Another question about KCBS judging?
 

I see all of these rate my box threads and see the comments, parsley not uniform, not stacked nicely, wrong angle with the meat, ETC. I thought the judging was supposed to be on appearance of the meat only. How can it be judged on the other stuff, are KCBS turn ins supposed to be interior decorators too or what? I don't get it! In MBN we are judged on apearance of the meat only. I do plan on some other KCBS and IBCA contest but will I be judged by how the greens look or the MEAT? I did not go to decorating school, I want a santioning body that judges on appearance of COOKED MEAT!

You don't need garnish, you can turn in meat only at a KCBS contest...The garnish is like paint on a new wall. If you hang new dry wall and don't paint it, then it's just a plain wall, but paint adds color and viberance:becky: :brick:

Greens, and parsley specifically, will give you higher scores.

Once the garnish is in the box, it becomes part of the overall presentation. Perfect parsley might not add points to or dry or otherwise ugly or poorly arranged meat, but sloppy garnish will definitely detract from the overall appearance and therefore lower the score.

It's a 'frame' for your 'art'.

> I did not go to decorating school, I want a santioning body that judges on appearance of COOKED MEAT!

Look to the others. FBA, GBA, MBN, IBCA, etc. no garnish.

If it isn't a kodak moment then it's not going to score as well. turn in something that would be a good magazine cover.

And turning meat 90 degrees so the bones face the judge makes the meat more appealing. Easier to see and no cut edges.

its pretty simple, setup a box with just meat and then set one up with a real nice garnish and your meat sitting on top of it. Which one says look at me, I look good. Thats why you have an apperance score, to see what looks best.
The garnish to me just makes the meat POP out at you.

Maybe it's just me but if something looks like it would be really delicious and I really want a bite of it, I would score it highly no matter what angle it was at, how uniform the slices were or how the garnish was.

I have not judged MBN or MIM but are you referring only to the blind judged boxes? I have seen on TV that teams seem to put a lot of effort into decorating (garnish) the onsite presentations. That would seem to put some emphasis on scoring garnish to me. Again, I am only a KCBS judge so I don't know about any other sanctioning body rules, just wondering. I myself make every effort to disregard the garnish, and concentrate on the meat.

I was just referring to the blind box, and I guess I never thought about the onsite. We even decorate the grates on the pit for onsite and have to have every little piece of trash picked up too or the judges will deduct on score for area and personal appearance.

You'll love IBCA. Just plop a square of foil in the bottom of the box and call it done.

Garnish does present the meat better sitting in the box, but what a pain at times to frame it. But it's all part of the fun!

I wouldn't consider it decorating, I would consider it plating your entry. I don't think many - if any - KCBS cooks like making parsley beds, but it's part of the game. After a few comps, they aren't that bad to make - about 10 minutes each if I really detail them out.

Technically, you are supposed to judge just the appearance of the meat. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work that way. I'm probably one of the few judges that ignores what the garnish looks like and is only focused on what the meat looks like. But, I think most judges are looking at the meat and the garnish.