News From the Laboratory

The following news story was featured in the "Kenosha News", our local Wisconsin newspaper, on November 1, 2007.  

Doctor Porkenstein, I presume?

Nov. 1, 2007

Kenosha trio takes sixth place in 19th annual Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue
BY CHRIS BARNCARD    

Kenosha’s Doctor Porkenstein trio, from left, Alex Cothell, his wife, Kate Cothell, and his mom, Nancy Cothell, cooked their way to a sixth-place finish in the Super Bowl of barbecue contests: the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue in Lynchburg, Tenn., on Saturday.

Precious few people can slow-cook a pork shoulder better than Alex Cothell. But pretty much everybody - except a vegetarian, of course - is more interested in eating one.

"I don't really like it," said Cothell, a Kenosha plumber who took sixth place Saturday while representing Wisconsin in the granddaddy of all 'cue cook-offs, the 19th annual Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue. "I don't care for barbecue that much."

Hickory heresy!

"Usually the first thing we do when we leave a contest is look for Taco Bell," he said.

That's brisket blasphemy, a sweet smokey sin. But should you decide to roast this man on a spit, please don't forget the rub. And do it slowly. At somewhere between 200 and 225 degrees.

"Low and slow," Cothell said. "That's the secret: low and slow."

Cothell has been on the competitive barbecue scene since 2004, when he saw a contest on TV and thought it looked like fun.

"I was born and raised in Louisiana, and cooking has always been a big part of our family," he said.

Shoot, he already had some gear lying around that he knew how to use, even if it was confounding to his wife and future cooking partner, Kate Cothell.

"When we got married, Alex had a smoker and I didn't even know what it was," Kate said with a giggle.

These days it is a rare weekend between February and November that the Cothells - including Alex's mother, Nancy - aren't parking a 33-foot trailer in a grassy spot somewhere between Indiana and Minnesota. They haul out the wood charcoal and twin double-walled smokers to try to put their team, Doctor Porkenstein, on another podium.

In the last few years the competitions have grown like a champion steer, though, and the Cothells and their nucleus of friends in the Midwest BBQ Mafia find themselves among 40, 60 or even 100 teams at most competitions.

"You've got people barbecuing from California to the East Coast, up to Alaska and down to Florida," Alex Cothell said. "It's gotten tougher. With a lot of new teams, it levels the playing field."

And yet, 2007 is the year Doctor Porkenstein became a barbecue monster.

"This year, Alex has owned Illinois," said Kate, apologizing for such unadulterated bragging.

The Cothells started the year by winning their own competition - unsanctioned by the circuit's governing body, the Kansas City Barbecue Society - and moved on to claim-sanctioned grand champion titles in Westmont and Mount Vernon and Salem in Illinois, as well as Princeton, Wis., and Madison, Ind. At the Central Illinois Bragging Rights Competition in Oct. 12 and 13, Doctor Porkenstein was named Illinois Team of the Year.

"I haven't been able to figure Iowa out, or Minnesota. I don't know why," said Alex, who occasionally teaches barbecue classes in Wilmette, Ill., "But straight down I-55 and I-57 they seem to like what I'm doing."

What he does is set out from Kenosha with a fridge filled at L&M Meats in Kenosha and Jerry's Quality Meats in Skokie, Ill. With the trailer set up at a contest by Friday night, the cooking begins. The smokers - which look like stainless steel safes - are packed with food from each of the four competition categories: two pork shoulders (cooked for 10 hours), 12 pieces of chicken, six racks of ribs (for six hours) and two briskets (for as long as 13 hours).

"What you're trying to do is break down that meat, to render out all that fat," said Alex, who practices and hones his dishes on the six or seven barbecue pits in his backyard.

Just six portions of each, boxed in Styrofoam and garnished with green leaf lettuce and parsley, go to the judges, leaving a lot of leftovers.

"On Monday morning my co-workers are my biggest fans because they get a lot of the food," Alex said. "I always get perfect scores from those guys."

But nobody's asking for recipes. That is, nobody who knows better. At the competitions, snooping is frowned upon. The Midwest BBQ Mafia refers to lingering around a competitor's pit a little too long as "shigging," in honor (after a fashion) of another team.

"It's not all top secret, but you're looking for an edge," Alex said. "And you don't want to just give that away if you've found one."

Kate was more blunt: "You can ask the cooks," she said. "But if you push too hard, they just start lying to you."

As tough as the competition may be, the Cothells would only stand more than 12 hours of hickory smoke if it were fun.

"We have a good time," Alex said. "If you can't make friends at a barbecue competition, you've got some real social problems."

Aw, shucks. Get this guy a burrito.