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Barbeque Adventures

Where There Be Smoke, There Be Swine

By G.D. Maxwell, with tapes, photos and "Aw Shucks" Southernisms provided by Paul "Everybody talks this way down south" Street

"Boy, y’all are now a World Champeen."

— Myron Mixon, one of the original Mean Bastards and guiding force of Jack’s Old South barbeque team.

In a town chock-a-block with champions, we can add one more name. No, not the unfortunately overlooked Phil Chew – gee, I guess it’s true what they say about the otherabled being virtually invisible unless you open your eyes to look – or some other outstanding athlete in a town full to bursting with outstanding athletes.

Though some pursuing excellence in the field consider it a sport – and really, in a world filled with faux sports, who’s to say? – most consider it a passion, a lifestyle, a quest for perfection, a quixotic pastime, and one helluva good reason to get together with friends to eat and drink their faces off. While many people are surprised to hear there even exists such a thing as competitive barbeque, many more will be surprised to find out there walks among us a bona fide world champion of that esoteric subculture. But Paul Street is a certified, whole hog, world champion barbequist.

So how, I can just hear you ask, does a mild-mannered bar manager from Whistler, a Cape Breton-Halifax-Calgary boy who honed his chops in the smokeless food and bev business of Toronto and Vancouver, parachute into the grits and grease gravy heart of the deep south and come home a world champion?

Good question.

It all started with a dream. Not one of those greasy anchovy and garlic pizza dreams but a Great Dream, a Once Upon a Time dream. Paul’s dream, even while managing the Cactus Club in Vancouver, was to bring real barbeque to Canada. That he didn’t really even know what real barbeque was constituted no impediment, such was the divine nature of his dream. Completely unbeknownst – even to himself – he was a man possessed.

"I was managing the Cactus Club and called Willie Jang at Whistler Mountain for a reference on a job applicant. Willie mentioned he needed a bar manager for the newly-opened GLC and next thing I know, my reference call turned into a job interview and I was on my way to Whistler." Little did Willie or Whistler-Blackcomb know Paul travelled north with a Hidden Agenda.

As explained to me one drunken night in Austin, Texas, where we were liberally spending the company’s money on a barbeque fact finding mission, Paul had always wanted to open a real barbeque restaurant. He just wanted to do it with somebody else’s money, restaurants in general being, shall we say, risky endeavours and barbeque restaurants in a Land Without Barbeque being particularly risky. Somehow, Paul and Tony Wayland hoodwinked, er, convinced W-B’s management to go along with the idea of relaunching the newly-built Dusty’s as a smokin’ joint instead of a just another drunken après ski bar.

At least that’s how I remember the conversation, the tapes having been confiscated by airport security on the way back to Whistler when they became suspicious of an unidentified red residue all over everything. Whether it really happened that way or not, every good fairy tale has to start somewhere, doesn’t it?

The rest is, as they say, history. Dusty’s joined the vanguard of the Great Barbeque Invasion sweeping North America – and even gaining an ever so tiny toehold in Canada – becoming once again a Creekside legend and happily vanquishing the memory of cardboard-enhanced burgers from the minds of anyone who ever dribbled a pulled pork sandwich down the front of their Descente.

It was in the process of converting Dusty’s that Paul began to master the arcane art of competitive barbeque. "Competition was a good way to develop the brand for Dusty’s," he said.

In his very first competition in Vancouver, Washington, Paul and Tony, under the moniker The Boys of the North, blew into town and came home Grand Champions, having kicked American butt and laid a heapin’ measure of mild-mannered Canadian grit on the raucous good ol’ boys. "It was unbelievable; we broke into a horribly off-key rendition of Oh Canada, getting most of the way through when we realized neither one of us knew all the words," he reported.

With his appetite whetted by instant gratification and great tasting barbeque, more competitions followed. Yearly treks to Paul Kirk’s barbeque school became training grounds for Dusty’s pitmasters and more victories ensued. The winning was good; the barbeque great. But something was missing… something wasn’t quite, well, big time enough.

A breakthrough of sorts came, as breakthroughs so often do, disguised as tragedy. With the death a couple of years ago of David Valjacic, competitive barbeque in Canada dangled by a tenuous thread. There are only two sanctioned competitive barbeque events of any note in Canada: Barbeque on the Bow in Calgary on Labour Day weekend and the Canadian National Championships on the August long weekend. David, Vancouver’s Fire Chef – he used to be a fireman – and his wife Pat nurtured the Nationals which chugged along like the Little Engine That Could, a lonely outpost in an unfriendly wilderness of utter barbeque ignorance.

Paul had spoken with David a number of times about bringing the Nationals up to Whistler and trying to blow them up into a bigger, Whistlerized event. With David’s passing – coming shortly on the heels of Pat’s death – Whistler’s where they finally landed, firmly entrenched on the plaza outside Dusty’s, Canada’s new Barbeque Central.

