Here are the top winners of the 2008 Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest in the main categories.

Grand Champion

Natural Born Grillers, Olive Branch

Whole Hog

First: Natural Born Grillers, Olive Branch

Second: Gwatney Championship BBQ Team, Cordova

Third: Yazoo’s Delta Q, Nesbit, Miss.

Shoulder

First: Sweet Swine o’ Mine, Olive Branch

Second: Southeastern Smokers, Cumming, Ga.

Third: The Ques Brothers, Memphis

Ribs

First: Rib Ticklers, Batesville, Ark.

Second: Sassy Sows, Brandon, Miss.

Third: Smokin’ Razorbacks, Little Rock, Ark.

Patio Porkers

First: Got Pig?, Memphis

Second: Smokin Spiders, Memphis

Third: Here for the Beer, Little Rock, Ark.

People’s Choice*

First: Rhoda Brown’s Smokie Fatties, (#31), Monroe, La.

Second: Rock ‘n’ Roll BBQ (#55), Lakeland, Fla.

Third: Wizards of Que (#14), Hot Springs, Ark.

*The numbers are provided so participants will know whether the barbecue they voted for in the blind tasting, which were numbered and not named, won.

Links

All winners of the 2008 Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.

Jennifer Biggs’ wrap up of the contest.

Article about how the 2008 Mrs. Piggie contest only had 2 competitors. Sad.

Commercial Appeal Editor Chris Peck sees the Fest as a casual way to make important connections.

Saturday night: otherwise known as the fourth night of partying for many barbecue teams competing in the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.

 We watched some of our rivals pack up shortly after the winners were announced. But we won’t be going home early this evening. We’ll be here until the wee hours. We’re celebrating.

 The Ques Brothers, the barbecue team I am on, took third place in the country (and by simple math, the world) for our pork shoulder. I would love to report the names of all the other winners. But as soon as our team was announced in third place the whole team jumped up on stage. I was taking pictures with two cameras. The trophy is huge. Three people carried it back to our booth, triumphantly. More champagne. This scene was repeated throughout the park as the other winners celebrated. Music, beer, more food. Good times.

Willie, our head chef, will go back to his small barbecue joint in South Chicago and display his trophy. It will invariably bring recognition and hungry eaters. After last year, our first, he changed his recipe and to 9 primary ingredients instead of 3. He thinks this could have cinched it. There will always be speculation in this contest. On the way back to our booth lugging the trophy – the equivalent of a winning trot around the course – Willie and his cooks were already discussing what to do differently next year.

That’s barbecue for you. You can get an amazing flavor, master a recipe, smoke the hell out of a rib, a shoulder or a whole hog. In the end, it’s all about the next light of the grill. It’s an obsession that has made Memphis the epicenter of barbecue.  Year after year, we come, we cook, we eat, we party, we ask: how are we going to top ourselves next May? 

Congratulations to all the teams who competed. The Ques Brothers will see you next year.

The 100 Degree Celsius team from Norway is led by an Okie and a few other expats who know what a good rib is. Here’s Craig Whitson to give an inside view of what it’s like to compete in the World Championship. And then some of his team get just silly.

In my years of chowing down on barbecue, I’ve never had any as good as two servings I had today. The Pink Ladies had the most melt-in-your-mouth Berkshire shoulder, the sort of experience to make you shout hallelujah. Then I zeroed in on the booth of the Estonian barbecuers from Turi and I’ll tell you that between the flight attendants and the firefighters, I’m glad I didn’t have to choose. The Estonians whole hog was robust and meaty and moist through and through. OK, now I’m hungry again and they’re leaving town. I’ll let Roland Ounapuu, president of the Estonian Barbecue Association tell it.

The Congressman had a busy day.

With that fancy pig shoulder being offered up for the first time, the Pink Ladies welcome their judge and cross their fingers.

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.

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.

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.”