Brisket, a bouncy castle and a technicolour shalom: the kosher BBQ cook-off comes to Barrhaven

You could smell it from the gate. Beef and chicken over wood, the BBQ teams were working under canopies, and a crowd of a few hundred still building through the early afternoon at Barrhaven's Ottawa Torah Centre's kosher BBQ cook-off and festival on Sunday. The weather held, which this summer has not been a given.

The barbecue is the part everyone sees. The part they do not see is what makes it kosher, and it is more involved than swapping a recipe.

"Because this is a kosher BBQ competition, we provide the teams with the meat and the cooking equipment," Rabbi Menachem M. Blum, who leads the centre, told the Bugle earlier this month. "That allows us to ensure that everything meets kosher standards and that all of the teams are competing on a level playing field."

That means sourcing and preparing large quantities of kosher meat, getting equipment out to every team, and running kosher supervision through the whole competition, on top of the judging, the scoring, the tasting tickets, the public vote and the food safety. Blum described the aim as putting "a distinctly Jewish and kosher twist on a very Canadian tradition."

The teams cook first, then the judging happens, then everyone eats, so an early arrival on Sunday found teams still deep in prep and the lot filling up around them. One of them, Cantor and the Cue, was led by Cantor Jason Green of Kehillat Beth Israel, whose congregation's banner hung on the team's table. He walked the Bugle through the event while his team set up.

Around the cooking, the rest of it was a street fair. A climbing wall. Bouncy castles here and there, along with a pen of small animals like rabbits, a ferret and a small tortoise, ringed by children on their knees.

On one side, along the back fence, kids were painting three-dimensional letters spelling SHALOM. Laid out on the grass were trays of paint and PAINT YOUR WAY TO PEACE banner, which by early afternoon had been well painted by the resident artists.

The day was not a members-only affair. Anyone who wanted in could come in, and plenty did. It is the point, according to Blum: "You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy great BBQ, good music and a fun community festival."

Among the people working it was Fabio, who came to Canada from Brazil and now lives in Barrhaven, volunteering with the crew keeping the day running.

For a lot of Barrhaven, the centre itself is the surprise. It sits on Lamplighters Drive, and its own history is a Barrhaven story: it began in a basement, moved to a storefront, ran for a while out of a trailer, and is now a synagogue and community centre serving hundreds of families.

"What started with a small group of people wanting a Jewish presence in their neighbourhood," Blum said, "has grown into a vibrant centre."

A note on our own reporting: the Bugle got there early and did not stay for the food, so we cannot tell you who won or how the brisket turned out. Judging by the crowd still arriving as we left, everybody else had the better of that decision.