Barbie world
Just beyond me are four Vikings. Next to them is a woman dressed as a cow surrounded by men wearing stetsons. And walking towards me is a 15ft-high cartoon of a Jamaican woman.
This, believe it or not, is a cooking contest. The World Barbecue Championships, to be exact, staged at the Sunset Beach Resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica. And although it had 140 judges, professional chefs, strict categories and a complex points system, this year it also had team names that included the Holy Cow Cookers, Hela German Gut Glut and the Bonesmokers.
Before you get the wrong idea, the competition is deadly serious. Serious enough for 23 teams to put in months of preparation, securing thousands of pounds' worth of sponsorship and perfecting menus, in a bid for a share of the $25,000 prize money on offer. And however hilarious the sideshows - dancing, drinking competitions and hermit crab racing - when the overall winners, Belgium (yes, Belgium - all 50 of them), collected their trophy at the closing ceremony, there were genuine tears of triumph.
So what's it all about? The competition, organised by the World Barbecue Association (WBQA), is now in its fifth year. It is open to any team from any country (provided you can pay the entry fee and get yourself to wherever the cook-off is happening). Teams share nationality, but there can be more than one team from each country. This year, for instance, there were three German teams, several from Jamaica, and five from Texas (not a country, granted, but a state that considers itself independent).
In terms of the food, the aim of the day is for the teams to produce six covers in each of five categories: fish, chicken, pork ribs, pork roast and a dessert. These had to be presented on the hour, every hour, starting at 12 noon. Two covers went to two "live" judges who were treated to the teams' hospitality at their stalls, while the other four were taken by runner to the judges' tent, to be blind judged on various criteria - for example, appearance of the main ingredient, harmony of the whole dish and taste of the main ingredient.
And those were just about the only rules. The WBQA provided the basic raw food for each category, but teams could bring whatever extra ingredients they liked. And although the WBQA provided purpose-built smokers (made of oil drums with a ventilation hole at one end and a chimney welded into the other), teams could also bring whatever other barbecue equipment they (or their budget) could manage.
However, what you soon appreciate about world barbecuing are the unspoken rules, the conventions - with which we in the UK, at least, are largely unfamiliar. Beat Jost, captain of the 2002 world champions, Swiss Barbecue Artistes, explained what was needed to win: "You have to concentrate on timing and taste. But the most important thing is the temperature."
Ah yes, the temperature. In the UK, more used to a back garden Saturday afternoon knees-up or the summer seasonal offer down at your local, barbecuing is still an amusement. "I told you those needed another five minutes" is generally about as far as the expertise goes. But this competition is not just about letting the charcoal go white. In this world, there is a clear temperature delineation. A temperature of 60-90°C equals smoking. Then 90-160° reaches the realms of barbecuing, and anything over that is grilling. If you had presented a piece of barbecued meat here, you wouldn't have stood a chance, because for the chicken, ribs and pork roast categories, smoking is de rigueur.
It's easy to see why. The Swedish Vikings, led by Ulrik Lindelou, whose CV includes a period with London chef Richard Corrigan, produced a smoked chicken breast that was as moist and tender as I have ever tasted - glazed in orange and rosemary and served with an apricot and roasted pistachio chutney. It won the team second in the chicken category.
Likewise with the pork ribs from the UK team. Cooking for the first time together were team captain, consultant chef Colin Capon, and team-mate Terry Greenhouse, executive chef for Hebridean Island Cruises. They dry-rubbed the ribs in pimento spices ("because we are in Jamaica") before slowly cooking it at about 100¡C while brushing it with pineapple juice for a glaze - for no less than six hours.
"You are aiming to get a coloured smoke ring, where the smoke has penetrated the meat," said Capon, describing another barbecuing convention, ignorance of which would mean failure. In fact, in this category - the blue riband event - their ribs ended up winning second prize, helping the fledgling team to its final overall ranking of 6th - beating three of the big Texan outfits.
No mean feat. Plenty of people at the Montego Bay contest acknowledged Texas as the home of the modern-day barbecue. It may often be a hobby, but take a look at a few Texan barbecue websites and you see just how seriously they take it. For instance, Randy Pauley, co-director of the Holy Cow Cookers, is a fireman but cooks at about five major events a year, including invitations to the Superbowl and the Texas Livestock Show.
Such events have stalls that would dwarf anything on display in Jamaica. In Europe and the USA, barbecue smokers can be built to resemble racing cars, steam engines or even a Jack Daniels bottle. A picture of one man's pit (what Texans call smokers), showed a barbecue fully 25 metres long, taking up the whole back of a juggernaut.
But, together with Jamaica's own 2nd International Jamaican Jerk Style/Southern Barbecue Cook-Off, which took place two days later, what the Sunset Beach Resort's World Barbecue Championships lacked in hardware, it more than made up for in location, music and fun. "It's the best competition I've been to," said Knut Lake, 24-year-old member of the Swedish Vikings team. "It's the World Barbecue Championships, but it's all taken as a bit of a laugh."
Next year's event is being held in Germany. If you fancy your chances, details can be found at www.wbqa.com.
What is the WBQA?
World Barbecue Association (WBQA) president Rolf Zubler explains how he first got a taste for bringing people together through food: "I was on a nudist beach in 1977 in South Africa. It isn't easy to approach people on a nudist beach - so I started offering watermelon. It was a great way to meet people."
Nudity is no longer a requirement (although the Sunset Beach Resort does have its own beach for naturists), but that memory inspired Zubler to create, in 1995, an organisation that now has 54 affiliated countries.
He says barbecuing is a great way to forge relations around the world: "We want to promote friendship, protecting the environment and help those who don't have what we have. Barbecuing is a great way to say I love you."
Well, it may not achieve world peace, but the association does plan to grow. South Africa couldn't make it this year, owing to a lack of sponsorship, and the Australians were another keen barbecuing nation absent. "We want to build on this and make it into a major tournament," Zubler says.
The Results
- World Barbecue Champions - Belgian BBQ
- 2nd - Robert Meyer Catering (Germany)
- 3rd - Swedish Vikings
- World Champions in Seafood - Salzburger BBQ Bulls (Austria)
- World Champions in Chicken - Salzburger BBQ Bulls (Austria)
- World Champions in Ribs - Holy Cow Cookers (Texas)
- World Champions in Pork - Belgian BBQ
- World Champions in Dessert - Danish RotalBarby
- Fun Champions - Belgian BBQ
- Best Stall - Belgian BBQ
