“Dark. Cold. Extreme.” The slogan was this.
There are fun ways to be quirky. One of these is finding yourself in the heart of winter, in a valley that heads towards Austria, grilling chicken wings and pork chops under an epochal snowfall. “Grilling”, to be honest, doesn’t give a good idea. Why go on stage here in Riva di Tures – we are in the Aurina Valley, twenty-five kilometers from Brunico – it is the most extreme of the barbecue competitions, initiatory rites of a sect that has its origins (and its rigid rules) in the United States, between Kansas and Texas, and Also in old Europe it has thousands of followers. People for whom a meaning in life can be found there, in the sizzling plate, in the piece of meat chosen with eye, turned at the right moment, presented as it should. Ritual but also head-on challenge, fierce competition in the clutches of implacable judges.
Grilled happiness
Welcome to ninth edition of the West, the Winter Extreme South Tyrol, which took place in Riva di Tures on 24 and 25 February. Behind this fascinating madness there are three young men grouped under the acronym MiG, Manner im Glutrausch, which could be translated as “men in the thrill of the embers”. Poetry. To make the event attractive, the organizers have pointed out that this season the sun only peeks into the competition area for half an hour, and that temperatures can reach twenty degrees below zero. Really extreme!
How can you resist an invitation like this? Indeed the grilling contenders arrived from all over Europe. Twenty-six competing teams, seven nations, hundreds of barbecue artists. One thousand people in the audience. And no one froze to death.
Texas education and the usual Romans
How do you choose the winner in a competition like this? A question of taste, you might say. But no. Because the overseas parent companies dictate the rules, the custodians of tradition who dictate the regulations. In Riva di Tures the Saturday afternoon competition, dedicated to beef steaks and chicken wings, took place with the criteria of the SCA, or the Texan Steak Cookoff Association. The big match on Sunday followed the dictates of the Kcbs (which would be the Kansas City Barbecue Society) and here the rules become millimetric. There are four tests, namely chicken, pork ribs, pork shoulder and beef brisket. There is only one freedom: the pork shoulder can be frayed or whole, but in the second case the obligatory cut is money muscle (this is how in America they define a piece of meat that has the cylindrical appearance of a muscle, but the meltability of a braised meat and must not, however, fray like pulled pork). Hard times: the four dishes must be baked half an hour apart, within ten minutes of starting. A team of Romans who had been stuck in half a meter of snow saw themselves mercilessly relegated to last place in the standings.
The judge and the chicken
How do you judge a grilled breast? «The criteria – he explains Myrko Leitnerone of the Manner im Glutrausch – are precise. Three ratings: taste, appearance, tenderness, with scores from one to nine. One equals “inedible”, nine is almost the best. Above nine there is only the perfect perfect score. Then a computer re-elaborates the votes because the three opinions do not have the same weight: the flavor comes first, then the tenderness, finally the presentation”. Twenty-four judges divided into four tables vote blindly. This year the Saturday competition for the steak was won by the Lithuanian Kamado Bono led by Robertas Svetlauskas, in their first appearance, while the challenge for the chicken wings went to Birgit Hofer, from Austria, with her second consecutive success. The big contest on Sunday is taken home by the same Belgians as last year, the Punkten: record score of 700.5372, practically professionals. «Our pride – Leitner continues – is to have successfully proposed an additional test, because our philosophy is that we don’t just cook frankfurters and salami on the barbecue. So we got a crash course in melchamuis, a dish in these parts made only of butter, flour and milk. It seems easy, but doing it well is an art.”
Ancient art of the melchamuis
So on Sunday the teams also competed by grilling the melchamuis. And, since MiGs have always been broad-minded, the kebabs, the pulled pork and even the tortellini of the Nonne di Modena arrived out of competition, «an association that we have supported for some time». This open-mindedness is a pride of Leitner and his friends, since the beginning of the partnership, in 1998, they have had the mission of expanding the range of “bbq products”, and today their site is full of appetizing recipes such as diaphragm with wild garlic pesto, Skirtzopf mit Barlauchpesto, or the Graukäse-Soufflè mit Zirbelkiefergelee, cheese soufflé with pine jelly. But it is obvious that the core business, for them as for all enthusiasts, revolves around the categories sanctified by American SCA and KCBS standards, essential to be included in international circuits of races recognized by the two giants.
Formula 1 of the grill
It is a world apart spread all over the world: almost simultaneously with the race in Val di Tures, but in certainly better weather conditions, the Steak Wars from Toowoomba, Australia; a flurry of races are scheduled in Europe (from England to Hungary); the heart is obviously in America where the calendar is very busy from one coast to the other, ranging from Van Dyme’s Frozen Bones Steak Challenge which took place on March 1st in Wisconsin (and it was cold there too) to the Collard Green Festival in Evergreen, Alabama, with entry fee of 160 dollars and first prize of 1,000 dollars. The most popular stages are the races that are part of the World Championship circuit, such as the Cowtown Rib Classic which was held on March 15th in Forth Worth. And then there is the global event where everyone would like to be invited, but where entry is only possible by drawing among the winners of the local competitions: the Jack Daniel’s Word Championship in Lynchburg, Tennessee, on October 11th. «My goal – he says Italo Urso, from Emilia from San Pietro in Casale, first Italian in the Riva in Tures ranking – is to get there. A crazy competition, one hundred teams, the best BBQ on the planet.”
On target of the salamella
But how to become a competition griller? «I started like everyone else, with salamis in the garden. Then nine years ago, almost as a joke, I went for a race and I won. And a universe opened up to me. Americans love different flavors from ours, but the techniques you learn from them are spectacular: smoking, slow cooking.”
What was the hardest thing about grilling at eight degrees below zero? «Reaching the camp, we were stuck in the snow for two hours. And get the meat still warm to the judges’ table.”
