Driver Lifestyles
World's Best Barbecue Contests
In barbecue contests, teams of devoted and elaborately equipped barbecuers converge to match recipes and cooking techniques, the winners earning trophies, prize money, bragging rights and the time of their lives.
For spectators, cook-offs represent a great excuse for a down-home party with loads of barbecue and beer plus concert stages, craft fairs, auctions, races, and carnival rides among other fun and games.
Ground rules: Barbecue is a noun, not a verb, and its production, unlike grilling, involves slow cooking over low heat — "low and slow" is the chef's mantra. Every cook-off spotlights pork in various permutations; most also include beef brisket, chicken, sauce, side dishes, but none permit the use of anything but wood or charcoal heat.
Unless they become judges or somehow ingratiate themselves to contestants, spectators usually don't get to sample contest entries because there's just not enough to go around. Fortunately, plenty of commercial vendors offer free samples and meals for sale.
10. National Capital Barbecue Battle
Location: Washington, D.C.
What's Cool: Pigging out on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House
Where: Pennsylvania Avenue NW between 9th and 13th Streets
Phone: (703) 319-4040
Web Site: http://www.barbecuebattle.com/
Rates: $6 per person
Each June, two dozen contestants go to war in the middle of Washington's presidential inauguration day parade route. Along with the rare pleasure of gnawing ribs and other delectables in the shadow of the FBI Building, two music stages — one specializing in rock and reggae, another blues and jazz — flank the four-block combat zone.
The grocery chain Safeway passes out free samples and presents cooking demonstrations. And a half block is devoted to a "moon bounce" and other activities for kids.
9. Massachusetts State BBQ & Blues Festival
Location: Hanover, Massachusetts
What's Cool: Classic barbecue garnished with New England lobster and Boston blues
Where: Sylvester Field
Phone: (781) 826-1130
Web Site: www.nebs.org/bbq/
Rates: $5 per person
This contest, held the weekend after Labor Day, is sponsored by the New England Barbecue Society and blends the standard pork, beef and chicken categories with low-and-slow-cooked lobster and other local catches.
The jovial, smallish — about 25 teams — cook-friendly festival runs an Iron Chef-style event in which contestants receive a batch of ingredients with which to improvise a culinary masterpiece. The winner gets a shot at the prestigious Jack Daniel's Invitational. Four or five local bands handle the festival's blues component.
8. Canadian Barbecue & Chili Festival
Location: New Westminster, British Columbia
What's Cool: World-class meat plus salmon, chili and riverboat gambling
Where: Westminster Quay
Phone: (604) 944-0325
Rates: Free
The Canadian International Barbecue Championship in New Westminster, near Vancouver, isn't all that different from American cook-offs. Pork ribs, pork shoulder, chicken and beef brisket categories are the main events, and the winner qualifies for major U.S. contests. What makes this festival special is a chili contest that attracts even more contestants than the meat competition.
There's even a salmon barbecue event at this August event and a generous four-hour public sampling period, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Once they've had their fill of barbecue and brew, visitors can try their luck in the nearby Royal Star Riverboat Casino.
7. National Championship Barbecue Cook-Off
Location: Meridian, Texas
What's Cool: Major-league cooking with small-town flavor
Where: Bosque Bottoms
Phone: (254) 435-6113
Rates: $5 per person
A small town in the Hill Country of central Texas explodes each August as more than 160 teams and 20,000 people show up for the annual cook-off. The whole town of Meridian (population 1,300) is drafted into the production of America's second-largest invitational contest.
To participate, cookers have had to come in first or second in another recognized cook-off within the past year. The ones who choose to participate in the People's Choice Award competition must distribute samples to the public. The fun also includes a style concert, a visit from Miss Texas, an auction, a car show, a crafts show and a carnival.
6. Big Pig Jig
Location: Vienna, Georgia
What's Cool: Chance to take the People's Choice Tasters Test
Where: Big Pig Jig Village, at I-75 Exit 36
Phone: (912) 268-8275
Rates: $5 per person
More than 100 teams converge on the central Georgian town of Vienna (pronounced "VYE-en-uh") in mid-October to prepare Southern-style pork plus sauce, chicken and Brunswick stew. Some teams have erected permanent sites in BPJ Village, including a four-story cookhouse and others that resemble outhouses or saloons.
