sf wrote:

>Tonight on "BBQ with Bobby Flay", they roasted a pig in
>something called a "caja china".
>http://www.lacajachina.com/ The whole (split &
>flattened/spatchcocked) pig looked browned and crispy and
>the meat seemed to be very juicy. They showed people eating
>sandwiches of pulled pork... with no eastern/southern style
>accompaniments as far as I could tell,


Check out the "food 101" column in last week's Washington Post. It appears on
Wednesdays.

Last week he explained the science of the Chinese box. The short of it is it's
not Chinese at all, it's Cuban. The "Chinese" soubriquet is traditionally
applied to any solution that's a)simple, b)effective, and c)counterintuitive.

Side note: Cuba, pre-revolution, and actually fairly early in its history had
a thriving Chinese population.

>The "box" is literally a wooden box lined with metal. How
>new is this contraption

Dates back to at least 19th century in Cuba, possibly earlier elsewhere.

>and does anyone know if it is being
>used beyond commercial or catering (large party) purposes?

It's a tradtional Cuban method, widespread in Cuban communities.

>Is it a cross between an Imu and a pit smoker (or not)? One
>of Bobby Flay's comments was, "So, this is like a big
>pressure cooker?" Q: Is it?

It's neither a smoker nor a pressure cooker. Since the coals are piled on top
of the box rather than under or in, there's no way for smoke to get at the
meat. Conversely the box is insufficiently airtight to sustain significant
atmospheric overpressure.

I have no idea what an Imu is, but as explained in the forementioned Food 101
article, the box uses radiant heat to cook its contents. According to the
author of the column the radiant heat is in the form of infrared waves, which
is just below radio waves in the EM spectrum.

So essentially (in my limited understanding) the caja china is designed to
deliver pure heat without [visible]light or flame. The heat is evenly
distributed by the box's metal lining.

>All I know is: that's quite a
>concept! The price is VERY reasonable, considering the
>amount of meat it produces. So I wonder if anyone has used
>it or knows anyone who has used the product and what
>you/they think?

I've never used one, but I have pit-cooked a whole pig (actually I assisted)
where we built a large fire and raked the coals to either side before laying
the carcass down the middle. Same principle, less efficient as a good deal of
the heat was dissipate upwards. Air is a poor conductor of heat compared to
metal so in the caja china most of the heat would be drawn into the metal of
the top and reflected downwards into the box where the metal lining on the
bottom and sides would "bounce" it around, essentially reusing it.

It's kind of like the pumping phase of early generation lasers, the gradual
focusing of radiation prior to inducing coherence.

Best,

Marc