JCF Days ‘Backyard BBQ Contest’ adds pork belly to menu
The annual John C. Fremont Days festival is known for many things — great food being one of the main attractions for the tens of thousands of attendees.
For those looking for meaty treats, the JCF Days Backyard BBQ Contest returns for another day of smoked meats and fun on Saturday, July 13, said contest director Daniel Cech.
The contest — starting at 3 p.m. and hosted in the parking lot behind the L.A. Fireproof Door Company between Third and Fourth streets — will see three meat categories this year, including chicken drumsticks, the always popular ribs class and a new meat for 2024 — pork belly.
Cech also said the winning prize cash awards have been increased for 2024, with the overall champion cooking team winning $1,000 for first place; the second place team getting $750 and third place taking home $500. Each meat class winner will be awarded $250 each and the team with the most creative pork belly dish will get a $100 cash bonus, he said.
"Honestly, we have more meat this year than what we had last year. We have three meats. We have, obviously, chicken drumsticks. We have ribs. I mean, those are two staples that just about every barbecue contest you go to has," Cech said.
"Then this year we are doing pork belly and my one stipulation on the pork belly was that there are no run of the mill burnt ends. I don't want just regular old burnt ends that, you know, you can go and get at any restaurant or what not," he said. "I want people to get creative. I've seen things like people making pork belly cinnamon rolls. I've seen people doing things for pork belly ribs, you know, where they kind of make the pork belly similar to ribs."
The most creative pork belly dish, Cech said, will get a $100 pile of cash handed to them from his own wallet.
"I've just seen a lot of stuff going on with pork belly and I want to see you guys get creative and that's what I tried to do in the past, you know, is my third meat is something that people can get creative on," he said. "I have decided that I'm going to take $100 out of my pocket, and I'm going to go around, and I'm going to look and see which pork belly is the most interesting or most creative. And then I'm going to hand somebody $100 cash for just being creative with their pork belly."
The 2023 contest featured a third meat dish of meatloaf, which Cech said while uber tasty created some issues for people's choice judging as many of the dishes dried out over time.
"Last year, we had meatloaf, which when it got to people's choice, the meat loaf kind of, it got dried out," he lamented. "It wasn't as good as it could have been, but it was something interesting and people, you know, last year, somebody made stuff meatloaf with macaroni and cheese."
Cech said the decision of organizers to include pork belly as one of the three meats served was simple.
"Because there's so much creativity that can go into it," he said. "This year the barbecue contest is getting known far enough away that we actually have a team coming from Kansas City."
As of Thursday, July 3, a total of 11 cooking teams have registered to compete in this year's contest. In 2023, there were 17 total entrants, but two teams were unable to get to the festival and only 15 teams competed.
Cech said he will still accept teams through Monday, July 8, which he said is the drop-dead cutoff for entrant registration due to logistics.
"We did push our our entry deadline up to postmark by July 8th, but that's going to kind of make it a little difficult on making sure we got enough meat," he said. "But we've done it before and we'll make it happen."
One unforeseen obstacle to entrants this year, Cech said, has been the super intense weather in Nebraska and neighboring states, which he said has caused chaos in the lives of normal barbecue contest cooking teams and participants.
"I think part to do why we're having difficulty getting teams this year is the simple fact that all the weather that's been happening, the people have just been so bombarded with weather that they don't know what they're doing from day to day and they haven't entered yet or they simply can't enter because their town is under water," he said.
One other change for 2024 is the barbecue contest going to "independent" status, Cech said. That was due to the dissolution of the South Dakota-Iowa-Nebraska Barbecue Association, which helped coordinate the 2023 event.
"The association kind of dissolved. So, we're actually not tied with them anymore," Cech said. "I kind of decided to stay on our own. But (barbecue expert Ashley Sandbulte is) going to be back this year. We were having her help us, you know, with the judging and everything."
"She made that run so smoothly. She'll be, you know, explaining to the judges how to judge. She's got the background, she's ran many of barbecues," Cech said. "She will give the judges direction on how to, you know, how to sample it, how to taste it, you know, what to look at on it."
Cech said the three meats that win people's choice award winning team will split half the entrance ticket proceeds three ways. Then, the other 50% will be donated to a law enforcement-related charity.
Among the judges of the contest are five officers from the Omaha Police Department, five deputies from the Douglas County Sheriff's Office and one officer from the Fremont Police Department. Those law enforcement judges will also decide what charity to donate the 50% of the entrance ticket proceeds to.
Supporting the police and law enforcement is a big belief of the John C. Fremont Days board and organizing team, Cech said, and he feels blessed to be able to help first responders who may be in need.
The JCF Days Backyard BBQ Contest opens its doors at 3 p.m. Saturday, July 13, with tickets costing $5 per meat per person. One ticket will get an attendee one meat from every contestant. To get all three meats, the cost is $15 per person.
