I have to hand it to the folks at the Kenosha Public Museum: they know how to throw one heck of a party. They marked their 75th anniversary with a 3-day celebration in which the museums stayed open for 75 hours straight for special exhibits, games and activities, live music, an international fashion show, storytelling, and . . . believe it or not . . . a BBQ Sauce competition. That might not seem like the most natural element in a museum event, but it was done to tie in with what is the single most famous permanent exhibit in the museum- the Schaefer Mammoth, whose skeleton has loomed over museum visitors for twenty years. It was a playful idea, but also one which was taken very seriously.
And it was my pleasure to serve as one of the celebrity judges (that’s definitely celebrity with a small “c”) along with Bill Lawrence, an on-air personality at WLIP, Kenosha’s commercial radio station . . . and Dan Joyce, one of the curators at the museum. We were charged with tasting 12 different amateur entries and three professional entries. (They also had a children’s division, but unfortunately nobody entered it. Maybe next time.) We were asked to taste each sauce, not with anything else – just spooned out of a cup, as much as we chose to consume – and then rated each sauce on taste, texture, and appearance (with taste counting the most.) We were also provided with unsalted crackers and water in order to clean our palette between each entry. . . which proved to be a godsend. And away we went. The weirdest thing about sampling sauces like that was that we were tasting was is essentially a condiment, but without being able to taste it in combination with something- and of course a condiment really serves no purpose without the food it’s intended to enhance. So as I tasted each sauce by the spoonful, I found myself trying to imagine what each one would taste like were it slathered on a roast beef sandwich. (I’ve been to Arby’s once or twice in my day, so that part wasn’t too hard.)
This took place right out in the main lobby area of the museum, and there were quite a few people who walked past us with a rather quizzical look on their faces – plus a few people who actually sat right across from us and watched us the entire time (which was about forty minutes or so) which made things tricky. Our instructions included the admonition that we do our best to suppress any dramatic facial expression, should we find any of the sauces disagreeable. And wow, there were several sauces that tasted to me like someone unscrewed the top of a pepper shaker and dumped the whole thing in – and at least one sauce that had the consistency of Campbell’s Vegetable Beef Soup. (I can’t claim to be a master chef, but I’m pretty sure that BBQ sauce is not supposed to be that chunky.) In all of those cases, I did my level best to limit my facial expression to a mere “hmmm…. that’s interesting” sort of look, and then took a slightly bigger swig of water. I have to say that by the end of the competition, I felt a very peculiar sort of warmth, from my skin all the way to the marrow of my bones. BBQ Sauce Syndrome, I guess.
One more thing – the judges were not permitted to consult with each other as we sampled the sauces, which made sense… but that made this even trickier. People have very different preferences when it comes to something like BBQ sauce (I prefer mine to be sweeter) and we were all worried that our scores might be all over the map and cancel each other out, resulting in an 12-way tie. But no, we seemed to be rather united when it came to the winners, and the winner of the professional division was my very top choice by a fairly decisive margin. So I guess I know BBQ sauce better than I realized.
Anyway, it was delightful fun . . . and it sure beat being the guy sitting the Dunk Tank.
pictured above: Nancy Matthews, senior curator of education at the museum, took this photo of me in the midst of the competition. Notice the tall cup I’m holding? Each cup was about one-third filled with sauce – but it was up to us to eat as much of it as we chose. I tried to take two heaping spoonfuls of each sauce, although for the strongest and spiciest sauces, it took supreme effort to down two spoonfuls without a grimace or a groan. It almost felt like a moment from that classic Vitameatavegemen episode of “I Love Lucy” where she finds her way into a commercial for a nutritional syrup that tastes horrific, yet Lucy has to somehow find a way to say “it’s so tasty too” with a grin on her face, when all she wants to do is wretch. Fortunately, most of the sauces were delicious – even without a roast beef sandwich.