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FESTIVALS
Whatever you call it, barbecue or barbeque, BBQ, Bar-B-Q, or Bar-B-Que, this form of
cooking food over an open flame, either directly or indirectly, is practically a way of life for
many in the U.S.A. And just as there are many “experts” in every backyard of every home
across the country, so there are major competitions and prizes awarded for the best of
those with tongs and a hunk of meat!
Fire up the Grill
B B Q F E S T I VA
LS ACROSS TH
E C OU N T RY
text: TOP EVENTS
U.S.A.
Barbecue is practical
photography: AS
NOTED
ly a way of life in the
United
and festivals across the States. Check out the contests
countr y.
International Bar-B-Q Festival
May
Owensboro, Kentucky
In mid May each year, Owensboro comes to
life with the wonderful smells and sounds of
the International Bar-B-Q Festival. Smoke
from hickory-stoked fires and the mouthwatering smells of barbecued chicken and lamb
compete to please the senses.
The International Bar-B-Q Festival was created to celebrate the long-standing reputation
and claim-to-fame for “Good Ole Daviess
County Bar-B-Q” and to provide a forum for
local charitable organizations to raise funds
to support their causes. The competition
is fierce and the flavors rich as local cooking teams produce the best that their secret
recipes have to offer in an effort to win the
Governor’s Cup, the prize awarded to the
best overall Bar-B-Q cooking team. Festivalgoers can experience the true meaning of
Bar-B-Q in the Mutton Glutton, where they
can sample foods prepared by the cooking
teams. Even backyard grill masters get lean
and mean during The Backyard Cook-Off
competition, preparing delectable treats to
share with festivalgoers.
© Keller Rose
Now it isn’t just barbecue that makes it a
great festival; the International Bar-B-Q Festival also serves up non-stop entertainment
that is sure to please all ages. Events include
live performances, pie eating contest, cooking team balloon toss, and even a classic car
show where enthusiasts from all around the
region come to enter their sweet rides in this
nail-biting contest.
www.bbqfest.com
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Festivalgoers can
experience the true
meaning of Bar-B-Q in
the Mutton Glutton,
where they can sample
foods prepared by the
cooking teams. Even
backyard grill masters get
lean and mean during
The Backyard Cook-Off
competition, preparing
delectable treats to share
with festivalgoers.
© www.kentuckytourism.com
© National Capital Barbecue Battle
National Capital Barbecue Battle
June
Washington, D.C.
Approaching its twentieth year, the Barbecue
Battle features serious competition between
top barbecue competitors. Here, in the shadow of the nation’s capitol, tens of thousands
of people witness the top fifty pitmasters
from across the nation compete in a two-day
barbecue cook-off competition vying for over
$40,000 in cash and prizes, the coveted bragging rights of being the National Barbecue
Champion, and the chance to represent the
Mid-Atlantic United States at the Barbecue
World Championship in Memphis in May.
Highlights of the festival include tasty free
food samples in the Safeway Sampling Pavilion; live music with great R&B, funk, blues,
and local rock musicians; and plenty of barbecue vendors serving up all kinds of delicious cue. Stop off at one of the many great
vendors from all over to purchase your favorite kinds of barbecue and sauces from
Memphis ribs and Carolina chicken to Texas
brisket and every kind of mouth-watering
barbecue you could imagine. Admission includes a donation to the Boys and Girls Clubs
of Greater Washington—to date, the Barbecue Battle has generated over $1.2 million for
the Clubs and other District charities.
www.bbqdc.com
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Best of the West Nugget Rib Cook-Off
© www.visitrenotahoe.com
Kicking off the event
each year is the annual
Rib Eating Championship
featuring some of the top
professional competitive
eaters in the world.
American Royal Barbecue
September
October
Sparks, Nevada
Now twenty-four years old, the Best in the
West Nugget Rib Cook-Off continues to be
one of the largest outdoor barbecue events
in North America, with more than 500,000
visitors and more than one hundred tons of
ribs served. Large activities within the event,
including rib cookers, live entertainment, expansive kids area, and multiple city blocks of
craft vendors—not to mention the best barbecue in the country—all come together to
once again transform the Labor Day holiday
on Victorian Square in downtown Sparks
into a must-attend culinary, music, craft, and
family end-of-summer affair.
