ford. I'm based in New York City. I'm from New Orleans. You know, I'm a TV host, baker, cookbook author, blogger, podcaster. You know, I kind of wear many hats these days. But my second book is called Pani Dulce, the Latin American baking book. And it's something that is near and dear to my heart. A baking book that captures the soul of Latin American baking traditions.
50:14Yeah, I mean, you know, there's so many excellent cookbooks out there. and so many of my colleagues have made exceptional books that I'm always honored to be a part of the conversation when it comes to cookbooks. But, you know, when I made my first book, Neural Sourdough, I kind of, I really wanted it to be this book in a way, you know, but I just, well, I wasn't ready to kind of, you know, have that expertise of telling the stories of all of Latin America yet. So finding the courage to interpret Latin American baking from an artisanal, standpoint is something that I found lacking in the baking world.
50:52I think just the representation of black and brown and indigenous hands and, you know, the stories of baking told through the lens of, you know, colonization and the way that societies and indigenous people were changed and uprooted, you know, through the transatlantic slave trade and all of these things that kind of, you know, morphed into what panaderias really are today. I just felt like it was a good opportunity to use my heritage and my passions to help tell these stories and to get us a seat at the table as high-level artisanal bakers.
51:34I was inspired to write Pani Dulce, the Latin American baking book, because as the title implies, I felt that, you know, there needed to be a Latin American baking book in people's households and a book that celebrates and tells the story of our traditions. You know, I'm Honduran, my parents are from Honduras. But I tried to cover the range of the 33 countries in Latin America and the stories of how they were colonized and how, you know, African and indigenous traditions also played a big role into forming these recipes and baked goods in addition to the techniques and ingredients that the colonizers brought over.
52:15So, you know, just when I started my blog and people were interested in pan de coco and these, you know, Central American breads made with sourdough and obviously through the success of my first book, you know, that inspiration really came from continuing to move us forward and continuing to try to find us a seat at the table. to be in the conversations of the best bakers, to be in the conversations of having the best pastries, the best breads, and trying to shift people's mind. Some might say decolonize. You know, I don't want to say I'm trying to decolonize your mind here, but, you know, just to shift the energy to give the respect that, you know, the people of Latino America deserve because the baking traditions are just so robust.
53:06and I wanted to use my skills as a professional baker to try to make fun recipes that are, you know, these aren't the recipes directly from all of the donas and grandmothers in Latin America. These are just told through my lens at the end of the day. So I still have a long, long journey ahead of me to continue to get more inspiration and evolve my understanding as well.
53:36I would say the three recipes that you've got to try when you get pani dulce, of course, the fugazeta. You've got to try the fugazeta, which is the Argentine-style pizza. It's cheesy, it's oniony, there's chimichurri, it's a sourdough base. It's a flexible dough. You can cook it in a sheet pan, a cake pan, directly on the stone. Another recipe you've got to try are the medialunas, because so many people ask me questions about, you know, what is different from a medialuna than a croissant. And medialunas are just, they're slightly sweet as they're glazed with a slight citrus syrup. They're baked together so that they're, you know, they're kind of more flaky and moist.
54:16And they've got a little bit more enrichment in the dough. So that's the main differences from a croissant. But they're exceptional. You got to try the medialunas. And I would definitely also say you got to try the golfeados. The golfeados have been the number one hit at any of my pop-ups. It's a Venezuelan, salty, sweet, sticky bun. It's filled with filoncio, cheese. It's got cheese on top. It's got flaky layers. You gotta dive into those three recipes.
54:49Yeah, whew, man. When I received the book for the first time, I've been working on this book for five years. Technically a little bit more just in my brain, but it's been, it's wild how time flies in reality. At first, it was just called the Latin American Baking Book. You know, then I wanted to call it New World Baking to kind of play off my first book. But then I just, we actually had launched the pre-order under the title New World Baking. And I, you know, honestly, just, I had been telling myself, like there was a voice in the back of my head that I was like, man, you got to get out of that colonial mindset.
55:28Like there was, you know, and I had talked with some colleagues as well and they were like, yo, like, peace and love, brother, we love you. But like, maybe let's think about that title. And it really got my engines turned out. Like, you're right. Like, honestly, the new world is very much a colonial naming convention that was put upon lands that already existed, communities that we already existed, indigenous peoples and grains already existed there. And then, you know, I kind of wanted to jump into something that was more delicious and fun and Pani Dulce just came up. and that was it, Pani Dunce, you know.
56:01So this journey was just remarkable. The photo shoot, you know, going to South America, doing all the things and getting the book for the first time. I don't know how other authors, you know, it's like I know this book like the back of my hand. So feeling it physically, it's strange for sure to see it outside of a document. Like that's the first thing, right? Like, cause you know, we see it in Word documents, PDF documents. you know in singular you know scrolling and using like a text editor to do stuff like that so feeling it as a book is different and it's just there's almost like i was i don't really know how to describe how it feels but it um it's incredible and i can't i just can't wait for my family and friends to see it in person and for people to have it on their shelves at home.
57:01This is Taste is hosted by Eliza Abarbanel and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things that are happening.
From the publisher
We’ve long been fans of the Big Green Egg, the kamado-style ceramic charcoal grill and smoker that has a legitimate cult following. The fans are called Eggheads (for real), and leading the company is CEO Dan Gertsacov, who joins us for a really great conversation. Dan is the rare corporate executive who is truly a home cooking and food geek, in the best way. We talk to Dan about how we became fans of the Atlanta-based company, and its unique approach to generating loyalty. We also get into Dan’s world travels and his previous time leading strategy at McDonald’s.
Also on the show, cookbook author Bryan Ford tells us about his terrific new book, Pan y Dulce: The Latin American Baking Book (Pastries, Desserts, Rustic Breads, Savory Baking, and More)
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