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18
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
MARCH | APRIL 2017
the
Barbecue
issue
E
very year as springtime rolls around,
the barbecue world turns its eyes
to western West Tennessee for
one of the country’s biggest competitions
— Memphis in May. Officially titled the
“World Championship Barbecue Cooking
Contest,”the event is part of a larger,month-
long international festival that celebrates the
legendary Beale Street music scene, the city’s
storied history and, of course, a good old-
fashioned smoked meat smackdown.
On the third weekend in May, ambitious pit
masters and barbecue teams head to Tom
Lee Park for a massive celebration of meat,
music and the chance to be this year’s world
champion. Now in its 40th year, Memphis
in May ranks as one of the barbecue circuit’s
crown jewels.
Brad Orrison, an owner at The Shed
in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, knows
Memphis in May well — as a fan,
competitor and champion. His team from
the ramshackle “Barbeque & Blues Joint”
on the Mississippi Gulf Coast compete
every year with plenty of success and “run
the table” aspirations.
“We’ve won Whole Hog twice, and took
the Grand Championship in 2015,” he
notes. The Shed’s team has also placed first
in
every
pork category. “We’ve also won beef
and poultry categories. But we want to be
the first team in the history of Memphis in
May to win every category.”
The Super Bowl of Swine features nearly
250 teams from across America and several
different countries. The competition takes
place in a mile-long tent city at Tom Lee Park
on the banks of the Mississippi River. Over
the course of three days, more than 100,000
fans attend, smell the smoke, and watch the
nation’s barbecue legends practice their craft.
The competition features two rounds of
judging: blind and on-site.The Shed’s booth,
The Rolling Joint
, is a judge’s favorite. It
features a 1954 Jeep tricked out as a smoker,
and the Robo Hog, a vertical pig cooker.
Of course,winning is nice—and can be pretty
lucrative at the championship level — but for
Orrison,the best part of any cooking contest is
mixing and mingling with fellow competitors
and other pork geeks: “Memphis in May is an
epic party.”There’s a lot of drinking, a lot of
schmoozing, and a lot of oohing and aahing
over Webers and Fatboys.
Fire
&
Reign
interview by
Tim Acosta, Rouses Marketing Director