Kansas City, Missouri
The first American Royal Barbecue was held
in 1980. The original rules mandated the
contestants had to cook at least ten pounds of
beef, pork, or lamb—which the judges were
then asked to consider the entries on a scale
of ten (“Super Excellent”) to one (“Not For
Me!”). The American Royal Barbecue contest
has since continued to grow as a prestigious
culinary event—and once again, barbecue
will reign supreme in Kansas City as the
American Royal celebrates its thirty-third
annual barbecue contest this fall.
Free top-name entertainment and a continued multitude of activities are planned. But
the world’s best ribs are what carry the day.
Twenty-four of the country’s most celebrated
and talented rib cookers will once again feed
event goers while competing for a total cash
purse of $14,500 and the title of “Best of the
West”—a designation many cookers consider
to be the ultimate prize in high-volume competitive barbecue.
Kicking off the event each year is the annual
Rib Eating Championship featuring some
of the top professional competitive eaters in
the world. Major League Eating (MLE), the
governing body of all stomach-centric sports,
hosted last year’s Best in the West Nugget
World Rib Eating Championships where the
country’s best competitive eaters vied for
$5,000 and the title of World Champion.
www.nuggetribcookoff.com
© The Dispatch/Donnie Roberts
Barbecue Festival
October
Lexington, North Carolina
There’s nothing like sniffing the aroma, sharing the flavor, enjoying the taste, and savoring every morsel of a barbecue sandwich with
100,000 other people at the same time—especially when the flavor of the slow-cooked
pork barbecue has earned the city the designation as “Barbecue Capital of the World.”
Ranked as “one of the top ten food festivals
in the U.S.A.” by Travel & Leisure magazine,
the twenty-ninth annual Barbecue Festival
transforms the streets of historic uptown
Lexington into a great big playground with
food, entertainment, shopping, and lots of
family fun. The uptown area is filled with arts
and crafts vendors, six entertainment stages,
street performers, and festival food. Three
large tents serve up 15,000 pounds of barbecue sandwiches, freshly made from the festival’s official area restaurants.
The barbecue carnival and family area provides all kinds of fun activities for children.
And, everyone loves the “Hogway Speedway”
racing pigs! Other festival special attractions
include: a fifty-ton pig-themed sand sculpture (that’s equivalent to 100,000 pounds of
sugar!); juried arts and crafts show; an antique car show; Corvette exhibit; a bicycle
stunt show; “Festival Chop Shop” lumberjack sports show; rock climbing wall; and a
lot more.
Today, spreading over twenty acres in the historic Stockyards District and with nearly 500
teams competing in four meat categories, The
American Royal Barbecue is one of the largest barbecue contests in the world! Combine
this with a barbecue-related trade expo, kid’s
activities, cooking demos, a Texas hold ’em
poker tournament, live entertainment, and
fireworks, this four-day food festival is truly
the “World Series of Barbecue.”
www.amer icanroyal.com
Jack Daniel’s World Championship
Invitational Barbecue
October
Lynchburg, Tennessee
Barbecue teams from around the world convene in Lynchburg, Tennessee, every fourth
Saturday of October to smoke, season, and
sear their best recipes and celebrate the now
twenty-fourth annual Jack Daniel’s World
Championship Invitational Barbecue.
Teams, judges, and more than 25,000 visitors from around the world joined the folks
at Jack Daniel Distillery to host the annual
crowning of the boss hog of competitive
barbecuing at “The Jack.” Championship
teams from the United States and international teams from as far away as Switzerland, Germany, and Australia, compete in
seven categories—Pork Ribs, Pork Shoulder/
Butts, Beef Brisket, Chicken, Dessert, Cook’s
Choice, and Jack Daniel’s Sauce—for the
coveted title of Grand Champion in what
competitors call the world’s most prestigious
barbecue competition.
© Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association
To qualify, U.S. teams must have already won
a competition in which fifty or more teams
participated, or they must have won a state
championship with a minimum of twentyfive teams entered. The final competitors are
then selected during a blind drawing of all eligible teams in early September to determine
the final competitors.
© Jack Daniel Distillery
Teams, judges, and more
than 25,000 visitors from
around the world joined
the folks at Jack Daniel
Distillery to host the
annual crowning of the
boss hog of competitive
barbecuing at “The Jack.”
www.jackdaniels .com
AL :: www.topeventsusa.com
www.barbecuefestival.com
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