The Grill and the Glory

And then off we go on a sort of coroner's tour of America's national food. That blotch of red at the chicken bone, we learn, may or may not be the blood of an undercooked bird (a dab with a paper towel can tell you). Beef brisket is the cow's pectoral muscle (some of nature's toughest flesh). That membrane behind the pork rib can be cut away or left in place at the discretion of the cook (a good judge won't take points away based on his own preference).

"You have to train yourself to judge the meat as it is cooked, not as you prefer it," Roith thunders. "I don't care if you don't like chicken skin. If that cook leaves the skin on, you have to try it and evaluate just how well that skin is cooked."

We learn to ignore our regional biases; we learn that barbecue judges are blind to the furious sectarian divides between vinegar partisans and brown sugar fetishists and mustard outliers. We learn to judge on the holy trinity of texture, moisture and flavor. We learn that on the KCBS circuit, contestants are allowed to dress up their entries only with sanctioned greenery. Parsley is okay, but only curly. No Italian flat-leaf. No red tip lettuce, endive or kale. We learn that a prohibited garnish is an instant disqualifier (as are skewers and toothpicks) but that finding a bristle from a basting brush is not. We learn to test brisket by pulling it apart, looking for fibers that separate easily but not too easily. You want a little modesty in the meat.

They throw some traps at us, too. No one at my table picks up on the forbidden toothpick in the sliced pork that should be an instant blackball. But I'm proud to have flagged the illicit kale on one of the brisket entries.

We practice marking our placemat ballots on a scale of 1 (disqualified) to 9 (perfection). Roith makes us go round and round, comparing scores and challenging us to defend anything too extreme. Eventually, we all begin to fall within an acceptably narrow range. We all, basically, come to agree on what constitutes a perfect 9 rib and a middling 5 pork shoulder.

Five hours cramming on the tensile strength of brisket and downing a pound of demo meat may not make you an expert, but it does qualify you to take the oath as a certified KCBS judge. And so, we wipe our mouths, get to our feet, raise our sticky right hands and murmur in unison:

"I do solemnly swear to objectively and subjectively evaluate each barbeque meat that is presented to my eyes, my nose and my palate. I accept my duty to be an official KCBS judge so that truth, justice, excellence in barbeque and the American way of life may be strengthened and preserved forever."

I am duly deputized.

THE MORNING OF THE JACK DAWNS WITH THE SCENT OF SMOKE and fat and cumin heavy on the land. The dawn stars shine clear and sharp, promising improved weather. Not that a storm would make much difference to a bunch of barbecue extremists; Mixon once defied a tornado to keep company with his roasting meat. It was the stormy Friday night before the 2003 national championships in Memphis, and the local police swept through ordering contestants to evacuate. Mixon left, but immediately sneaked back in. He wasn't alone; other competitors hid in portable toilets until the authorities left. The diehards spent the night with their smoking wards as the wind plucked tents from all sides and the twister itself touched down just across the river.

"It got rocking there for about five minutes where I thought, 'What the hell have I done?'" Mixon recalls. "But I made out all right. Won first place in hog."

Now, under a half-pink sky, this barbecue camp is serene. Thousands of pounds of flesh bask in the searing hickory breath of a hundred smokers. Only the occasional creak of a metal hinge breaks the quiet and, somewhere, the low timpani of someone chopping onions. A snore comes from behind a tarp; most of the competitors had been up late at the whiskey-soaked hoot-enanny thrown by the Jack Daniel's folks.

At the Philly Pigs tent, Jim Boggs climbs out of his cot to squint at his heat gauges. Inside are the five eight-pound pork butts he bought three weeks ago from a New Jersey butcher (who orders them special from Sandusky, Ohio). Boggs is a financial consultant. Among his still-sleeping teammates are a contractor, a lawyer and two mortgage brokers. His brother, Mike, walks by drowsily with a basting brush in his hand. Their strategy for the Jack? Middle of the road.