Kosher Blog

Update From Memphis, #3

I have a few hours free before Shabbos, so I’ll tell you a little more about what’s going on here. As a side note, I did what will likely be my last bit of sightseeing in Memphis (The Mississippi River Museum and The Memphis Cotton Museum). I also took a few minutes to stop by the kosher aisles at the local Kroger - the major sponsor of the BBQ.

There were no BBQ related activities today, but I’ll elaborate more on what happened last night. (Again, when I get home, I’ll provide photos to make it all clear.) When registering for the BBQ, everyone had to submit an ingredient list that covered all the ingredients you need, for all your recipes. (The categories to compete in are brisket, ribs and BBQ beans, in case you forgot.) The $125 application fee covered the purchase of all your ingredients - minus the meat. Upon entering the shul social hall, each team’s supplies and ingredients were set out on tables. First order of business was to insure that all your ingredients were present. A community table contains some of the more common ingredients (spices, sauces, juices, etc.) and each team is expected to take from that to fulfill their needs. Any shortages or missing items are reported to a volunteer, and it’s on to meat selection.

Teams can pre-order as many briskets and rib racks as they want when they sign up. On orientation night, a team representative lines up at the outdoor, walk-in cooler, where they will get a chance to choose which briskets or ribs they want. As I said, meat isn’t included in the application fee, so at this point teams pay the shul for the meat they have chosen.

Cooking is not required on orientation night, but many teams do. The most common preparation that takes place is the marinating or dry-rubbing of meat. I threw together my dry-rub, covered my brisket and ribs with it, then sealed them in foil and put them back in the cooler, with a team-name tag.

I wasn’t expecting to do any cooking last night, but I got caught up in the frenzy. Unfortunately, the shul kitchen doesn’t expand when more teams apply to compete - and this year has the largest number of teams, ever. Fortunately, many people are working on tasks that don’t require cooking, so they can work out in the shul social hall. I put together some of the ingredients for my grill-glaze. I’ll combine the components tomorrow night and finish their cooking. Before signing up, I was concerned that I wouldn’t know the right-way to prepare/cook for the competition - not anymore. Every method was represented. Some people were pre-cooking their meat, so they could just put a char on it on the day of the event. Some were slathering meat in marinades or dry-rubbing (I was one of them) and leaving them raw. Whatever preparing was done, at the end of the night every team wrapped their product in foil and put it back in the cooler.

I get a lot of questions about the BBQ-beans category. Each team is given a large can of Bush’s Vegetarian Baked Beans. The trick is to improve the beans by adding things - spices, seasonings, fruits, vegetables, whatever. You’re just trying to offer the judges the best baked-beans they even tasted.

There’s so much more to discuss, but it will have to wait for my next posts. I’ll leave you with a question - I seem to be marking myself as a fanatic, by traveling from NY to Memphis, just to cook in a BBQ competition. Are there more nuts like me out there? Would you come out here to compete? Next year will be the 20th annual BBQ, nudge, nudge. Thanks to all my supporters out there and have a good Shabbos.