We woke from our first night in Rosenberg eager to see the cook off get into full swing. Sidling over to bid Ted and Jim a good morning I found myself with a Bloody Mary in one hand and a breakfast taco in the other, it was clear it was going to be a good day.

We’d slept in and had woken up at about 11am but most teams hadn’t had that luxury and had been up throughout the night keeping their pits hot and smoky to cook the precious meats inside. Rub N’ Tug were no exception and the boys had taken shifts stoking the fire that fed the smoker and ensuring it didn’t go out in the wind and rain that had persisted overnight.

Introducing the Rub N’ Tug team: Brent – ex-Marine, owner of the pit, and knowledgable BBQ’er; Mike – never lost for words and an expert on New Orleans (as you’ll see in a later post); Jason – a man who I don’t think ever stopped smiling; Aaron – give him a cloth sack and he’ll cook you some mean BBQ beans; and Eric – the newest and most stylish member of Rub N’ Tug.

Whilst we’d been snoozing Aaron had been busy finishing and entering his pinto beans for judging. Of course this meant we’d missed our chance to judge this food category but we were sharing a confined sleeping space so maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing… Thankfully we weren’t too late for grabbing a bean breakfast from Aaron’s slow cooker, just what we needed to warm us up after a cold night in the van.

Next up on the day’s schedule of events was judging BBQ chicken – as keen as we were to take part, we’d been warned to avoid this category for fear of getting an undercooked bird (something our friends had seen before…).

After each category is judged there is typically a lot of meat left over from each entry and so it’s customary for the leftovers from the top-rated entries to be put out for general consumption. Ziploc bags are even provided so you can take home your own bit of BBQ for later!

So instead of taking part in the official judging we had our own tasting session of the top picks once the real judges had weeded out any bad eggs (well chickens). From the outside you could barely tell the entries apart: every bird was a beautiful mixture of golden brown and charred black, but on the inside there was a great variety. Some were fatty, juicy, and delicious and others were drier and less flavoursome.

On to ribs, and this one we were determined to judge. Only we couldn’t, because this category was so wildly popular that by the time we turned up to register our interest all the judging spots had been filled! We were just as unlucky with the leftovers, as soon as they were laid out for all to take they’d disappeared into the coolers of the other attendees.

This wasn’t good, if ribs were this popular surely brisket, the BBQ meat, would be impossible to judge; they probably had all the brisket judges lined up from the beginning of the day. We needn’t have worried though as these wonderful Texans wouldn’t let their guests go home without an authentic BBQ experience. Claire, one of the girls helping run the judging sessions, had seen us turn up, attempt to get onto the ribs judging panel, and fail. She grabbed us and told us she’d make sure there were two spots reserved for us on the brisket judging panel. Shortly afterwards Albert, the head honcho of the cook off, found us and told us they’d not only reserved us spaces on the brisket judging panel, but spaces on the finals table.

What does that mean? Well, when a category has a large number of entries, let’s say 60, judging is split into rounds or stages, much like a sports tournament. The first round will then have 2 tables and on each 30 of the entries compete with each other. After the scores have been tallied, the top entries move on to the next round and so on until the best of the best make it to the finals table. That’s where we got to be: judging the best of the brisket at the Texas State Championship.

In total we got to judge 18 or so brisket entries. It’s a fast paced job: you take a bite, chew it, judge the taste, swallow it, take a sip of water, eat a slice of gherkin (to cleanse your palate), pass the tray of meat to your right, and repeat!

The brisket was by far the best meat we judged, there was a much greater variety of flavours and textures and one entry could look completely different to another. Some were juicy and tender, and fell apart in your mouth, others required more chewing. Some has a glaze, and some had a dark, rough bark on the outside that was almost crunchy. All the entries were smokey of course but one some you could see a bright pink, thick smoke ring encircling the darker, inner meat, and for others there was barely a smoke ring visible at all. I’d love to accompany this description with pictures but we were too engrossed in judging and having so much fun we forgot to take any photos!

Once the judging was over and done it was time for the results ceremony led by Albert. Aaron’s beans triumphed coming in 9th, and Brent “won” a tasteful bust as well as some salt and pepper shakers he’d been bidding on in the silent auction, despite not having entered a single offer… Of course this was Rub N’ Tug’s doing and they gifted the shakers to us for the rest of our trip (thanks lads!). And then out of the blue we heard Albert calling out “We have some special guests here who’ve come all the way from England. Aleks, Alenka where are you, please stand up.” He then explained the story of our trip and how we’d found our way to their cook off to the crowd. We felt a little sheepish, but also a little bit like celebrities when we got a round of applause and Albert announced they’d be sending us a special award for “Most distance travelled”.

Another boozy night came and went and it was Sunday and time, sadly, to leave. Our heavy hearts were lighted a little by the truckload of food Rub N’ Tug gave us as a parting gift. A few chicken halves, a couple of bags of ribs and a healthy supply of brisket which kept us fed for the next week or so.

Car packed up, meat in tow, we said our final goodbyes and received our last words of wisdom for the weekend: “Stay sanitary.”

Post Script: Ted, Jim, Mike, Brent, Eric, Aaron, Jason, Albert, Andy, Troy, Phil, Scott, Claire, and everyone else who’s names we wish we could remember better. We feel honoured to have been welcomed into the cook off and profoundly grateful for all of your hospitality. You are all thoroughly decent people and we’re so glad to have met you all.