The BBQ Report

I finally got around to watching a couple of episodes of the Outdoor Life Network’s new series “The All-Star BBQ Showdown” which have been beckoning from the Tivo for the past couple of weeks. Maybe I’m just a big barbecue nerd, but I really enjoyed it. It’s basically Iron Chef barbecue without the funny costumes.

If you have ever watched the Iron Chefs on the Food Network, you’ll get the idea. Amateur hometown boys face off against professional barbecue cookers to see who can cook the best barbecue. Generally, it’s a team of two local guys (the show airs from different cities) against two separate, award winner professional barbecuers.

Each episode features a mystery meat, revealed at the start of each show. (As in brisket, ribs, sausage, etc. not that green meat slab they served on Thursdays in your high school cafeteria.) As an added twist, the type of grill used for the competition is also kept a secret, and changes each episode, but this is more marketing gimic then a real factor.

The Iron Chefs have an hour to prepare 5 or 6 dishes, the barbecue chefs have as long as 16 hours to prepare what is typically a single dish. Thankfully, the show is only 30 minutes. I really am just not interested in watching a smoker smoke for hours on end. Each competitor has a chuck wagon full of spices and seasonings to play with, and can bring their own 2 quart container of “secret ingredients” to be used however they wish.

My favorite part is the judging where the barbecue chefs watch the judges taste their dishes via closed circuit television. This part of the program differs greatly from Iron Chef in that the barbecue guys do not bow honorably in response to criticism, instead they cuss out the judges. “Dry! You call that dry! you stupid son of . Kiss my you old toad.” Ah, great fun. I watched two episodes, the brisket battle, and the pork tenderloin and sausage battle. The amateurs lost both times, which wasn’t two surprising.