Stéphane Déom gives the lowdown on how the Belgians do barbecue. The Deominox Belgium team brought its own unusual cooker to accommodate it’s singular way of doing up the whole hog.

It’s a beautiful day on the river and you should definitely come on down. Take your Zyrtec first, because half the folks here (me included) and rubbing their eyes and sniffling. But my Zyrtec is kicking in and by the time I sit down to judge ribs in about an hour, I’ll be ready to go. Meanwhile, here are the results of winners announced up to now:

Miss Piggie: 1) Son of Bacchus; 2) Swine & Dine

Best Booth: 1) The Shed; 2) All-Star Ten Pin Porkers; 3) Harrah’s Hog

Best T-Shirt: 1) Swine & Dine; 2) Bodine; 3) All-Star Ten Pin Porkers

Beef: 1) The Shed; 2) Harrah’s Hogs; 3) Crispy Critters

Poultry: 1) Tangled up in Que; 2) Any Pork in a Storm; 3) King’s Cooking

Hot Wings: 1) Swinebucks BBQ Team; 2) Charside Pos Barbecue Team; 3) Smoke Shack BBQ

Exotic: 1)The Best Little Boar House in Memphis; 2) Sicilian Smokers; 3) Tom & Jerry’s Global Porkers

Anything But–Seafood: 1) Jack’s Down Home Barbecue; 2) Tennessee Boar-B-Que; 3) Curly Tail Smokers

Baked Beans: 1) The Count Bastie Porkestra; 2) Parrothead Porkers or Hogaritaville; 3) The Bastey Boys

Tomato Sauce: 1) Rub Down South; 2) Jack’s Down Home Barbecue; 3) Curley Tail Smokers

Mustard Sauce: 1) Barefoot in the Pork; 2) Fossil Fueled Porkers; 3) Slap Yo ‘Mama’

Vinegar Sauce: 1) Barefoot in the Pork; 2) LVOB; 3) Memphis BBQ Society

Friday night was raucous, noisy, besotted and gluttonous. And those were the positives! But Saturday morning was gentler, quieter except for the power vacs/blowers as the booths and their attendants, some perhaps nursing a hangover or two, cleaned up for the day’s judging.

And long-time contestant Crosstown Cookers has it down to a science after 30 years doing the cue.

Can anyone identify this critter? She’s obviously a hippo trying to pass as a pig, but with little success. The question really is: Do you know where she used to be? I spotted her earlier today and she struck a nostalgic chord, but I couldn’t place where I remembered her being. I guessed the zoo, but later tonight I ran into my friend Todd and he told me he wanted me to go ask the firemen if they took the hippo from Gaismann Park.

Aha! That seemed right. So the first fireman I talked to (a team of firemen; I’m guessing you’ve figured that out) says that he has no idea where she came from, but that they’ve had her for about 13 years, that last year she fell through the roof, and that he’s pretty sure she was acquired under dubious circumstances. His name was Steve, and he said only Mitch knew the real story.

“I plead the Fifth,” Mitch said again and again, then he spilled the beans with a disclaimer that his name was not Mitch, but one of several other names (I could choose–he preferred Dan). “It came from a park, a long time ago, late at night. There was a lot of beer involved and she left in a Jeep.”

I doubt she was stolen, but if she was, she went to a good home. People love her. “I bet at least 1,000 people a year come by and take pictures of her,” Steve said.

… bellydance, are a Marine, make a papier mache pig head, and even if you barbecue…

The delicious weirdness of it all.

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.”

They’ve been at it for 10 years, but this year The Pink Ladies have given up ribs and gone exotic. Here’s their story.

Rachel Prescott of Rancho Zabaco Wines is in town conducting tastings around the food court, with the help of David Hudman of Delta (pictured).

“This is the perfect opportunity for people to know how great zinfandel goes with barbecue,” she said.

Well, yeah. We’ve been talking about that on Whining & Dining for awhile now. Stop by a get a sample of the zin or a few other wines they’ve got.

No doubt the big prize is for the serious folks who cook the shoulders, whole hogs, and ribs. But I gotta say: If I ever start a team, I’ll be a Patio Porker–these guys are having fun! ”It’s like a big block party,” BFF John Lawrence told me when we were driving down in the golf cart that the MIM people call a six-pack. (I mention this because I honestly thought they were talking about beer every time I heard a radio call asking if someone had a “six-pack.” I finally figured out it’s a six seater.

Back to the Porkers. Everyone’s hanging around outside their tents–all more modest than the big rigs in the big competition–and about half of them are playing games. I visited with “Got Pig?” and “Shipracked” when I spotted team members playing a game of washers. You can see by the picture that they take it seriously–notice Sheperd Montgomery goosing Greg Courts to try to mess up his toss!

Got Pig? and Shipracked have asked to be placed next to each other for the past three years. “We like to play games, trash talk, play drinking games,” Courts said. The games vary but the rules don’t: “Whoever loses has to take three shots of my choice, and I never lose,” he said. “But then I also don’t like to make them drink alone.”

Last year they came in fourth and fifth place (I got lost listening to the banter over which was which), and this year they’re shooting for second and third. If they win first place, they have to move up to the big competition (although Courts says that’s the official rule, but they could change their name and the cook).

“We don’t want to move up,” he said. “We’re having too much fun here.”