As part of last year’s event, Myron Mixon was lured away from his gruelling competition schedule and brought to Whistler to put on a whole hog clinic. Silver-haired, affable, Southern Gentleman from head to toe, and not nearly as fat as you’d imagine a man who competes in 35-40 major barbeque competitions each year, Myron laid some serious schoolin’ on everyone who came out to watch man wrestle pig. Shoehorning a 200 pound (many kilogram) hog into a custom designed David Klose pit, designed mind you for ribs, was a sight to behold and the swinefest 24 hours later was a vegetarian’s nightmare.

But, more to the point of this story, some time during the course of the weekend, Paul finagled an invitation to join Myron’s team for this year’s Memphis in May Superbowl of Swine. And that, dear readers, is Part One of the story of how Paul Street became a World Champion barbequer.

Little Warrior Heads South…

Like Marc Cohn sang in Walkin In Memphis, Paul put on his blue suede shoes and boarded a plane, touched down in the land of the Delta Blues in the middle of a pourin’ rain. Make that biblical rain.

"It was like the Mississippi had spawned tributaries running down every street and all through Tom Lee Park," he said.

Formally know as the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, what the three-day event on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River really is is simply Hog Heaven. A gathering of the clans for those who believe in their cholesterol-choked heart of hearts that the swine is truly the noblest of animals. A pox on mad cows and scrawny chickens, the meat of the matter is head-to-head competition in one of three hotly contested categories: ribs (ummmm, ribs); pork butt, also know as pork shoulder among those who still refer to chicken breasts as white meat; and the True Believer Big Boy category – whole hog.

Having grown into its own sanctioning body, Memphis in May (MIM) contests now include some 50 different barbeque contests across the U.S., heavily weighted to the Deep South. Grand Champions, winners, of those contests are guaranteed a space in the eponymous competition.

If Paul Street ever gave much thought to heaven – and how would I know; we’re guys, we only talk about cars and sports – it probably looked in his mind a lot like Tom Lee Park looked that middle weekend in May. "It was incredible. Party central. You wouldn’t believe it. There were hundreds of… I don’t know what you’d call them. Booths? Patios? They were big, two-decker rigs, some built onto flatbed trailers, decorated and festooned with lights, flowers, tables and chairs, big honkin’ speakers and sound systems. Come evening, the whole place degenerated into stereo wars. It was an amazin’ gathering of happy, drunken people."

Now, I have to warn readers, those might not be actual quotes. Unable to attend myself, I extracted a solemn oath from Paul to record thoughts and impressions into a tape recorder, which he did. Unfortunately, some alchemical inner-brain thing happened when his plane crossed the Mason-Dixon Line and the normally articulate Paul Street I know was transformed into Boss Hogg. Four hours of tape degenerate from a few sprinkled "y’alls" to something bearing an uncomfortable resemblance to the late Strom Thurmond talkin’ with a mouth full of grits. Splash in a little too much Black Jack Daniels, and you have the spectacle of a proud Canadian boy "speaking" in what Robin Williams once referred to as an extended vowel movement.

Back to Memphis. Of the 250 or so entrants, only a fraction are competing in the main events. The rest, and the best when it came to patio parties, competed, and I use the term advisedly, in the Patio Porkers division. Launched six years ago as a way to open the competition up to people who, well, like to barbeque and party but can’t get their minds around stiff competition, Patio Porkers is the Mardi Gras of Memphis in May. In surroundings that look as though they were decorated by ex-high school cheerleaders on acid, they compete as much on décor and rambunctiousness as on food.

Patio Porkers have spawned a manifold increase in barbeque "teams". Paul explains: "There are thousands of people milling around. Way more come for the party than they do for anything else. People pay a hundred bucks or so to be a ‘member’ of the team for a year and hang out at the site. Being a member of the team, you get a 24-hour site pass and you can stay down there and party as long as you want. The general public gets kicked out at midnight."

To cater to the throngs of festive event goers, sideshows abound. Competitions are held and prizes awarded for best sauce – vinegar, mustard and tomato based variants – hot wings, Anything But categories for seafood, poultry, beef and the mysteriously-named "exotic", best team shirts, most nicely decorated patio, and so it goes. There is also a Miss Piggie contest where imperfectly sane, grown men and women – though more men than women nach’illy – dress up as Miss Piggie. And there’s a hog callin’ contest… notwithstanding all the hogs are dead and cookin’. Get the picture?

And of course, with the near-constant rain and southern-style humidity, pretty much the whole shindig degenerates into a wet T-shirt contest, though Paul claims not to have noticed. Guess those passing references to it on the tapes were some real good ol’ boy’s drawl.

