{"id":335,"date":"2014-03-03T22:08:06","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T03:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/?p=335"},"modified":"2018-12-27T20:08:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T01:08:03","slug":"an-interview-with-eight-time-american-royal-bbq-cookoff-grand-champion-chris-marks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/an-interview-with-eight-time-american-royal-bbq-cookoff-grand-champion-chris-marks\/","title":{"rendered":"An interview with Eight-time American Royal BBQ Cookoff Grand Champion Chris Marks"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h3>\n
\"Chris<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\n

I<\/b>t\u2019s not every day when I am able to sit down with an eight-time grand champion of the American Royal BBQ Cookoff in Kansas City. A while back, I had the pleasure of speaking with Chris Marks, chief cook of the\u00a0Three Little Pigs<\/a>\u00a0 barbecue team, while he was visiting Bloomington.<\/p>\n

Marks was in town to offer support to our favorite hometown barbecue joint,Short Stop Food Mart<\/a>, and to give cooking demonstrations and share recipes. He also brought along some things Hoosiers wouldn\u2019t see unless they\u2019re traveling, such as alligator.<\/p>\n

Marks also is the winner of more than 40 national barbecue competitions, including at the Jack Daniels World Sauce Championship.<\/p>\n

The Kansas City native was introduced to barbecue at a young age by his father Larry — known as \u201cBoss Hawg\u201d \u2013 who created the Three Little Pigs team.\u00a0\u201cHe was a great backyard barbecuer,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

It all began when his father received a smoker as a present after retiring from Hallmark in 1991. Soon, Larry entered a local contest and won his first ribbon. The family incorporated the team the following year.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Dad more or less was the \u2018promotion guy.\u2019 He was the guy walking around doing all the talking,\u201d Marks said. \u201cMe and my Mom were in the background doing all the cooking and it worked very well that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Marks\u2019 are friends with the \u201cBaron of Barbecue,\u201d\u00a0Paul Kirk<\/a>, and after Larry took one of his classes about smoking, the family never went back to grilling.<\/p>\n

The younger Marks got his first taste of victory in 1993 in McLouth, Kan., beating out about 35 teams. \u201cThe excitement nearly caused my Dad to have a heart attack,\u201d he remembered.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

But competition barbecue is different today, Marks noted. Back then, there were no consistent standards and specifications for the judges to follow. Judging was more subjective and based more on personal preferences about tastes.<\/span>\u201cThere was no judging training back then,\u201d he said. \u201cYou better know how to cook well, because the judges just came off the streets. If they didn\u2019t like it, you were toast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be interesting to see how the some of the teams that are doing well now would have done back 10 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

You may also have seen Marks on television programs such as \u201cTaste of America<\/a>\u201d on the Food Network and \u201cBBQ Battle\u201d on the Travel Channel. He is fond of those largely unscripted shows which really showed how barbecue is done. \u201cIt was just smoke, no mirrors,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd it was an absolute ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently, he\u2019s observed that producers of some barbecue-themed shows are more into perpetuating stereotypes than really showing how it\u2019s done. Shortly before we spoke, Marks had been in discussions with a network but was dropped from the project because he and others \u201cweren\u2019t Bubba enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren’t what they were looking for and they ended up putting on a guy on who cooked on a half-drum with overalls and beard and he flipped ribs,\u201d he told me. \u201cIt about the perception out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Marks doesn’t compete very often. He is the face and chief consultant of\u00a0Good One Manufacturing<\/a>\u00a0brand of smokers and grills \u2013 which has more than 75 dealers around the country — and also sells natural lump charcoal, rubs and sauces. He travels with his wife around the country teaches at more than 60\u00a0BBQ Boot Camps<\/a>\u00a0last year.<\/p>\n

The recipes for Three Little Pigs\u2019 rubs were developed by his parents and the sauces were created as tribute to his father. Rather than one rub for all kinds of meats, his gluten-free rubs are separately designed for beef, pork and poultry.<\/p>\n

They sell three different sauces.\u201cIt started out as my hobby and I turned it into a job,\u201d Marks said. \u201cI love what I am doing and I love teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of what is written about barbecue focuses on particular states and regions, such as the Carolina’s, the Deep South, Texas, Memphis and Marks\u2019 home town of Kansas City. But with the growing popularity of barbecue nationwide, Marks has seen it migrating to new places where new regional flavors have been added.<\/span><\/div>\n

For example, out West, in Arizona and California, he\u2019s seen the pit flavors, but instead of tomato and vinegar-based sauces, people are using marmalade’s and other fruit glazes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cYou build a great flavor profile and then you put on it what you like,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about the person. That\u2019s what I teach and that\u2019s what I want people to understand \u2026 You’ve got to develop your own style, you’ve got to make it personal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marks is a purest. He prefers natural woods and charcoals over gas and wood pellets. He also understands why people in other regions may knock anything non-traditional.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt all about adapting,\u201d he said. \u201cThe great thing about Kansas City is we do all styles. We do them all and we really don\u2019t care. Some other places, I tell you, they won\u2019t budge but it\u2019s their loss.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not every day when I am able to sit down with an eight-time grand champion of the American Royal BBQ Cookoff in Kansas City. A while back, I had the pleasure of speaking with Chris Marks, chief cook of the\u00a0Three Little Pigs\u00a0 barbecue team,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,322],"tags":[61,64,54,65,8,52,43,13,97,21,12,9,10,11,31,76,53,34,33,36,96,50,49,16,99,15,98,14,38,37],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbq-classes","category-bbq-tips","category-news-info","tag-3-little-pigs","tag-bar-b-que","tag-barbecue","tag-barbecue-sauces","tag-bbq","tag-bbq-grilling","tag-bbq-restaurants","tag-bbq-rubs","tag-bbq-schools","tag-best-bbq-rubs","tag-best-bbq-sauce","tag-champ-rubs","tag-champ-sauces","tag-chris-marks-bbq","tag-dry-ribs","tag-dry-rubs-for-meat","tag-grilling","tag-kansas-city-bbq","tag-memphis-bbq","tag-north-carolina-bbq","tag-paul-kirk","tag-rubs-for-grilling","tag-smoked-barbecue","tag-smoked-meat","tag-texas-bbq","tag-three-little-pigs-championship","tag-three-little-pigs","tag-three-little-pigs-rubs","tag-three-little-pigs-touch-of-cherry-rub","tag-world-champion-bbq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":496,"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions\/496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}