The pork was probably the hardest for me to judge. It's not a food that is native to NYC. Each sample here was unique. Some were pulled, others chopped and some sliced. Some where sauced with a red BBQ sauce, some dry and one with a vinegar/pepper sauce. Very interesting. The experienced judges seemed to prefer pulled pork to the other samples, but if a box contained pulled, sliced, or chopped, we all tried it all ways. I guess the cooks were trying to please the judges by giving them what they liked best, but I think it worked against them. If the pulled pork was good, the slices weren't. And vice versa. As a judge you need to judge it all, so I know people lost points here. Don't try to give the judges everything, find a way that works best for you and ONLY do that.
To me, and to most of the judges at my table, the best tasting pork had the vinegar/pepper sauce. Unfortunately that piece was dry as toast. Talking with cooks afterwards, I was told that they all felt that it was risky to use that sauce in a contest in the Northeast. I guess regional tastes do matter.
