HOT COMPETITION AT PORKAPALOOZA
NAIT barbecue team hopes to roast the opposition
Entering this weekend’s Porkapalooza barbecue competition, the NAIT culinary arts team felt pretty cocky. After all, they had just won the award for best ribs at the Smokin’ Q competition at Lynnwood Ranch near Okotoks, part of three events that make up the Alberta Cup for provincial barbecue supremacy.
But even as NAIT instructors Randall Stasuk, Daniel Brasileiro, Nigel Webber, Ron Wong and pitmaster Josh Ward practised with their brand new Louisiana Grills 1100, they knew victory was not assured. Barbecue competitions are notoriously subjective.
“There is no one right way. It comes down to the individual judges,” says Webber.
“It’s like figure skating,” jokes teammate Stasuk, who teaches meat-cutting at NAIT and is the resident protein expert. “Scores can range from high to low for the same piece of meat.”
The only comfort is that the playing field is level, with all 40 teams competing to the same high standards and subject to the same whims and foibles of the six judges, all certified by the Kansas City Barbecue Society.
This is the fourth outing for Porkapalooza. Held at Northlands, near the Expo Centre, it’s Edmonton’s signature barbecue competition, offering $16,000 in prize money. Teams travel from all three Prairie provinces to attend, and there are lots of fun activities for the public.
The food stage is open from noon to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday, with demos by local chefs and butchers. There’s a smack down event called Chop It Like It’s Hot at 4 p.m. Saturday, when trash-talking chefs Andrew Cowan (Northern Chicken) and Paul Shufelt (Workshop Eatery) go head-to-head.
The NAIT team will be too busy to do much outside of babysitting their meat. Competing is a roundthe-clock job for participants, who prepare four meat dishes for judges — chicken, ribs, pork loin and brisket.
The rules are impeccably stringent. The meat must be cooked over natural fire delivered via charcoal, wood pellets or wood. There are firm delivery times for the samples, and the six judges will make their assessment based on a single bite.
“You really have to smack them with a big wallop of flavour and seasoning, more than you would at home,” said Webber.
The food must be placed in a regulation-sized box with only a bed of standard-issue greens for presentation. Try to slip some fancy, red-tipped greens into the mix and you’ll be disqualified. Even a stray chunk of onion risks censure. The meat is judged on appearance, taste and texture. Too tender is bad — chefs lose points for ribs that fall off the bone.
Ward, the NAIT team’s leader, hails from Tennessee, where barbecue joints are as common as bank machines, and smoked meat is an art, but also just plain life. Ward favours a Memphis style of barbecue, which tends toward sweet.
“We use lots of brown sugar, molasses, sorghum, and different types of vinegar and cayenne to balance the sweet with spice and acid,” he said.
Ward gets his barbecue recipes from a 1969 church choir cookbook which emphasizes sides such as cornbread, biscuits, green beans braised with a ham hock and coleslaw. Barbecue is the original comfort food, he says, laughing as he recalls a common presentation at barbecues back home.
“There would be a layer of white bread topped with barbecued meat and then covered with sauce and
You really have to smack them with a big wallop of flavour and seasoning, more than you would at home.
served on the lid of a garbage can,” he said.
Ward admits it’s taken him a while to get used to competing, because barbecue to him means standing around laughing with family and friends. He’s not used to keeping secrets, and techniques, to himself. Still, in the end, both competitive chefs and home cooks have the same goal — to make mouths water with delight at deep-smoked flavours and tender-moist morsels.
“I love to make people happy with my food,” says Ward.