At the People's Choice Tasters Tent visitors can, for $1, taste the entries of 20 or so teams and vote for their favorite. Georgia's oldest barbecue cooking contest — founded 1982 — also features music all day and fireworks at night, the Piglet's Playpen children's area, and the Big Hog Jog, a 5K jaunt popular with family members of all ages.
5. Blue Ridge BBQ Festival
Location: Tryon, North Carolina
What's Cool: Sampling authentic North Carolina-style barbecue
Where: Harmon Field
Phone: (828) 859-6489
Web Site: skydance.com/blueridgebbq
Rates: $4 per person
Although the public seldom gets a crack at competition-quality barbecue, a dozen or so contestants at the official North Carolina State Championship sells samples and full meals. Named the Best U.S. Barbecue Event by National Barbecue News in 1999, the festival attracts over 60 cooks plus porcine competitors for Queen of the North Carolina Hogs.
The festival is typically held in June and features nonstop music — mainly bluegrass and blues groups from throughout the Carolinas — the Foothills Craft Fair with local artists and craftspeople, and an amusement park.
4. World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest
Location: Houston, Texas
What's Cool: Texas-sized picnic in the shadow of Houston's Astrodome
Where: Houston Astrodome Parking Lot
Phone: (713) 791-9000
Rates: $5 per person
Web Site: Houston Livestock and Rodeo Show site
If bigger is better, this colossal Lone Star State contest has the winning numbers: nearly 350 contestants and 150,000 guests on a fragrant smoke-filled 45-acre plot each February. The contest has been a component of the world's largest Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo since 1973.
Every year prizes are awarded in three categories — brisket, chicken, ribs — plus an overall winner and additional awards for most unique barbecue pit, cleanest area, best recycling and best team skit. Price of admission includes entertainment by local and regional performers, Texas two-step dancing, and one chopped brisket sandwich with beans and slaw.
3. Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue
Location: Lynchburg, Tennessee
What's Cool: The Holy Grail for serious slow cookers — but not a drop of Jack
Teams have to be good and lucky to get to Lynchburg each October, located 75 miles south of Nashville. First, they must win first place in a contest with more than 50 contestants or in a governor-designated state championship. But because 80-plus cookers a year clear that hurdle, they must also be lucky enough to win one of the 50 available spots in this contest through a lottery.
A half dozen or so contestants sell their barbecue to spectators who can also tour the Jack Daniel distillery and play specially designed games, like Ladies Rolling Pin Toss, Bug Pitching and Butt Bowling (a "Boston Butt" is a cut of pork shoulder used as the ball).
But they can't buy a shot of the sponsor's famed Tennessee whisky, beer or any other alcoholic beverage because tiny Lynchburg (population 361) is marooned in the middle of "dry" Moore County.
2. American Royal Barbecue
Location: Kansas City, Missouri
What's Cool: Biggest and oldest barbecue contest around
Where: American Royal Center
Phone: (816) 221-7979
Web Site: http://www.americanroyal.com/
Rates: $8 per person
In 1981 the Kansas City Barbecue Society founded the event that now kicks off the venerable (founded 1899) and huge American Royal Livestock, Horse Show & Rodeo. Each Fall, more than 600 judges choose the barbecue winners of both the Invitational contest, restricted to winners of other cook-offs worldwide, and the Open contest, which welcomes all who wish to participate.
Another 400 judges choose the best barbecue sauce, side dishes and bone art. The world's third-largest clogging contest, a barbecue equipment expo and live music are also on the menu.
1. Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Contest
Location: Memphis, Tennessee
What's Cool: The pork, the whole pork, and nothing but the pork — with a side of soulful Memphis music
Where: Tom Lee Park, Downtown Memphis
Phone: (901) 525-4611
Web Site: http://www.memphisinmay.org/
Rates: $7 per person
The "Superbowl of Swine" draws 90,000 spectators and the winners of some 50 contests sanctioned by "Memphis In May," an organization that deems pork cooked solidly over wood (preferably) or charcoal the only true barbecue. The competition consists of three pork-only categories — whole hog, shoulder, ribs — plus a Patio Porkers division that pits backyard barbecuers against cook-off-quality chefs.
Nearly 100,000 turn up for the competition, part of the month-long "Memphis In May" blowout that also features the Beale Street Music Festival, International Week and the Great Southern Food Festival. And because it's Memphis, which claims to be birthplace of both rock 'n' roll and the blues, count on hearing plenty of world championship music.