Why does sweet win?

Bigmista said:
My next contest I think I'm going to marinate my chicken in corn syrup, rub it with turbinado sugar, smoke it with maple and glaze it with honey.
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Garnish it with cotton candy (red of course) and you have a winnah!!

Seriously, I think a lot has to do with the flavor profile of Q sauces over the years. When I was a kid, Open Pit was the only sauce in the pantry. It was a savory sauce. Then came along KC Masterpiece, Cattlemens and the rest. Thereafter everything that went on a grill was basted with sweet sauce, maybe with the exception of steak. Sweet Q sauce is what Americans have been eating for 30 years.
 
It's an effect of human evolution. Recall that until very, very, very recently in human evolution, we had NO idea what was in the food, and only had sight, smell, touch and taste to go on, with taste being the major contributor and last line of defense of knowing what we ate was good for us or not.

While we have 5 basic flavors our tongues can pick up, many of them are there as warnings to warn us what we are eating might be bad. Bitter is a great example of this, for the most part people avoided bitter foods because they were associated with natural food that were not necessarily great for us. Over time, as we found foods safe to eat with bitter flavors, a taste for them developed. Sour could also indicate if a fruit for example may not have been ripe yet, yada, yada, yada..

Sweet is different. Sweet does not necessarily indicate the food is safe, but it does indicate the presence of sugars in the food which are required from the body in order for it to survive. Thus the desire to find food that is sweet is very strong, because in essence that is what our bodies are looking for when it is hungry. There is really no "nutritional" benefit from the other flavors (well, salty can be argued of course but we don't go looking for large quantities of salt to eat), only sweet is this strong becuase it targets the flavor of sugars which our bodies must have and is what we are designed to crave.

So, while we can detect other flavors with our tongue, the brain is most "pleased" with sweet because that is how our brain was rigged to be from an evolutionary standpoint.

It's not just BBQ where sweet is popular. Sweet is popular in any kind of food, and more satisfying to people than the other flavors.

This is why people find eating foods with high fructose corn syrup so tasty. The more sweet something is, the more pleasurable it is.
 
Good question, impossible to get an answer.

Why? Because only 1 to 2% of the judges even read or comment in a forum and the majority never visit them so they'll decide what flavors they like on their own -- there's no KCBS definition on how to judge/score, it's only what the judge is taught in class.

A lot of judges took a class for a local contest and tend to just judge once a year. Few of them travel to multiple contests. And sometimes the judges that do travel come up with their own method of judging what's "good".

I base this on judging almost 30 contests and asking lots of questions of judges as well as competing for 5 years. The above is what they tell me, agree or disagree, it's what I've heard.

So, we're left to guess what flavors win, what doesn't.

I didn't take Bunny's class, but I learned the same way... Judge it as presented.

A lot of judges I ask, don't know what that means.

I like all flavors and if I have to say, I do like sweet. But as a judge, I judge each piece as presented. If it's spicey, does the spicy blend well or is it so overpowering I only taste one flavor? Same for sweet, if it's candy sweet and it's overpowering, can I taste anything else?

The ones that score well always have a range of flavors, a balance, or layers of flavor.

But... I had a discussion with Bunny recently. I think judges are left to their own for deciding what "scores" and until that changes, we'll think what we think in the forums, but the average judge won't tell us.

The confusing part for you?

When I ask most judges how they "judge" I get a different answer from everyone. It's almost never the same.

Russ
 
bigabyte said:
It's an effect of human evolution. Recall that until very, very, very recently in human evolution, we had NO idea what was in the food, and only had sight, smell, touch and taste to go on, with taste being the major contributor and last line of defense of knowing what we ate was good for us or not.

While we have 5 basic flavors our tongues can pick up, many of them are there as warnings to warn us what we are eating might be bad. Bitter is a great example of this, for the most part people avoided bitter foods because they were associated with natural food that were not necessarily great for us. Over time, as we found foods safe to eat with bitter flavors, a taste for them developed. Sour could also indicate if a fruit for example may not have been ripe yet, yada, yada, yada..

Sweet is different. Sweet does not necessarily indicate the food is safe, but it does indicate the presence of sugars in the food which are required from the body in order for it to survive. Thus the desire to find food that is sweet is very strong, because in essence that is what our bodies are looking for when it is hungry. There is really no "nutritional" benefit from the other flavors, only sweet becuase it targets the flavor of sugars which our bodies must have.

So, while we can detect other flavors with our tongue, the brain is most "pleased" with sweet because that is how our brain was rigged to be from an evolutionary standpoint.
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^^^^ Unequivocal proof that Cajun's ain't evolved!!!

:shock:
 
I just went thru a judge class and it was taught to judge as presented. As a personal preference, I am a dry bbq fan. When I first started competing my bbq had some spice to it as well. It would start sweet and then you would get a little taste of spice coming thru. We did ok in a few meats in some competitions, but never really in the top half of the overall scores. I went to two cooking classes last year trying to learn more what is being looked for, and that also is why I took the judges class. I did one comp after the last class I attended and cooked much sweeter than I have ever before and got two calls. I intend to judge a few comps a year and compete in about 10 and will continue to cook more on the sweet side, but you do have to have the balance.

