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Like father, like son: The tradition continues
By Mark Taylor
Reprinted with permission from Post Tribune
 June 3, 2007 ‹ They are no ordinary weekend backyard grillers slinging burgers over open flames.
Brothers Jeff and Jae Danner, of Crown Point and Schererville, respectively, and Nick Valle of Calumet City, Ill., are serious competitive barbeque grillers. They are the DoubleDs team.
They haul smokers and hand-made cookers worth thousands of dollars. They arrive days before the contest begins to erect tents and flooring and cabinet shelves and unpack dozens of crates of sauces and rubs. Their coolers contain 52 racks of ribs, secret marinades and unique spice mixtures.
³We believe in low and slow, the indirect heat method of cooking meat for a long, long time,² explained Nick Valle, 50, of Calumet City, Ill.
Vice chairman of safety for United Steelworkers Union Local 1010 at Mittal Steel in East Chicago, he is a man who knows something about heat.
³The meat is cooked in a separate chamber, not directly over the heat source,² he said. ³You can control the heat better this way.² The DoubleDs entered the Patio Porkers category, comprised of teams without corporate sponsors. They¹re enthusiasts who¹ve taken their skills to a higher level. Because the teams usually are smaller than their corporate counterparts, they interact more with neighboring teams.
³It¹s true that it¹s not as much fun on the other (corporate sponsor) side,² observed DoubleDs member Jae Danner, a senior director for Amacai in Chicago. ³The sponsored teams are too busy feeding family and friends and clients. They have much more at stake and can¹t really let their hair down.² He said Patio Porkers is where novice and intermediate-level cooks come to learn from the masters: ³The bad thing is that if you win, you can¹t come back to Patio Porkers. You have to move to the other side.² But that¹s a price the DoubleDs are willing to pay.
The Danners are scions of American competitive barbecuing royalty, hoping to stake their own claim to a proud family tradition. Their father, Rocky Danner, is a former vice president of the World Barbecue Association and an internationally renowned judge and organizer of barbecue contests who travels the globe evangelizing the slow-cooking method.
³We¹ve always grilled,² Jeff Danner said. ³Jae and I did our first whole hogs at 18. Dad taught us how to cook and made it pretty easy. When we went down south with him, all we did was hunt and cook.
³There were always smokers going and, when you returned from hunting or fishing, you cooked what you ate. Now, he¹s helping us to tune it up for competitive barbecuing.² Although many women attended the event, big-time competitive barbecuing remains a man¹s game, with males dominating the winner¹s circle. Only two all-women¹s teams competed at Memphis In May.
Male and female competitors attribute the male dominance to traditional Southern gender roles and the intense physical labor involved in the events.
There¹s a lot of heavy lifting required, moving big grills, dumping 100-pound bags of charred wood and hauling pigs that tip the scales at 150 pounds.
³This dates back to when we grunted in caves as knuckle-draggers,² Jae theorized. ³This is a big-dog sport. It takes a lot of work to put it together. There¹s a primitive element to it ‹ men, meat and fire. Plus, we use outhouses.² The DoubleDs team began its journey to Memphis nearly five months ago. In February, the team began a series of cooking dry runs, sampling rubs and sauces, and smoking batches of ribs until they agreed on the perfect blend.
³There is a critical period of 15 minutes when the ribs can go from rubbery to perfect to baloney,² Valle said. ³You have to achieve the right balance to make the finals here.² Competing in Memphis In May cost DoubleDs team members about $4,000, but that doesn¹t include what they already paid for tents, smokers, grills, tables, other equipment and the RV.
The team entered several ancillary categories of seafood, sauces and exotic (anything but pork qualifies as exotic), but the big day for them was Saturday, May 19, when the whole hog, shoulder and rib judging was conducted.
They arrived early Saturday morning, ready for business. After adding some fresh charred wood, Valle whipped out a hand-rigged fire igniter that looks like a Vietnam War-era flame thrower that allows a quick lighting without using charcoal lighter.
³You don¹t ever want to use oil fluids or anything else that would impart flavor to the meat,² he said.
Around noon, team members scanned with jewelers¹ eyes the cooked rack of ribs they planned to enter, identifying imperfections and removing the delicious, blackened bits of caramelized sugar that could cost them points with judges. They tested how the meat bent away from the bone, but didn¹t flake off. Then, each tasted a few with the exacting attention of a top sommelier. Then, with the detail of a floral arranger, they lovingly packed a standard container resembling a restaurant to-go box and delicately arrayed their best rib samples.
As team representatives left their booths to deliver their rib boxes to judges for blind tasting, their teammates and passersby clapped and whooped wildly.
Jae and Valle strolled to the judges¹ booth, carrying the team¹s hopes and dreams. At 2 p.m. ³ambassadors,² as contest volunteer liaisons to the teams are called, rolled out in golf carts to deliver the news. Only three teams in each category would be told they¹ve ³finaled² for the ultimate event.
Wishful eyes tracked the golf carts¹ every move. Shortly before 3 p.m., the ambassadors braked at the DoubleDs¹ neighbors and friends, The Pork Spankers, and at two other booths. There was widespread cheering and applause from the notified finalists¹ tents and dead silence from teams nearby. After the cart stopped for the third time, Jeff gulped and announced glumly, ³We didn¹t get it.² But there¹s no crying in barbecue. Minutes later DoubleDs team members cracked open beers and other beverages, extracted a fresh rack of smoking ribs and relaxed.
Memphis In May official Lynn Doyle said part of the event¹s appeal is the ³Rocky-like² possibility that an unknown competing for the first time could win a title.
³You never know who¹ll win,² Doyle said. ³That¹s part of the magic.² Although the DoubleDs didn¹t ³final,² they savored a taste of the big stage when the announcer told the crowd the team placed ninth in the Patio Porkers competition.
Jeff seemed to echo his team¹s hunger for that championship dream when he
vowed: ³We¹ll be back.²
³The goal is to be the best you can be that day,² he said. ³I want to travel, meet good cooks and stay up all night barbecuing hogs. That¹s what it¹s all about, wondering, is this going to be the one? This is a happy, relaxing thing for us. There¹s no stress in barbecuing.²
UPCOMING MAJOR BBQ EVENTS
‹ Royal American Barbeque Contest¹s World Series of Barbeque, Oct. 4 -7, Kansas City, Mo.
‹ Jack Daniel¹s Invitational World Barbecue, Oct. 26-27, Lynchburg, Tenn.
‹ National BBQ Festival & Best of the Best Invitational, Nov. 2-3, Douglas, Ga.
‹ World¹s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest at the Houston Livestock and Rodeo Show, Feb. 28 -March 1 ‹ Rattlesnake Round Up Cook-off, March 2008, Sweetwater, Texas ‹ Memphis In May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, May 2008
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