My experience attending a class to become a Certified Judge for The Kansas City Barbecue Society October 20, 2007 by H. Kent Craig ©2007

I honestly didn't know what to expect when I drove the hour-and-some-minutes drive north from Cary to Danville VA to attend a somewhat local/regional class to become a Certified Judge with the Kansas City Barbecue Society that early Saturday morning on 20 October 2007. I suspected that I was in for new and different experiences, challenges and perspectives and in those regards it didn't disappoint. I hoped everyone there would be an equally diehard barbecue aficionado like myself, a brethren of the very real subculture of burned animal flesh and in that regard I wasn't disappointed. And I actually hoped to learn more about the fine art and alchemic science of bar-b-q from those who, even though I had been semi-professionally reviewing North Carolina-style barbeque on my NC BBQ Page for nine years running, knew more about the ways of 'cue than I did and were there to teach it and that regard I certainly wasn't disappointed either.

The event was sponsored by the Danville Tourism office , having received sanction from The Kansas City Barbecue Society , Danville Tourism making all the necessary steps to arrange for a facility, recruit instructors, do the paperwork for and handle the money from the students (the class was just $65, by the way, which also includes a one-year membership in the KCBS if you're not already a member) and such.

I have to admit that not having been to Danville proper in probably decades and not really remembering the downtown area at all, I was pleasantly surprised by Danville's beauty and charm. An old "tobacco town" full of neat old tobacco factory and warehouse buildings , the gentle wafting of the sweet residual smells of the golden leaf filled my nostrils and made me slightly hungry as I made my way through the winding streets of the old part of town near the Dan River to the Community Market & Center which was an old railroad depot converted to a local indoor farmers' market and multi-function space. I bought a couple of perfect homemade sausage biscuits from a vendor for breakfast and also got a small baggie full of homemade biscotti from another booth made by a sweet little old Italian lady who could barely speak English to carry home to the wife later.

Arriving an hour earlier than the nine o' clock starting time, I was the first student to wander into the open space adjacent inside the Community Market where I noticed in the open kitchen behind the huge classroom area a cooking class going on but didn't want to interrupt so I meandered around a bit and found our instructors for the day, Bobbie & Lee McWright who are long-time KCBS judges and class instructors and are many-awards award-winning world-class barbecue competition competitors in their own right as well as running their nationally-known "Pig Pals" catering business in Nashville TN. A married couple for over twenty years, they decided long ago to make barbecue their life and have devoted their entire professional careers to cooking it, competing it and teaching it, sharing their combined hard-earned wisdom and knowledge with literally hundreds if not thousands of their "children" over the years who've attended their cooking classes, judging classes, etc., and I have to say we all got lucky to have them as our instructors for the day.

Before class started, I finally found long-time contributor to my BBQ Page and online friend Chris Davis who's been authoring his own review page on my site for some years now. I had no idea what he looked like but recognizing me from the photos on my website, he came over and introduced himself and we hugged and made our good-to-see-ya's. We took seats across from each other at a table as class was called to order.

Class itself was a curious mixture of the passing on of some of the oral history and traditions of barbecue, the science of barbecue, the art of barbecue, the politics of barbecue along with how to create your own benchmarks for judging within the rules and parameters set down by the KCBS (appearance as the table captains present samples to be judged, taste and texture of same) with the McWrights stressing that just because someone finds a sample awful and another judging class student finds a sample from the same batch to be the very best they've ever had that one is not more correct than the other nor are they both wrong or both right, that as long as your observations are your perspectives on what you just put in your mouth and chewed and swallowed (an absolute requirement for all samples, myself asking them if I/we could sample/chew/taste but not swallow and spit it politely out instead, a firm but polite "no" being the answer to that question) then - of course - your honest opinion was just that and that's all KCBS ever asks of any judge, the best of their honest opinions.

Granted, I had to be careful because of my severe food allergies. With many but not all of the samples of, respectively, barbecued chicken, ribs, pork and beef brisket being served atop beds on lettuce inside the Styrofoam containers that the samples of different kinds of 'cue came to your table in as presented by the "table captains" (volunteers who made sure no obvious violation of standard operation procedures occurred and who helped along the flow of the judging), when it came time to sample them, I had to either mop away any possible life-threatening lettuce contamination (yes, I am that allergic to same and similar) or better yet eat "atop" the sample where the green hadn't come in contact with the meat and - yes - I was taking a calculated relative risk of going into severe anaphylactic shock but having come this far I was determined to finish the class and day out, if the very uncomfortable to my severely arthritic hips (the one real complaint I had about the class) small and hard metal folding chairs let me, I managing to tough it out by shifting my weight from time to time cheek-to-cheek as I sat. Even though I am not a barbecued chicken or ribs eater (I can count the times I've eaten both on one hand before that Saturday), just simply don't care for either personally, I "did my duty" and followed the bite/chew/observe/swallow judging protocols to the letter without any ill effects and in fact one piece of the chicken was absolutely delicious even though I wouldn't normally even have sniffed it let alone actually eaten it.

As samples of the four different kinds of meat prepared earlier that morning three different "teams" as part of the cooking class going on when I first meandered in (I assume) were presented to myself and my fifty-two fellow classmates, I could see the McWright's point about not needing to try to eat each and every bite of each sample given to you at your table or you'd wind up with literally pounds of meat in your stomach at the end of the day which wasn't a particularly smart way thing to do. Take enough of a good bite, shoot, take two or three good bites if the sample is really delicious to you, but have some self-discipline and save some room for the other samples to come.

With the other factors involved of my food allergies and my, just being honest here, not liking either chicken or ribs, I decided right then that while I definitely wanted to possibly/probably/eventually become a participant of the KCBS "barbecue competition circuit" as a volunteer, I could best do so by taking a KCBS class to become a "table captain" and help out that way. That way, I could become more a part of the fraternity of barbecue lovers I've been a part of for so long and not risk my health and still enjoy the happy gestalt energy of the experience.

As the last meat of the day, the very good for all three teams beef brisket was served and we finished our fourth and last judge's scorecard for the day, I said my good-byes to my other tablemates and Chris and thanked the McWrights for their surprisingly entertaining and professionally educating presentation (it's hard to keep an eclectic group of fifty-some diverse individuals from all walks of life attention for six solid hours, but somehow they did) and made my way out to the parking lot, taking one more quick trip around Danville's downtown before I left for home to soak in the sweet smell of old Southern culture, the essence of deeply-inhaled airborne fluecured tobacco odors being the perfect dessert to finish off a fine day of gourmandly eating and learning how to judge way too much Bar-B-Q.

Heather Vipperman who is Assistant Director of Tourism for Danville on left, Lee & Bobbie McWright on the right, preparing materials for the class.	A full house that day of fellow Certified Judges class classmates.
My friend and colleague Chris Davis on left, myself on right.	World-class barbecue chefs and instructors Lee McWright on left & Bobbie McWright on the right.
"Table captain" presenting a sample of beef brisket bar-b-q to the table before distributing them to be actually judged.	Sampling the fare.

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