Could part of the equation be that when we go to the judging class they try to invite a team that does pretty well on the circuit to do the cooking and this is being presented (maybe not on purpose, but if that is all you get to taste) as "how bbq should be at a comp"? If that is the case, many judges that may already like some things sweeter in the personal eating may also be looking for this as the standard since that is what they had in the judging class?

Just my $.02.

larry
 
Recently watched and recorded a segment of Alton Brown's "Good Eats" that was titled "The Ballad of Salty and Sweet" that really gives some insight into this question. I would have to watch again to post anything that he said but until I have the opportunity you may be able to watch online. If not Food Network perhaps Hulu has it.
 
I've noticed that when I am TRULY hungry, apples taste sweeter. I have also noticed that when I am VERY dehydrated, water tastes slightly sweet. As such I do agree with others who have posted about the sweet/brain correlation. I personally don't have a sweet tooth and can skip dessert and sweets without batting an eyelash, but I do enjoy the sweetness in savory foods.

On the other side of the coin, I ate some spares recently that had so much sugar on them that the caramelized sugar stuck to my teeth as I tried to eat. That was over the top sweet!
 
Sweet is the first profile your palate senses, then heat and heavy spices, and the last or umami is last. So in imho sweet is more impressive to most. Spicy can turn a judge off. Umami is just damn good. Just mho.
 
big blue bbq said:
...Could part of the equation be that when we go to the judging class they try to invite a team that does pretty well on the circuit to do the cooking and this is being presented (maybe not on purpose, but if that is all you get to taste) as "how bbq should be at a comp"?
larry
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Probably not. I've been invited to cook for a number of classes and while I'd like to turn in comp food (to get some feedback and train the judges) it's pretty tough. Trying to turn out boxes for 75 judges in the same 30 min window is really @#$%!# and elbows.

At no time has KCBS given me instructions on how to cook the food. What they do give me are rules to follow for building the boxes (red tip lettuce in one, 5 ribs in another, brisket slices not sliced all the way through). Direction is more for the rules, than the taste.

That being said, I wish they could figure out a way to train the judges in all classes the same way about what good Q is, but I'm not sure anyone in KCBS (us included) will ever be able to define that to the point you can teach something for which is inherently subjective
 
I have judged a lot of KCBS events but at none of these, west coast, have I ever seen something like I saw on a BBQ contest show on TV where one of the teams actually poured brown sugar and honey over the ribs after they were cooked. They got a call and I was amazed that these super sweet ribs got such a high score. Perhaps sweetness is a regional thing like sweet tea. Here in Calif. we don't have sweet tea, except at McDonalds, and the BBQ has tones of sweetness but not coma sweet. Balance is my key word in judging, too much of any one flavor is a markdown.
 
This question has many similarities to the pepsi challenge and the new coke disaster. There is a great chapter in a book I read not too long ago. I think it was in Blink. Basically when just tasting the human mind/tongue is drawn to sweet. That is why pepsi won the pepsi challenge. Coke responded with a sweeter version only to have it crash and burn. It turns out that while the first taste of sweet is preferred when it comes to drinking a full body of pop or entire bbq meal at home the sweetest version isn't as preferred.
 
I've taken a training class (not KCBS) & judged in a grand total of 1 comp so take the following with a huge block of salt. Like some others said, I was taught to judge each entry as presented not against how my grand-daddy make Que.

I am not a fan of sweet Que. When I make Que, I like it tangy with a bit of sweet & heat at the end. I don't eat at many BBQ restaurants because it's almost always too sweet for my taste.

All that being said, when you are judging you're not sitting down to eat a plate full of each entry. You are judging the entry on just a bite or two. Without a doubt, sweet grabs your taste buds quicker than a tangy flavor (or at least it does for me) While I may prefer the tangy profile, it is sweetness that makes the bolder first impression & thus tends to score higher. Just like with heat, you can go overboard with sweetness. However the average person will tolerate too sweet much better than too hot or too tangy.
 
I too love the savory sauces but we should not discriminate against one or the other. Just two different ways of sauces.

I move the savory and can drink angelos which is derived mainly from their Rub (mostly lawrys), heavy on the beef drippings and v-8 and is mostly acidic mellowed out by the beef taste instead of sugar.

I explain it like this... I like the savory and do not like it BOTH ways like some judges do.

Its like there are two types of guys:
View attachment 39302
savory and robust american style

View attachment 39303
saucy type of style

Now both are supposedly real men and I don't see the chance of the Duke having a tell all boom or press release he is anything less than a man.

For those that like a little sugar in their tank there is the other kind of man, still a man and from interview to interview always insisting he is a saucy dancing type of guy... er salsa, sorry.

Please so that's that.



Bigmista said:
This is a question that has been stuck in my craw for a while now and I haven't gotten a satisfying answer yet. The BBQ I grew up on was savory and spicy. Most of the BBQ joints I've been to serve savory BBQ. The judges I've talked to say that sauces shouldn't hide the flavor of the meat.

Meat isn't sweet. But inevitably the entries that win are coated in a sugary sauce that most people say they wouldn't eat at home because it's too rich and too sweet.

So why does sweet win?
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Tip of the day..."Cook Regionally"...you ain't cookin' for yourself...you're cookin' for the local judges...:cool:
 
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