A job I can sink my teeth into

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DAVID LIPNOWSKI / WINNIPEG FREE Press Debby and Bill Gage get to the meat of the matter in the Certified Barbecue Judge course.

You are probably jealous of me already, but you are going to be even more jealous when I point out I am no longer just Doug Speirs, a middle-aged, overweight newspaper columnist.

I hate to brag, but I am now Doug Speirs, a middle-aged, overweight newspaper columnist who is officially entitled to place the letters "CBJ" after his name.

As I am sure most of you are already aware, those initials stand for "certified barbecue judge," a prestigious title I earned when I spent four hours on Saturday trapped in a large, drafty barn at Red River Exhibition Park, along with 50 other meat lovers, taking a certification course conducted by professional trainers from the Kansas City Barbecue Society, the world's largest organization of barbecuing enthusiasts.

I was required to gnaw my way through this challenging course in order to earn a mouth-watering spot as a judge for the inaugural Winnipeg Free Press Pit Masters Championship, a KCBS-sanctioned event being held Aug. 18-19 as part of the Winnipeg BBQ and Blues Festival. (Tickets are available at Ticketmaster or online at www.winnipegbbqandblues.com)

They need a lot of certified judges because, what with teams coming from across the continent and $10,000 in prizes and an invitation to the Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue Competition in Lynchburg, Tenn., up for grabs, the pit masters do not want to leave their fate in the hands of some gormless amateur, such as yourself, who does not realize pork butt comes from the upper shoulder of the hog as opposed to its "buttocular" region.

Now that I have my official CBJ pin and membership card, I can safely say attending barbecue judging school is just like going to Harvard Medical School, except there are a lot more rules and regulations.

You probably think I'm kidding, but that is because, unlike me, you are not a certified barbecue judge, which means I can judge any KCBS contest anywhere in the world, provided I pay my own way and my wife says it's OK.

The first thing us would-be judges had to do was sign a code of conduct stating, among other things, we would not consume "mind-altering substances prior to or during judging," and we would maintain neutral body language -- "no expressions of rapture or disgust" -- to ensure we don't influence our fellow judges.

"If you get a piece of brisket that's too tough, don't tussle with it or shoot it across the table at another judge," advised instructor Bill Gage, who along with his lovely wife, Debby, spent half a day teaching the finer points of judging four kinds of smoked meat -- chicken, pork ribs, pork shoulder or butt, and beef brisket.

"What we consider barbecuing is really smoked meat," the silver-haired, soft-spoken master judge from Memphis explained, using a laser pointer and a giant screen to highlight the various edible parts of a pig. "It has a brown crust on the outside called the bark. The idea of barbecue is to take a bad piece of meat and make it taste good."

For the record, judges are also not allowed to eat with forks, judge if they have a cold, judge sitting beside their spouse, or fraternize with cooks on competition day, but the golden rule of barbecue is: balance.

"The balance of flavours, along with smoke, should enhance and not overpower the meat," Debby told us students, 98 per cent of whom were of the distinctly male gender. "It should all blend together."

Along with rating appearance, taste and tenderness (mushy is bad), judges are required to keep a wary eye out for flagrant barbecue faux pas, such as whether an entry contains a puddle of sauce (also bad), illegal garnishes (very bad) or a foreign object such as a toothpick (unforgivable).

"A cook can be disqualified for having the wrong garnish," Debby warned. "Over 100 varieties of green lettuce are legal, but kale, endive, red-tipped lettuce, lettuce cores and other vegetation are prohibited."

Given that, you would think finding something such as a hair in a BBQ entry would be punishable by death, but you'd be wrong. "It's allowed," Debby said, "You are asked to eat around it or take it out. We don't know for sure how that hair got in there."

The highlight came when, for training purposes, we student judges got to stuff our faces with all four barbecued meats and rate them. I gobbled every scrap, which turned out to be a serious mistake.

"Take small portions," Debby politely scolded me, "If you eat just one ounce of each sample, you could consume nearly two pounds of meat before you're finished judging."

She's probably right, what with being the expert and all. But, now that I'm a CBJ, I think I'll be the judge of that.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 16, 2012 A2