A go-to guide for getting bang for your bite at your next barbecue festival
You know you love finger-licking, slow-smoked barbecue and you're getting hungry right this minute just thinking about it. So, you can check off No. 1 on the list of requirements for attending your first BBQ festival.
Still, you can do better: if you brush up on the lingo (and the controversies) before whetting your appetite and gathering your wet wipes, you'll have even more fun at the gatherings of BBQ lovers and competitors.
Start with a few crucial definitions. They'll help you refine your taste for BBQ and may just keep you out of a war of words with fellow barbecue lovers (they're too busy eating and smoking to engage in a fist fight!):
Types of BBQ
Taken from the ever-on-point BroBible, these are the most typical barbecue varieties you'll encounter at BBQ festivals, at least in the South, Midwest and Southwest. Tread lightly, here: you don't want to refer to one type at a festival for another type, unless you're certain you're among friends or tolerant locals.
- Memphis style is typically pork ribs or chopped pork, served "wet" with sauce, or, more commonly, "dry" with a spice rub. According to the Bros, the BBQ may show up as a platter, on a bun or even on pizza or nachos.
- Kansas City style involves a thick, sweet tomato-and-molasses based sauce. "All barbecue meats are equally celebrated in KC," noted the BroBible.
- North Carolina style may be shredded, sliced, chopped or pulled, but it must be served with a thin, spice- and vinegar-based sauce.
- Texas style involves regional "substyles," like chopped beef brisket or pork served with spicy BBQ sauce or hot sauce; smoked sliced briskest, ribs and sausage and a West Texas style that employs goat, mutton and beef directly cooked over mesquite.
Types of BBQ festivals
There's a festival for every type of BBQ under the sun (or at least every type in the continental U.S.), but the basic division comes down to those that involve professional competitors and those that are not sanctioned in any way. The Kansas City Barbeque Society is the world's largest organization for BBQ enthusiasts and sanctions more than 500 barbecue contests worldwide. The range of KCBS-sanctioned festivals is wide and varied, so events like the Dirty South-KOD in Powder Springs, Georgia, are listed right next to the Meat, Smoke & Beer Festival-BBQ on Ice in Weissensee, Austria!
There are also state points races for pro BBQ competitors sanctioned by numerous bodies, including the Lone Star Barbecue Society, the Memphis Barbecue Network and even the Steak Cookoff Association.
If you want to enter the contest
There are BBQ festivals that include amateur categories, like the Kansas City American Royal World Series of Barbecue or the City of Kennesaw's Pigs and Peaches BBQ Festival, which has both pro and amateur categories, including a Kids Que Cookoff. Rules for competing vary wildly, as do entrance fees and registration deadlines, so plan ahead if you want to BBQ as part of the festival experience.
BBQ lingo
The First We Feast blog tapped the BBQ pros in attendance at the 2015 Windy City Smokeout in Chicago for its article "BBQ Slang 101: How To Talk Like A Real-Life Pitmaster." Here are some of the highlights you might hear at a BBQ festival:
- Pit boss: "Also heralded as the pitmaster, this is the sweaty, greasy badass who presides over the red-hot coals to create smoky, char-encrusted proteins of perfection."
- Fat Cap: "A thick layer of fat between the skin and flesh. Its presence ensures a piece of meat is flavorful and tender. Whether brisket should be cooked with the fat cap up or down is a long-standing debate among pitmasters."
- Bark: "The flavorful outer layer of crust that forms on a brisket."
- Mr. Brown Goes to Town: "Refers to the Memphis ritual of adding crunchy pieces of pork to sandwiches."
- Mop: "Brushing this vinegar-based sauce on a piece of meat before cooking adds a burst of flavor and caramelization."
- Injection: "Stabbing a syringe full of marinade - every pitmaster has his or her own recipe - is a common way to infuse meet with extra flavor."
- Money muscle: "This choice piece of pork, located high on the shoulder, is moist and flavorful. As its name implies, it often pulls in the loot during competitions."
How to have a great BBQ festival experience
If a little less talk and a lot more chowing down is your thing, you can get maximum value at a BBQ festival just by following a few basic strategies. Here's how the old hands approach a BBQ festival:
- Find a festival: The online National Barbecue News events calendar has direct links to barbecue festivals organized by BBQ associations or other sanctioning bodies, including the BBQ & Brews Festival in April in Cartersville, Georgia, and the South 40 BBQ Cookoff in March in Waco, Texas.
- Know the pros: "At many professional competitions, teams aren't allowed to sell directly to the public because of health regulations," Real Simple noted. "But many have dedicated sampling hours, and all have local vendors ready to sell you a sandwich or rack of ribs." At Atlanta's Bar-B-Q Festival, for example, visitors can buy $1 tastes from participating pro teams during the People's Choice sample event.
- Buy tickets for the most popular picks early: If there are events listed that involve unique experiences, like the non-sanctioned Memphis in May Kingsford Tour of Champions (which lets the general public taste and judge BBQ from competing teams), buy them as soon as they go on sale. Anything unusual and tasty tends to sell out early.
- If you don't have a ticket, arrive early: Most festivals must turn away people in line once they reach capacity.
- Bring cash: It's unusual for vendors at BBQ festivals to take credit cards or electronic payments.
- Take your ID: If you want to drink alcohol, they're going to card you.
- Wear good walking shoes: To get the most and the best samples and to vie for spots at cooking demos, you'll want to be able to get around.
- Plan to attend rain or shine: The festivals don't usually have the capacity to move indoors over a little rain, so for any weather conditions that can't be described as catastrophic, wear your weather gear and soldier on or lose your ticket price and the chance to eat lots of great BBQ.
