Jeff and I recently got to put our BBQ judge skills to the test when we were invited to judge Bubba's annual chili cook-off. BBQ . . . chili . . . it's all meat. We showed up with our appetites at 11 am on a Saturday at the secondary location. The first location was called off due to the fact that if fell on the anniversary of Japan’s invasion of China and the Japanese consulate is around the corner from Bubba’s. Organized protests and large groups of people do not mesh well with China, so keeping 1,000 drunk people was deemed essential by the Chinese government.
Upon arrival we were given free entry to the event and lead upstairs so we could not fraternize with the teams. There were 23 chili entries so it was previously decided that the first round judges would be divided into two teams and the top six from each group would advance to a new round of final judges. Since this was a Texas chili cook-off, we relegated to the first round of judging. A pre-requisite for judging the finals is that you had to hail from Texas. I don’t think my quote from Full Metal Jacket of “only steers and queers come from Texas” helped either.
Chili was to be judged on aroma, appearance and taste on a 1-10 scale. This is an officially sanctioned event, so Texas chili rules applied. This meant that no “fillers” are allowed in Texas chili. So beans, fruit and whatever else you can think of were out. The chili had to be comprised of your choice of meat, onions, peppers and whatever seasoning preferred. Beer and crackers were provided to cleanse the palate between tastes. Now we are not connoisseurs of chili, but we can taste the difference between good chili and bad chili. One judge described about 25% of the chilies as something that “he would never order again if it was on a restaurant menu”. I would second that and say there was only about 25% of the chilies that I would order every time I went to the restaurant that served them. The other 50% were average at best. I guess you can’t complain when it is free and includes beer to wash it down.
After we had completed our responsibilities for tasting we were released to enjoy the event with the only other task of rating which teams had the best theme. The pictures here are from the second place “theme” of prison chili. The clear winner was “Heart Attack Chili”, which the team hired some local Chinese women to wear tiny nurses outfits and “inject” you with free booze. Jeff and I spent the next hour tasting all the chili's and deciding which one of us tasted it in our separate groups. It was pretty easy to distinguish the best one from my group and eventual winner of the contest. The Tabasco team made a simple tasty chili that also won the previous year. Jeff was adamant that a green chicken chili from his group might take home the prize, but he seemed to forget that this was a Texas chili competition. Texans don't want chicken in their chili and they don’t want it green. I am sure we will attend and next year and are hopefully invited back to judge. Spending a Saturday in Shanghai listening to live music, drinking and eating chili with a large group of expats is definitely a good way to feel close to home.
No comments:
Post a Comment