Memphis in May

The World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest is held annually as part of the Memphis in May International Festival.

The event is huge, with around 250 teams from all over the country and a sprinkling of international teams as well. During the three days of the competition, around 100,000 people come through Tom Lee Park, and around $100,000 in prize money is at stake. The focus is on pork, with three separate contests: one for "whole hog," one for "whole shoulder," and one for "ribs." These teams are big, with tractor trailer-sized smoking rigs and large investments in booths. Fortunately, there is a fourth category, called Patio Porkers; these are smaller, "semi-pro" teams who compete with each other on ribs.

We visited the WCBCC in 2008, and based on our observations and encouragement from friends, decided to compete in Patio Porkers in 2009. We got continuing positive feedback at events such as our AT&T Pebble Beach Open House and our William Shatner tutorial.

Wini and I attended a seminar where we learned how the contest judges evaluate barbecue entries: appearance, texture, taste, and overall impression.

Of course, we visited Graceland on this trip, a mandatory stop for all red-blooded Americans.

Aimee and Mike Aver went to college with Marc. They now live outside of Nashville, and trucked their "Miss Piggy" across the state for the event.

On the right is Jim Sciarra, who worked with Marc at Kadiri and then later with me at Ravenflow. Jim flew in from San Francisco to complete the team.

Mike was the chief assistant cook, while Jim took photos and tended bar. Aimee helped out in dealing with the public.

Traeger Industries was kind enough to provide sponsorship for our team.

We would like to thank Traeger dealer Pat Russell, of the BBQ Shop in Scottsboro Alabama, for providing us with our competition grill this year. I guess all Miss Piggys look alike!

Stan was our director of environmental engineering, and Arlene helped out in a myriad of ways. As usual, Jim did a bang-up job, handling the bartending, photographic, and all other miscellaneous duties with typical aplomb.

For lots of really great photos of the event, see Jim's collection here.

Many of our fellow Patio Porkers were glad to see us return. We began to appreciate the camaraderie of this group: On Saturday it's a competition, but all week long there is an incredible spirit of cooperation and friendliness. Some of it has to do with the South, but more generally barbecue people just tend to be a touch more relaxed. Perhaps maintaining a reasonable level of sobriety and not getting too plastered before lunch helps. It is still the best three-day party in the country.

We finished 16th out of 39 teams, moving up 15 places; we are still awaiting the judges' detailed report to see how. We did change our recipe from "sweet and sticky" to "dry and spicy," improving our score from 446.2 (92.96%) to 459.7 (95.77%). Needless to say, the competition at this World Championship level continued to be fierce!

This Sunday I revisited Sun Studios and could have done the tour better than our guide did it.

This year the Mississippi decided to crest at Memphis at a height not seen since 1937. A week before the event, the entire festival was moved inland to the parking lot complex surrounding the Liberty Bowl. That turned out to be a good idea, as much of Tom Lee Park was under water the week of the event.

This year everyone took photos, and the triage and collation took a while. Most of the photos are captioned, so they give you an idea of this year's doings.

Unfortunately, the other half of our skeleton crew was off running errands that morning, so we have only two photos taken by our next door neighbor, Tom Clary, of The Count Bastie Porkestra. While they are not great, they do provide evidence that we may someday pop up on an Alton Brown segment on Memphis in May.

He was intrigued by the wood pellet technology. We gave him the straight skinny.