Sometimes a little burn can bring out the best in food

When my husband worked on his cooking badge for the Boy Scouts, his troop leader cautioned against burning pancakes over the campfire with the final injunction: "And I don't want to hear, 'But I LIKE them this way!'"

Sometimes, however, burning food is the way to go. There are those of us who really DO like our marshmallows toasted to a crisp in a fire, our catfish blackened in a smoking skillet, our steak charred on a grill (at least on the outside).

We like burnt caramel sauce and creme brulee (French for "burnt"). When I learned how to make my favorite gumbo from a Mississippi native, I marveled over his roux, the color of dark chocolate. "Essentially," he said of the flour-and-oil mixture, "I burn it."

So it was with glee that I counted eight recipes that start with the word "burnt" in them (as in "Burnt Tomato Halves," see below) in a new book called "Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way" from Patagonian chef Francis Mallmann (2009 Artisan, $35).

Mallmann, who is said to be South America's most popular chef, is not afraid to play with fire. He's a bit of an "extreme" chef, roasting whole lambs on iron crosses set facing bonfires, or cooking meat and vegetables in a wheelbarrow filled with hot coals.

He doesn't actually burn most of his food, but he celebrates the flavor of burnt. It comes, he says, from the "Maillard reaction," discovered by scientist Camille Maillard.

The Maillard reaction occurs when amino acids and sugars in food react with heat, as, for example, when you toast bread. And though Maillard may have described and named this reaction in 1912, credit for "discovering" it should probably go to that cave dweller who first figured out that woolly mammoth cooked in a fire tasted way better than raw.

So go ahead and burn stuff - following some delicious recipes, of course. And if anyone questions your methods, just say, "I LIKE it this way!"

• Marialisa Calta is the author of "Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the American Family" (2005 Perigee). For more, go to arialisacalta.com.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>Recipes</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> </div> <div class="recipeLink"> <ul class="moreLinks"> <li><a href="/story/?id=316302" class="mediaItem">Burnt Tomato Halves</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=316301" class="mediaItem">Burnt Fennel and Zucchini With Parmesan, Lemon and Basil</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>