daedalus
Full Fledged Farker
I was judging a contest yesterday, and found myself in an interesting conversation with my table captain. We were discussing judging philosophy, specifically how an entry should be judged if there is more than one cut of meat in the box. In the case of pork for example, where we typically will see sliced, and chunked, and pulled all together, or in chicken, where the cook gives us both thighs and breast meat.
My tc(who has been doing this for over 15 years) said that he thinks that a judge should take a sample of all types of meat offered, and then score based on the best one only. So if they give us a really tender thigh, and a breast which is dry, we should give them they score they deserve for the thigh and ignore the dry breast. The theory seemed to be about trying to give the cook the highest score possible.
I have always felt that the score should be more of an aggregate of whatever is in the box. In the case of the tender thigh and the dry breast, the overall score would be slightly lower than if they had only turned in the thigh. I think that if the cook chooses to put it in the box, then it should be judged.
To me, this is a pretty major and fundamental difference in approach, and I think it merits some discussion. I would love to get as many insights and opinions as I can from both judges and cooks. What do y'all think?
My tc(who has been doing this for over 15 years) said that he thinks that a judge should take a sample of all types of meat offered, and then score based on the best one only. So if they give us a really tender thigh, and a breast which is dry, we should give them they score they deserve for the thigh and ignore the dry breast. The theory seemed to be about trying to give the cook the highest score possible.
I have always felt that the score should be more of an aggregate of whatever is in the box. In the case of the tender thigh and the dry breast, the overall score would be slightly lower than if they had only turned in the thigh. I think that if the cook chooses to put it in the box, then it should be judged.
To me, this is a pretty major and fundamental difference in approach, and I think it merits some discussion. I would love to get as many insights and opinions as I can from both judges and cooks. What do y'all think?