Over the weekend I was out conversing with some neighbors I never really have had the chance to meet before. We were discussing our lives and our passions, and I learned that his hobby is that of a barbeque judge. So I thought to myself, ok someone that goes around to local fairs or rib cook-offs and uses their subjective judging techniques to determine who tastes the best. Little did I know, there are hard sets of BBQ judging rules, sanctioned private events, and the best in show is not determined by which rib falls off the bone.

As I talked with my neighbor, I began to learn the intricacies of what determines premium BBQ from the kid stuff. I learned that in order to be a judge, you need to attend a class and have lab hours to actually determine what classifies the perfect cooked meat from those of the amateur.

For example, ribs are perfectly cooked when you can take a bite, and the meat cleanly pulls away from the bone, yet the rest of the product stays in place. Fall-off-the-bone ribs are technically overcooked. To the serious BBQ connoisseur, the perfect product comes from smoking with particular products, the perfect amount of time, rubs, injections, you name it, all for the distinction of being Pit Masters. Up here in Ohio, I guess barbequing is not something that popular, but down south, like Texas, it is big business, as I recently read about in Gary’s report of Lockhart BBQ.

I also learned that babyback ribs usually get all the buzz around here, but the real perfect ribs are St. Louis style. As an amateur when it comes to my meats, I really have no idea what the difference is and would need to look it up to vouch for my new found knowledge.

Around dinner time, when you have nothing defrosted for the evening, I did what every meat loving, starving man would do, I asked where the best local place was to get good BBQ at near competition level. Within moments, I was saying my goodbyes, and packing the family into the vehicle to head over to Famous Dave’s BBQ.

I will admit, and regular readers of ours know, I am not a particular fan of chain style restaurants, only for the fact that there are so many great, local restaurants that provide great dishes, often with their own family recipes and ingredients. We had also never been to Famous Dave’s before, so I was intrigued to see how the BBQ stacked up to what I was used to, and invited my parents along for the experiment.

Upon arrival, we were already predetermined what we were there to eat, and we were not about to mess around. The All-American BBQ featured a full slab of St. Louis-style spareribs, a whole chicken, 1/2 lb. of either Texas beef brisket or Georgia chopped pork, coleslaw, Famous Fries, Wilbur Beans, four corn-on-the-cob, and four corn bread muffins. Served family-style for 4-6.

I immediately dove into the ribs, and noticed this must be exactly what a perfect cooked rib tasted like. After my bite, only where my teeth ripped into the rib was the meat removed. The meat cleanly removed from the bone, and the rest of the meat stayed in place. Perfect. The rest of the meal was all as exquisitely prepared and was really filling. In total, the All-American feast fed 4 adults and 2 Jr. BBQ Masters. What was better, is it only cost $58.99 to feed the entire party a hearty, BBQ meal. Impressive!

With my new found BBQ knowledge, I may need to figure out how to visit and report on some of these intricate events around the country. Unfortunately, the barbeque season is coming to and end, so unless I spring and buy my own smoker, we will have to stick with the chain gang.

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