My money’s on number 34 as the winner of the People’s Choice award. That was a mighty fine morsel of shoulder I tasted. I stopped by the tent–the line was probably 100 deep to get in–to see how the whole shebang worked. And I found out.

55 teams cooked shoulders, all from the same place to avoid variation in the quality of meat, and lined up outside the tent earlier today to get inspected by the health department (165 degrees at the door, and 135 degrees at serving time) and to begin the super-secret process of getting their number. No one present in the tent knows which number corresponds to which team, and the team members don’t know their number, either. Further, each table is served samples from a predetermined set of numbers, and you don’t get to pick your table. This is a foolproof system–rigging would be impossible.

Last year 2,800 folks came through the tent to taste and judge. Yesterday’s rain put a damper on the crowd, but volunteer Sue Binnie (pictured above, explaining the rules) expects about 1,500 people to cast their votes before the contest ends tonight.

“This is prestigious,” said volunteer Cathy Walsh. “Teams want to win the People’s Choice award as much as anything else.”