Cuisine Review

You can pig out on lots of food and events at this year’s Hog Wild BBQ Championship benefiting United Cerebral Palsy of Mobile on March 9th and 10th at the Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds. The event has grown each year and is a must for anyone who loves BBQ.

A weekend pass for the event is $10, a day pass costs $7 and kids under 12 are free. There will be a concert by Lonestar and special guest Blake Shelton on Saturday night with an additional cost of $25. The concert tickets must be purchased through Ticketmaster. Karaoke, pig races, a kid’s corner with multiple hands on activities, barrel horse racing, local music and two sessions of a BBQ Academy put on by Alec Naman add to the two BBQ Contests. The kid’s corner will have a rock wall, inflatables, a bungee run, face painting and pony rides – all free.

The main event is the Mitchell Company BBQ Championship with overall prize money of $25,000. This two day cooking competition offers a menu of contests in different categories. More than 80 teams from over a dozen states will compete for a $5000 grand prize.

Also, less experienced and non-professional cookers will participate in the Backyard Q-Off. There is a non-serious competition for two categories, chicken and ribs, with $500 in prize money. For almost-serious teams, they are having a Pro-Am Division that will cook chicken, ribs and pulled pork with the winners sharing $2,500. And let me say, when we’re talking about serious BBQers, we’re talking about folks who show up with fully customized trucks, who will slow-cook a butt for days. That’s serious.

On Saturday there will be 50 teams in the AIG People’s Choice Contest, where for $5 you can sample pork from each of the teams and vote your favorite. The events begin at 3 p.m. on Friday and end at 10:30. It all starts again Saturday morning at 9 a..m. with an afternoon Marble Slab Ice Cream Eating Contest, a Pollman’s Best Dessert competition and ends with the concert at 7 p.m.

Wanting to learn more about the professional judging process, I asked the organizers to put me in touch and give me some information from some qualified, certified national judges. Some of the particulars are interesting. In the rib category, the ribs must be served on green lettuce, with just parsley and cilantro allowed for garnish. There must also be six separate pieces of meat, which cannot be joined together by toothpicks or anything else. Rib meat must come easily and cleanly off the bone, but only where the judge has bitten!

Who spent all the time coming up with this stuff? The judging is all done anonymously to provide consistency. Teams are required to compete in four categories – chicken, ribs, pulled pork and beef brisket. They are judged on appearance, tenderness and taste.

Starve yourself down for a few days and head out to the fairgrounds to “pig” out.

Crowning a local champ

Since we had them on the horn, we figured it might be time to have some certified BBQ judges offer their opinions on our area’s best barbecue restaurants. It’s an argument most folks have had, and God knows it can get pretty heated sometimes.

Five anonymous local, certified judges (there are around 100 of them here in town) were asked to tell us where they go eat BBQ. Three of them choose Saucy-Q as their favorite, with runner ups being Ollie’s, JR’s, Smokey Bones and Sonny’s.

The comments on Saucy-Q ranged from “slow cooked meats, their pork is moist and not over-cooked, not fast-cooked”.

“They are consistent day-in and day-out, probably the best chicken in town,” one judge raved.

We asked who had the best pulled pork, chicken and ribs. Beyond Saucy-Q, JR’s was also mentioned for pulled pork, Smokey Bones for chicken and Dick Russell’s for ribs.

Lastly, we asked them for BBQ restaurants that offered a particular dish, dessert or sauce that we should know about. Sonny’s Brunswick stew was a surprise to me (they have recently re-opened under new ownership). Dreamland was mentioned as having excellent baked beans, and I think they have the best fries in town. The banana pudding at Saucy-Q was named twice. Dick Russell’s is said to have “wonderful, homemade onion rings” and Smokey Bones apparently cooks up some “fantastic doughnuts.”

One of our judges did seem to take the task a bit too seriously. He “does not think that it is fair to compare restaurants with competition cooking.” That competition teams will spend up to 24 hours to prepare, cook for 12-16 hours, plate for 6 ribs. “Restaurants have to prepare enough meat in the same amount of time for 600 to 1,000 people … they have it easy because their clientele stay in a geographic area and they can cook for them. Competition teams must be consistent … and have to adapt to the geographic area they are cooking in..”

Of course, all we were asking is for them to compare restaurants to other restaurants. As you can see BBQ is not black-and-white, but different shades of saucy red.

And just for the record, I think restaurants do not have it easy. They have to do this for a living, have a payroll, need inventory control, have to fight waste and endure advertising costs. They are not weekend warriors.

All we asked is for an opinion, and we know this certainly isn’t the last word on barbecue in this area. But it was nice to have the input from some certified judges. Given the fact that most people around here love to argue about BBQ as if it as important as creating an alternative source of fuel, I have a feeling I am going to hear about this one!

Kinnon Phillips is Lagniappe cuisine editor. Contact him at kphillips@lagniappemobile.com.

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