"Pierre" > wrote in
oups.com:

> Barry for an indepth discussion, you might pose the question to the
> http://www.rbjb.com/rbjb/rbjbboard/ board, as Bob suggested.

Thanks. I'll consider that.

> Here's my take: Its been my understanding that the use of "non-uniform
> garnish", (if a contestant choses to use any garnish at all), may
> present an opportunity for any given entrant to identify their entry,
> as unique to all others submitted. This would defeat the presumption
> of chosing entries that are truly blind. If by some (unlikely)chance
> this actually happened, such that your entry happened to be judged at
> a table with whom you've become friends with some of the judges, they
> might be inclined to alter their score upon viewing a "marked" entry.
> Not just by garnish, but by; for example arranging your meat in the
> shape of an "X", or painting the lid with sauce; it is for that
> reason(s) that the garnish rules are in place.

But the fact of the matter is that when there are a core group of
contestants and a core group of judges, its not that difficult to pick
out someone's BBQ, especially when over the course of a small relaxed BBQ
contest, you've had a chance to visit each team and sample what they're
cooking. My mesquite smoked sage rubbed meat looks, smells and tastes
very distinctively different from the brown sugar, red pepper, and
vinegar basted hickory smoked meat my neighbor was cooking. It wouldn't
take a food expert to tell them apart or have some idea where they came
from. So it seems to me that singling out garnish or meat rosettes is
largely beside the point. Seems to me that you'd do better to either
eliminate garnish and arrangements by having teams submit whole pieces,
or allow teams to present however they see fit and trust judges not to
play favorites.

> Keep in mind, some contests are "open garnish". Go ahead and it's OK
> to Grandma's doilees under your lamb kabob. The rules are up to the
> sanctioning body and the organizer.

I'm aware, hence my note that this was a KCBS contest.