But such shenanigans were not for our fearless Canuck. Paul was a man on a mission and his mission was to help Myron – who was defending his prize winning pig in last year’s competition – pull off a repeat. And that’s serious business. Exactly how, some time during the getting-to-know-you stage of merging himself into the team, Paul came to be known as, alternatively, Little Warrior or Little Canadian Warrior, is unclear. I understand his overall reluctance to talk about it but life’s funny like that and for most of the remaining days in Memphis, our boy was Little Warrior. You ask him; maybe he’ll tell you.

With a working team of eight or nine, and a pair of 204 pound hogs, there were more than enough tasks to keep hands busy. Lest there be any doubt about who was boss though, Myron had this to say to a passing gawker who was amazed to discover it would take 24 hours to cook the whole hog and was silly enough to ask, "That must make for a long night for you."

"Not for me," he shot back. "The first thing you learn about barbequing is delegating. I delegate. The first thing I delegate is night shift."

And to some extent, that might be the last thing he delegates. When it comes to whole hogs, Myron Mixon is a man possessed. "People are either here to cook or drink," he says. "I’m here to cook. I’m here to win. Since 1996, we’ve probably won a little over 900 trophies, right at 150 Grand Championships. We’ve won Team of the Year ’n’ we’ve been Memphis in May points champion for five years in a row. Won the World Championship in 2001. That ain’t bad for a poor ol’ country boy with but one mama and one daddy now, is it?"

Myron, who, not counting whatever gets cooked at his Jack’s Old South restaurant in Vienna, Georgia – pronounced Vī ’enna and definitely not to be confused with that Austrian waltz town – cooks up a fair size herd of hogs each year, is the McDonald’s of whole hog. That’s not a dis. That’s just to say Myron cooks hogs with military precision, relentlessly prepping, cooking and presenting his hogs in exactly the same prize-winning way time after time after time.

This time was no exception.

Hogs hit the smokers around noon Friday. Unlike his competitors, Myron prepares two hogs, the first for the blind judging and the second for the final judging, assuming he makes the first cut. At Memphis in May, competitors have to decide which of the three categories they’re going to compete in. At other MIM competitions, they may well compete in all three but in the Shadow of Graceland, their hopes and dreams ride on a single entry in a single category.

Myron’s a whole hog man.

Just to make things interesting, Myron was also testing, for something like the fifth time, a brand new smoker. Engineered by James Britt, another original Mean Bastard and proprietor of Roadside Grills, the new smoker was a more or less identical twin to the one Myron had been winning with. Resembling an old steam locomotive as much as anything else, the contraption easily holds any little piggy that went to market. Running the length of the smoker box, beneath the hog, is a drip pan/water pan into which Myron pours a combination of apple juice and water. The pan serves several purposes. It diffuses the heat and smoke coming from the peach wood-fuelled firebox; you can’t cook that size an animal over direct heat. It also bathes dinner-to-be in moist, flavourful heat. And it helps maintain and equalize the temperature across a fairly enormous cooking area for a long period. Myron aims for 220ºF and gets a bit testy if the temp varies much more than 5º or so for the whole 24 hours. "Y’all don’t want to see Myron git testy," someone said.

James will be happy to sell you a smoker just like Myron’s for something in the neighbourhood of US$23,500. Talk about barbeque envy.

With the smoker smokin’, the swine cookin’ and the night shift ready to take over, there wasn’t much for the Little Warrior to do but hit Beale Street. But that’s another story.

Saturday morning was, in Paul’s words, "Game day. Walking down Union Street along the Mississippi, you could see a white pall of smoke over the park from blocks away. Everybody’s cookin’. Once you hit the site, you can smell the meat and nothing but the meat in the air. It’s really different from the early rainy morning smell in Memphis."

Judgement day. Judging at Memphis in May is a multi-stage affair. Competitors send in a blind box with samples from three parts of the hog: the ham, tenderloin and shoulder. Myron takes his blind box offerings – enough for each of the judges to have more than he can eat – from one side of Little Piggy #1.

The rest of the team is busy all morning sprucing up the patio, dressing the table for the on-site judging, rolling out the red carpet – no kidding – and laying straw over the numerous mudholes and lakes around the site. Myron’s deep into his game day pep talk. "There’s a saying," he expounds, "You can win the party on Friday night but you can’t win the competition on Saturday if you win the party on Friday. And there’s no substitute for winning. Anybody tells you he came out here this weekend for camaraderie and to see his friends, that’s secondary. Winning is number one. We’re here to win!"

The second phase of the blind judging is more myopic than blind. One at a time, three judges come by at 15 minute intervals for a 15 minute presentation. They score the area’s appearance, the contestant’s presentation and, of course, the tenderness and flavour of the meat Myron serves them from the other side of Piggy #1. After the last judge waddles away, you wait.

