You Be The Judge by Mary Dutta

Note: Congratulations to Deborah Ortega, who is the winner of Edith Maxwell's A Poisonous Pour.

I had a good time passing judgment on a bunch of butts recently. Smoked ones, that is.

I had expected that serving as a judge for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama’s barbeque cook-off would provide me with some great food. Surprisingly, it also supplied me with a few thoughts about mystery writing.

The competition was a real learning experience. I discovered that the delicious crust that forms on the outside of a smoked pork butt is called the bark, and that eating approximately two pounds of pork starting at 10:15 a.m. is not for the faint of heart or stomach.

There were ten judges and our tastes definitely differed. I was all about the meat being moist while others focused on the smoky flavor. I already knew that I preferred a sauce that isn’t too vinegary and don’t love Alabama’s unique white barbeque sauce. Some judges were all in on those flavors. Despite the range of palates, two clear top finishers emerged, as did a unanimous least favorite.

While the official judging was blind, the People’s Choice awards were not. Interestingly, there was no overlap in the top three “best butt” finishers between the two groups. Maybe it was due to the larger pool of people judging as attendees. Maybe people were swayed by some of the competitors’ creative names like Fu Man Que or Smoke Your Butt Whole or by the friendliness of the folks behind the tables. Maybe the adorable baby whose dad was handing out samples won some hearts and votes for him.

The experience was not unlike the judging surrounding mystery writing awards and honors. There is no objective “best” when it comes to creative works, written or smoked. Some mystery honors are judged blind or selected by a single editor, but judges and editors still have their own preferences. Some awards are voted on by conference participants or organization members. In those instances, people do vote for works that wow them, but they also vote for friends, or things they’ve seen promoted, or for any number of other reasons not necessarily based solely on a considered assessment of the actual writing.

When my official competition duties were over, I swapped my judge’s hat for my mystery writer one and strolled around. The first thing I noticed was that some bbq smokers could easily fit a human body. It’s probably best to check what’s inside one of those things before firing it up. Tampering with the many different food samples set out for the crowd would clearly be a piece of cake, or more likely banana pudding given this was Alabama. And while the contest prize is simply bragging rights and a pig-shaped plaque, I could imagine a few competitors would nevertheless be willing to kill for them.

I left the event that day as full of story ideas as barbeque. Maybe even some award-winning ones.

Have you ever judged a contest, writing or otherwise?