Garnish mistake

Should have been DQ'd. No room for discussion.

Us Polocks were DQ'ed one time for turning in smoked BBQ Chicken. Why you ask? It's a long story but we got an apology from the reps the next time we saw them.

The way that I heard it though, the team had already turned in the chicken with no problems and only got questioned on the rib entry. Evidently the team said that they "didn't know" and the Rep gave them a verbal. I agree, they should have gotten a DQ .

Yeah, definitely. Spinach (although a nice sounding idea) is definitely NOT an approved garnish.

Tough call for the rep due to the judges not speaking up about the chicken entry.

Wait - that normally wouldn't happen since no two teams entries should appear at the same table twice, if the table captains are doing their job . . .

huh?

Well, yeah, shoulda been DQ'd for sure.

Garnish is a roaring PITA. Let's eliminate it and get on with cooking barbeque. Its about MEAT, not nesting and greenery.

The rule of thumb I've lived by in the restaurant industry is: If it ain't gonna be et... it ain't on the plate. I haven't ever heard of judges eating the garnish, so it's something that really doesn't need to be there. (in my opinion). Are we here to judge the meat?

Hub said:

Garnish is a roaring PITA. Let's eliminate it and get on with cooking barbeque. Its about MEAT, not nesting and greenery.

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completely disagree, garnish has its place and a purpose. In this case the only PIA is the nonenforcement of a very clear cut rule.

What Sean said. If reps would grow a set and enforce rules, it would be a better contest world.

Matt_A said:

The rule of thumb I've lived by in the restaurant industry is: If it ain't gonna be et... it ain't on the plate. I haven't ever heard of judges eating the garnish, so it's something that really doesn't need to be there. (in my opinion). Are we here to judge the meat?

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If you want to score well in a KCBS contest, your odds of doing well go up considerably if you garnish the box. It is what it is.

Unfortunatly I have to agree with Matt ^^^^^. From what I've seen & heard at the judging table, you can do a no-garnish box (KCBS) at your own risk.
Put me down in the "eliminate the garnish" column.

We cook a mainly Memphis style events where there is no garnish in the box. A thought to consider for the "no garnish" crowd- it takes a LOT of meat to make a box look good. Even though you put in "bottom meat" to raise up the good samples and make it look full, you can't put in poorer quality meat because you don't know which samples the judges will take, i.e., you may have to cook more meat.

Things like this should be a DQ all day every day. Any team that has not read taken 5 minutes to read and digest the widely available rules has no excuse.

QansasjayhawQ said:

Yeah, definitely. Spinach (although a nice sounding idea) is definitely NOT an approved garnish.

Tough call for the rep due to the judges not speaking up about the chicken entry.

Wait - that normally wouldn't happen since no two teams entries should appear at the same table twice, if the table captains are doing their job . . .

huh?

Well, yeah, shoulda been DQ'd for sure.

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12) Garnish is optional. If used, it is limited to chopped,
sliced, shredded or whole leaves of fresh green lettuce, curly
parsley, flat leaf parsley and/or cilantro. Kale, endive, red
tipped lettuce, lettuce cores and other vegetation are
prohibited. Improper garnish shall receive a score of one (1)​

on Appearance.

I really wanted to not jump into this one but when you start slighting the judges, I have to.
I was at the table. When the offending box was presented for appearence scoring I immediatly saw it had a unfamiliar garnish. After all box's were scored for appearence and I told the TC to have the rep inspect it and she said it looked unusual also.
She took it to one of the reps and she could not "exactly " identify it and took it to the senior rep who examined and tasted it and decided it was not spinach but "was not positive" what it was and let the judging proceed. Now all this had to happen while the tables' boxs were sitting waiting to be passed around and the rest of the turn ins were still coming in. The decision was made and judging moved forward.
When ribs came in they also had the same garnish (went to a different table and also was objected to). After rib turn in the senior rep went to the cook site and asked what they were using for garnish and was told spinach. She informed them it was a illegal garnish and to stop using it.
Now was it handled correctly, no. was it handled as fairly as possible at the time, I think so.
It is the teams responsability to know and abide by the rules.
It is the reps responsability to be able to identify the garnish that is listed as legal, any other is cause for a score of 1.
It is KCBS responsability to make sure reps know what garnish looks like (provide pics of ALL legal garnish)
It is the judges responsability to report suspicious garnish and was done correctly in this case.

Now the big question is how did this affect the contest?
The team was obviously a new team and the only other scores that would have been affected are those that scored lower than the uninformed newbies that had no clue.
Anybody want to claim injury???
Ed

I judged at the Western Maine BBQ Festival yesterday. For me, you could have put anything green in that box and I probably wouldn't have caught if it was Kale or Spinach or tree leaves. For the small time I have to look at the box, I'm looking at the meat, not the garnish. I also believe that it's a meat competition not a BBQ Salad Competition.

The one suggestion I have though (and I saw a few teams doing this), don't chop parsley (or any garnish) up into little bits. I picked up a rib and two sides of it were coated with parsley bits. I had at least 4 other entries where I had to pick parsley off the entry before I could eat it.

Also, when you chop it up you are releasing some flavor from the parsley, which then gets on the food, yuck.

The rib that was coated in parsley was the first rib we were presented, but it also ended up being the last I tasted. I wasn't going to take the time to pick off all that parsley and delay tasting all the other entries. When I finally got to it I had to just run my finger down two sides of the rib to knock all the garnish off, which in turn knocked off some of the sauce and seasoning. I didn't score down for this, but would it have tasted better, if it was the first one I tasted and didn't have parsley flavoring with seasoning and sauce scraped off? Probably.

It bothers me a little bit that no one could identify spinach.

Hub said:

Garnish is a roaring PITA. Let's eliminate it and get on with cooking barbeque. Its about MEAT, not nesting and greenery.

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not a competitive cooker, but if it was, i'd be screaming this from the highest mountain. i still don't understand the fascination with garnish.

Should a rep be a rep, (or maybe at least be required to take a refresher?) if they cannot identify whether a garnish is parsley, cilantro, or green lettuce? Let's see, there's iceberg, romaine, boston bib, green leaf, and romaine, other than that, very few I can think of that qualify as legal. Spinach does not, in the least, resemble lettuce.

If they were a new team, they should have taken the opportunity to listen to the CD at the cooks meeting, something played at every contest I've attended, and that should be at every KCBS contest. And/or read the rules. AND, they should have been dq'd, not given a warning.

Ignorance is no excuse. And whether they were a new team or not shouldn't matter. The rules should be enforced consistently, and at all times, NO EXCEPTIONS. Anything less muddies the waters, and leaves doubt to whether judging was fair and honest.

Just my humble opinion...

Muzzlebrake said:

completely disagree, garnish has its place and a purpose. In this case the only PIA is the nonenforcement of a very clear cut rule.

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Muzzlebrake, first let me say that I appreciate your opinions on the forum and think you know much more than I do...that being said, will you explain why you feel this way?

I have done only a few comps, so my knowledge is severely limited. However, I do know that many teams go to a LOT of trouble and time and stress to get a perfect "golfing green," etc. for their meat. Some teams (myself included) don't know how to do such a great job with the garnish. [That being said, I think the greenery looks nice]

Now, since garnish is not supposed to be judged, why go to the trouble? of making such a carefully crafted box? IMO, because it is judged (most likely subconsciously)...and it is possible for a better tasting product to lose due to appearance scores being lower.

Why NOT level the playing field and have everything turned in in a plain white box?

Curious what you think - I know that I could be far off base...

Hope this isn't a hijack...