"It’s the longest hour or two in your life," Paul explains. "You’re waiting for the big golf cart to drive by and either keep on going or stop out front to tell you you’re in the final round."

The golf cart stopped at Jack’s Old South.

Each category is winnowed down to three finalists. The scorecards are wiped clean and the whole affair starts all over. Teams in the finals clean up their areas and get ready for the final judgement which comes in the guise of a group judging, four judges all at once. Myron pulls out the second pig – prepared in the new smoker – and all the stops.

Enter Myron the Entertainer. Greeting the judges at the end of the red carpet, Myron walks them through his prep routine, conducts an orientation tour of the smoker, let’s them feast their eyes on the finished product which has been plattered and dressed with colourful kale and fruit, then serves them up a heaping plate of hog and ramekins of his three Jack’s sauces. I’d describe this in more detail but the keyboard’s getting wet.

When they’re sated and have had a chance to ask him any questions they might think of, Myron goes for the close. "When you leave here today, I want you to remember one thing about Jack’s Old South. I want you to remember that indirect, water cookin’, tenderized barbeque. There’s nothing in the world that tenderizes like boilin’ water and apple juice. You add that Georgia peach wood in there for that mild barbeque flavour ’n’ you got somethin’ made you glad you came out here today."

… And Damnit Man Brings Home the Bacon

Some time between the judges leaving and the winner being announced, a great deal of alcohol was consumed. The combination of que sera sera , Jack Daniels, the cumulative effects of wood smoke and lack of sleep conspired to transform a focused, committed barbeque team into a gaggle of drunks. I don’t know exactly what was said but the whole thing sounded like an X-rated Emeril Live taping on a night the portly chef was preparing an all-alcohol menu for 12-Step program dropouts.

Audible dialogue consisted of slurred, "Can you feel the loooove," interspersed with "Who da man." And all was punctuated with Paul’s repeated, excited, "Damnit, Man!" mantra. Thus was the Little Warrior transformed into Damnit Man, clearly a step up in the world of nicknames.

Given the fact I’ve already spilled the ending, you’ll have to trust me there was thick suspense when the Master of Ceremonies finally announced, after painful delays, "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Grand Champion of the 2004 Memphis in May World Championship Barbeque cooking contest is…. Jack’s."

Not only did Myron, and of course Damnit Man, win the Grand Championship, they did it with a perfect score: 570 points out of 570 points. Big Bob Gibson, who took first in shoulder and was last year’s Grand Champion, lost to a perfect hog.

And in what’s clearly the most tender moment in a weekend of tender moments, not to mention tender pork, Myron put a big, beefy paw on Damnit Man’s shoulder and said, "Boy, y’all are now a World Champeen. The best thing about it is you’re a World Champeen in your industry – barbeque. Dusty’s now has a World Champeen right there on premises." Hell, I nearly cried.

And that’s how Whistler gained its latest champion.

Not being one to rest on his laurels, Paul’s been beavering away since he got home in May to pull together this year’s Canadian National Championships and learn to speak English again. Given the humble beginnings of Memphis in May, one can hope for Whistler’s – and Canada’s – barbeque future. At the first Memphis swinefest in 1978, 20 teams competed for a thousand bucks prize money. Myron took home $22,000 for his perfect hog this year. At the first Whistler-based Canadian National, 12 teams competed; last year, the number was 18. There wasn’t much prize money but at least we didn’t take ’em out back and steal their wallets.

This year, Paul’s hoping for more. "It looks like we may have 25-35 teams. Myron’s going to be here again to do a whole hog and anyone who comes out on Friday to watch the prep and pick up some pointers can buy advance tickets to eat the little piggy on Saturday evening."

If the rugged Kansas City Barbecue Society competition ain’t yer cup of tea, there’s still the Anything Goes – anything you can make on a grill or smoker – and the Backyard Burger competition. Both are open to everyone and both are the kinds of contests where your favourite concoction, the one your friends always bug you to make for them, stands a good chance of winning.

Rockin’ Ronnie Shewchuk will be there to defend his title from last year and probably flog some copies of his new book, Barbeque Secrets: Unbeatable Recipes, Tips & Tricks From a Barbecue Champion . And Paul Kirk, the Kansas City Baron of Barbecue, will be conducting a seminar on the secrets of championship ribs – Hint #1: Boil them and he’ll personally break your fingers – Saturday at 1 p.m. Sonny Rhodes may or may not show up to play some blues.

All the hoopla aside, if your culinary skills tend toward consumption rather than production, the August long weekend at Dusty’s will be the only place in town to head for if you want to answer the burning question I know’s been devilling you for the past 10 minutes, "What does a perfectly barbequed hog taste like?"

And it’s the only place to congratulate Damnit Man and bask in his humble championshipness.



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