Mendel Segal puts the fire under kosher barbecue
INSPIRED COOKING The best is hearing that our contests have inspired people to do a better job keeping kosher because they see that such a fun and food-centric thing can be 100 percent kosher
After a slow burn pitmaster Mendel Segal puts the fire under kosher barbecue. The founder of the Kansas City Kosher BBQ Festival he is based in Kansas City Kansas.
How did you get started with the festival?
I started running the local vaad hakashrus in the summer of 2011 and we were trying to come up with a fun food-related fundraiser. A board member said he’d heard a shul in Memphis has a kosher barbecue contest and since Kansas City is known for barbecue we should do it too. The first one we ran was in August 2012 and that really got me into the whole thing! I started smoking meat — I was learning a lot from the competing teams. Of course I couldn’t compete in my own contest but I started attending other competitions kosher and nonkosher. I’ve competed all over Missouri — Kansas City Mound City Liberty — and around the US — Long Island Chicago New England Dallas Connecticut. I’ve also cooked for events in California Chicago and New York. In 2013 we got official — our competitive event in Kansas City was the first kosher barbecue contest sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbeque Society the KCBS — and I helped them write the kosher barbecue handbook. Then I started getting calls for advice and to help run kosher competitions nationally. This year I’m going to Philly for the Hava NaGrilla cook-off and to Cincinnati for their first kosher contest.
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