What does it take to win big on the barbecue circuit?
Mark Lambert stands flanked by a row of trophies that would make any high school sports program envious. Each one, wrapped in flames and topped with a pig on a spit, came from a win for Lambert and his Sweet Swine o Mine team at the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest held each year at the Memphis in May festival. Lambert, despite his many wins, was not satisfied. He wanted another. You get the same goosebumps and the hair on the back of your neck stands up every time you win, he said. Competition barbecue over the years has taken on a life of its own. For insiders it's viewed like a sport. Some people golf or build fantasy football teams. These men and women tend fires and concoct secret sauces. And the cook-off in Memphis, which filled the air with scent of roasting swine, resembled a massive tailgate, even in 2021 when the crowds and competitors were curtailed due to COVID-19. As the competition circuit has grown, so has the prize money at the biggest events. This year, Memphis in May doled out $142,350 in prize money, making a win there about way more than bragging rights. Big and small competitions  Memphis in May ranks among the big four barbecue competitions, along with the American Royal World Series of Barbecue in Kansas City, the Houston Rodeo's World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest and the Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Each has its own rules (no garnish in Memphis or Houston, everyone has to make ribs, shoulder, brisket and chicken in Kansas City and Tennessee). Each is prestigious. It's like winning the Grand Slam in tennis. If you can win in all those venues, then you're the undisputed world champion," said Robert F. Moss, author of Barbecue: The History of an American Institution.  Grill like a pro:Memphis barbecue experts share their tried-and-true tips  More:Pork, ribs, stew and more -- Georgia's 10 BBQ restaurants you must try this summer  The calendar is dotted with smaller competitions, like the DeSoto Shrine Club Cook Off in Nesbit, Mississippi, Operation Smoke Sheaux in Lafayette, Louisiana and the Atlanta Kosher BBQ Festival. Some are just for fun. Others draw teams who also compete at the big four. The barbecue competitions grew from the 1960s mania for cook-offs, said Moss, when men and women vied to see who had the best cake, bowl of chili or foil wrapped kebabs. Many of the contests were sponsored by major manufacturers, like Pillsbury or Kaiser Aluminum. The Houston Rodeo added a barbecue cook-off in 1974. Memphis in May did the same in 1978, a year after the festival was founded. The American Royal started in 1980 and the Jack Daniels World Championship launched in 1988. A lot of folks really loved it, Moss said. Once they start earning a little money at it, start getting sponsorships and working with people; it just ballooned from there.  Chris Lilly, who has won Grand Champion at Memphis in May five times, starts working on his pork shoulder five months before he turns it into the judges. Lilly, who married into the family that runs Decatur, Alabamas Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q, searches the woods for just the right limbs from hickory trees, and only pignut and shagbark hickories will do. I like a hickory that has a really thin bark, he said. Less tannins. Less impurities.  He ages that wood until its not too moist, which would make the meat bitter, and not too dry, which would burn quickly and add little smoke flavor. That kind of obsessive attention to detail is possible at a competition, where only a few judges have to be fed. I cant spend the time on 800 slabs of ribs that I can spend on five, said Melissa Cookston, who turned her string of competition victories into the Memphis Barbecue Co. restaurant with locations in Horn Lake, Mississippi and Dunwoody, Georgia. Cookston in 2017 became the first woman inducted into the Barbecue Hall of Fame. What it takes to win  All that attention creates barbecue that most eaters would find overwhelming, because winning requires waking up the palates of judges weary of dozens of entries. This means amping up the salt and spices enough to impress judges who might eat no more than a single bite. The judges are only going to take one or two bites, Cookston said. You would not be able to eat much competition barbecue.  BBQ eating competition:Meet the Memphis Grizzlies cheerleader who smoked the rib-eating competition  From upstate to down the coast:South Carolina's 10 BBQ restaurants you must try this summer  Competing also requires time and money. Serious teams often compete in a half dozen or more contests a year. One team said it costs $8,000 minimum to compete in Memphis in May, which does not include all the money invested in smokers and other equipment. It will clean your pocketbook out. It will make your feet swell and hurt. Youll have a headache or two. But thats just all part of the game, said Brooke Lewis, who founded The Shed barbecue restaurant 20 years ago in Ocean Springs, Mississippi with her brother. They have been competing for 17 years, starting at a small competition in D'Iberville, Mississippi. In 2006, James Cruse Jr. showed up to his first barbecue competition in Laurel, Mississippi with just a couple of backyard smokers and the conviction that the ribs he made for friends and family were prize worthy. He won first place. Ill tell you this, the next few months we entered more contests, and we were one of the worst teams out there. But we got bit by the bug, he said. Cruse began to study. And between Internet forums and YouTube channels, the secrets of barbecue are now hardly hidden. Today, Cruse is a world class pitmaster. He gave up a career in sales and project management to oversee the smokers at the Central City BBQ restaurant in New Orleans. Patience is the first thing, he said. You have to have patience to understand that its not going to happen overnight.  This year at Memphis in May, he took first place for ribs, one of the many wins he has racked up in recent years. He knows, though, that the person who could take that title away is out there, maybe learning the tricks from the videos Cruse himself now posts on YouTube. Theres a guy out there right now cooking ribs in his backyard who might be the best in the world, he said. Call reporter Todd Price at 504-421-1542 or email him at taprice@gannett.com. Sign up for The American South newsletter. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.