Ribs, are probably the most misunderstood meat when it comes to cooking competition. You could have cooked ribs for years and be fall off the bone consistent every time.
But that will not cut it in KCBS. KCBS teaches their judges that ribs are to pull clean off the bone at the point of where you bit into it. Not, fall off the bone, which many home cooks have done for years and years.
By doing this, you have to reinvent yourself in the art of cooking ribs. It's hard to do but you'll get the hang of it with plenty of practice. I have already done a few test runs and people tell me, they like the fall off the bone better.
So as a cook, you want to go back into old habits that work and make people happy. This is the dividing line between home cooks and competition cooks.
Competition cooks are home cooks that have advanced on to the next level of cooking. They have figured out what the judges are looking for, what will work and what won't work. Timing is everything in competition.
Home cooks can make mistakes and get away with it. Competition cooks can't. No mistakes can be made. Competition cooking is like bowling. Once you've turned that box in you have released the ball. If it strikes, that's good, it counts for you. But if you gutter it, it still counts, only against you and you don't get that second roll to try and spare that frame up.
Cooking is like any other sport. You compete against other people yes, but just like bowling, you compete against yourself. No one can beat you, except you. No one beats me in bowling, I beat myself. They may have had a better game than I did but they didn't beat me, I beat myself. I didn't adapt my game to the lane conditions so I beat myself.
Cooking is the same way. If I don't adapt to competition standard (lane condition) and my turn in box (ball) hits the gutter every time I'm going to beat myself hands down
To shoot a perfect score (300) in bowling, everything and I mean everything has to fall into place. I've only done it once and came close to it (299) twice more. That would have been a Grand Championship and two Overall Championships.
When we start doing test cooks this spring, smoke will fill the air with that sweet aroma of barbecue. We will be taking notes, drinking a few cold beverages and we will be enjoying life.
Look out world, here we come.
Cooking is like therapy, it keeps me from doing dishes...
Big Daddy
Big Daddy was a fire tender for Peg Leg Porkers. B.D. is now pit master and founder of Hillbilly Rib Runners Competition Bar-B-Que Team based out of Hendersonville, Tennessee
