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Barbecue, the noun

When I moved to Canada from New Mexico in January, 1979, it seemed like an exotic, foreign country. Montreal still seems like an exotic, foreign country to me but at least I remember what je me souviens means... or at least I think I do.
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When I moved to Canada from New Mexico in January, 1979, it seemed like an exotic, foreign country. Montreal still seems like an exotic, foreign country to me but at least I remember what je me souviens means... or at least I think I do. Other than the rest of Quebec and outport Newfoundland, I'm not sure I could have landed in a more foreign or more exotic place than Montreal. If I'd have moved to, say, Calgary, it would have been like visiting Texas, only colder and less well armed.

Montreal had a certain je ne sais quoi, whatever that means, that was part old-world, part high fashion and largely inaccessible to me since I didn't even understand what little French I can butcher after reading Corn Flakes boxes for the past 31 years. Sitting in taverns and brasseries, riding the Metro, wandering the frigid streets of Old Town, it all sounded so sophisticated, even though people might have been discussing their haemorrhoids for all I knew.

The taverns of downtown Montreal were my favourite haunts, Toe Blake's in particular. There was a cloistered similarity about them: large, unadorned, windowless rooms with wooden bistro tables and chairs, a TV or two mounted high in the corners, and a close similarity in both clientele and ritual. The servers all seemed to be ex-hockey players of a vintage, the vintage of small salaries, no pensions and no real future. They were big men, past their athletic prime, most with noses demonstrating the reasons helmets and faceguards have received such universal acceptance in hockey.

Dressed uniformly in white shirts, black trousers and leather change aprons, they'd lumber up to your table, grunt a cursory salutation and ask, "What brand?" The meaning of the question was universally understood to require one of three answers: Labatt's, O'Keefe or Molson, those being the only three choices of beverage other than coffee. A few minutes later, they'd lumber back with a tray full of quart bottles, place two in front of you and move on. Two quarts was the standard order and no one was pussy enough to protest, "Oh I only wanted a pint of beer."

Tavern menus were a time capsule. Pigs knuckles, corned beef and cabbage, meatloaf, tortiere, hot roast beef sandwiches. Real food. Guy food. Ex-hockey player food. No quiche.

And no barbecue.

Alas, for all its worldliness, for all its multiculturalism, for all its fantastic ethnic neighbourhoods and eateries, Montreal was a town sans barbecue. This seemed like a startling oversight for a transplanted southwesterner who grew up thinking barbecue was one of the major food groups. When I inquired about barbecue, people would ask, vacantly, "You mean burgers on the grill?" Ah, no. "Oh, you mean like St. Hubert's or Swiss Chalet."

While the names didn't ring with the authenticity of barbecue, they were closer to authentic than the food. Rotisserie chicken painted with indifferent barbecue sauce and served with a reddish gravy reminiscent of mercurochrome tincture. Oh, these poor people. Oh, the humanity. How could Canada be the land barbecue forgot?

I put barbecue on the list with Mexican food as something I'd just gorge on when I headed south and otherwise, relegate to my nostalgia file.

Twenty years later, not much had changed. The wave of popularity real barbecue was riding didn't amount to much more than damp sand on this side of the border. An outpost here and there would open and usually close for lack of support. And then....

Paul Street and Tony Wayland convinced the MotherCorp's management to relaunch the rebuilt Dusty's as a barbecue restaurant. A bold move on their part since I threatened to burn the place down if they didn't make real barbecue. But they studied, learned from the masters and the three of us made a pilgrimage to the heart of barbecue country to sample, question and generally destroy our gastro-intestinal systems as only 11 days of non-stop protein consumption can accomplish. Invigorated, motivated and seven pounds heavier each, they threw themselves into bringing real barbecue to Whistler. I threw myself into training to get ready to eat it all.

When the opportunity arose nine years ago to bring the nascent Canadian National BBQ Championships to Whistler, Paul jumped at the chance and walked further out on the limb to bring them to Dusty's on the August long weekend. Beginning with a handful of competitors, the event has grown into a raucous weekend of smokin' joints, yeah, those too but mostly joints of meat.

If you come out to Dusty's this weekend, you'll see fat, happy, smoky people creating some of the best barbecue you've ever eaten and having a ball, notwithstanding staying up all night to slow smoke massive hunks of pig and steer. You'll see PETA T-shirts - People Eating Tasty Animals. You'll hear great music compliments of the Craig Brennan Trio, Brother Twang, Guitar Doug & Friends and Whole Lotta Led. You'll learn a thing or two about cooking a whole hog from BBQ Champion Jim Ericson. And if you fancy yourself an accomplished griller, you might even enter the Backyard Burger or King of the Grill competitions and walk away with big prizes and even bigger bragging rights.

One thing for certain though, you'll eat barbecue. Vegans need not apply.

But that's not all, folks. To further confuse the eat-to-live, live-to-eat conundrum, you can wander over to the cool shady grass of Rebagliati Park on Sunday for Feast in the Mountains and sample some of B.C.'s all-encompassing love affair with food and drink. Built on the think global, eat local ethos, Feast in the Mountains is a sampler's cornucopia of local food, slow food, artisanal food and, oh yeah, beverages you need to be a certain age to drink legally.

Last year's edition was enough to make a guy wonder how in the world he's going to leave enough room after judging barbecue on Sunday to do justice to it later in the afternoon. But hey, when sacrifices are called for, the gluttonous rise to the challenge. After all, it's charitable, raising funds for FarmFolk/CityFolk, an outfit dedicated to a saner approach to producing food, protecting farmland and promoting local eating.

And how sweet is not having to do any cooking on a smoking hot weekend? Yes, that was a rhetorical question.