'Super Bowl of swine': Barbecue world championship attracts 250 competitors battling it out for grill king title About 100,000 barbecue fans travelled to the competition in Memphis World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest hosts dozens of categories It's barely 11am on a sweltering Saturday morning in Memphis, Tennessee, and the air is thick with the smell of charred meat. A nearby loudspeaker blasts out Eighties rock while, all around me, men in stetsons and sunglasses sweat over enormous steel cookers billowing smoke. Welcome to the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest - aka the "Super Bowl of Swine" - where it's never too early to fire up the grill. 'Barbecue virgin' Alice-Azania Jarvis gets stuck in to the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest A team of butchers from Asda travelled to Memphis, to barbecue with the best in the world The fierce cooking competition attracted 100,000 entrants and visitors Now in its 36th year, the competition attracts more than 250 entrants who battle it out across dozens of categories - from best ribs to best chicken wings - for cash prizes of up to $50,000 and, ultimately, the chance to be crowned Grand Champion of Barbecue. Teams with names such as The Notorious P.I.G., Lords of the Swine and The Grandmasters of Cooking Disasters have been here since Thursday, setting up their stalls in preparation for today's extravaganza. The competition grounds - a mile long stretch of grass along the Mississippi river - are heaving with the 100,000 barbecue fans and spectators who've paid $10 a head to be here. As competition organiser Diane Hampton - a businesslike woman in khaki trousers and horn-rimmed glasses - puts it: "This is the granddaddy of grill contests." To a barbecue virgin such as myself, it's all a little overwhelming. I'm here because, as well as teams from virtually every US State, there is one lonely British delegation, who've entered two categories: beef brisket and best ribs. Sent by the supermarket ASDA, the nine-strong group - six men, three women, all ASDA employees - is hoping to take on the Yanks at their own game. And let's get one thing straight - it is very much their own game. Because you can forget charred sausages and limp burgers - this is Southern Barbecue in all its smoky, super-sized glory. Here, great slabs of meat are slow-cooked over wood fires for up to 18 hours at a time. The fat of the meat melts slowly, keeping it tender, while the wood infuses it with flavour. Alice-Azania Jarvis samples some of the delicacies the competition has to offer Cooked to perfection: Meat is slow cooked for up to 18 hours and judged by how tender it is Alice tries some of the beef brisket and ribs cooked up the British Asda team It's a culinary art dating back to the Wild West, and every town across the South has its own version - from Memphis's sticky ribs to North Carolina's pulled pork. All are represented here, cooked by teams of red-faced men armed with tongs and lots and lots of beer. Each one has its own pitch, where they have erected their barbecue along with plastic chairs, tables, gazebos and huge tarpaulin banners bearing their team's name. Most have wired up their own sound system, too - hence the Eighties rock. Looking around, I can't help but think our British team - authentic as their beef brisket and ribs may look - stand about as much chance of winning as Eddie the Eagle at the Winter Olympics in 1988. But Mark Richmond, a former professional chef who now works for ASDA's recipe team and is heading up the British contingent, is confident. No matter what anyone says, we're here to win - and I think we can. He has been practicing since this time last year, even setting up a barbecue in the car park of ASDA's Leeds headquarters. By lunchtime, the aroma of pork ribs and beef brisket hanging in the air, my appetite is getting the better of me. Disappointingly, the meat being grilled by competitors is reserved for the competition judges - but a strip of food trucks running through the middle of the site is a meat-lover's paradise. There are dozens of stalls offering everything from chicken wings and pulled pork to ribs and burgers. Master butchers sharpen their knives ahead of the competition Each of the 285 entrants have their own specialty from sticky ribs to pulled pork About 100,000 barbecue fans turn up to the competition to sample the huge range of griddled meats I plump for half a dozen ribs, slaw and beans. Sticky and sweet, they come in an enormous plastic box. There's nothing for it but to stand in the middle of the festival grounds and tuck in. They're messy - but delicious. "This was my father's recipe," explains Karla Willingham, a 44-year-old teacher who sells the ribs from her brightly-painted wagon. He taught me how to barbecue when I was a little girl - we're here every year. 'Looking around, I can't help but think our British team - authentic as their beef brisket and ribs may look - stand about as much chance of winning as Eddie the Eagle at the Winter Olympics in 1988.' Alongside the endless food stalls, there is all manner of barbecue-centric merchandise to be picked up. T-shirts emblazoned with "Grillmaster" and "The Fame is the Flame" sell like hotcakes while elsewhere you can buy butcher's knives, barbecue tongs and rhinestone-encrusted cowboy hats. As the day wears on, and the mercury soars over 30 Celsius, a mood of focussed calm descends over the competitors. Many here are seasoned hands on the barbecue circuit (yes, there is such a thing - Memphis's World Championship is the crowning jewel in a calendar of similar events across the South, from Kansas to the Carolinas). Competition is fierce and every team has its own "secret" for success. This is the 10th year that Memphis oil refinery workers Lee Smith,39, and Todd Swirka, 41, have entered. Their team is called Refined Swine, and their grill is shaped like a huge cylindrical drum. They built it themselves. Says Lee: "It's the highlight of the year. We enjoy cooking and there's camaraderie between the teams. We're entering the ribs - we have our own dry rub on it. That's the trick - but we can't tell you what's in it.' The seven judges allocated to each team are no less dedicated. In preparation for today, they have undergone eight hours of training - taking in everything from animal anatomy to lessons in meat texture. Entrants come up with a range of imaginative names including the Notorious P.I.G and Lord of the Swine The barbecue Memphis meat fest is not suitable for vegetarians BBQ kings: Jason Kobeck (left) and Mark Morris of team Refined Swine at the Super Bowl of Swine Judging is a complex combination on stall inspection (teams get points for cleanliness) and a blind taste test in an enormous tent at the heart of the festival site. "There are three things we look for: appearance, tenderness, and taste," says Ron Childers, a local weatherman who has been judging barbecue contests in his spare time for more than a decade. Munching through all that meat, he says, can be daunting. I always put on a couple of pounds at competition time - you just take two bites of each entry but you end up consuming a lot. Finally, though, more than six hours after they begin, Ron and co are ready to give their verdict. As the sun sets over the banks of the Mississippi, an excitable local news anchor named Brian Basham takes to a stage in the centre of the site to announce the winners. The top ten in each category traipse up one by one to whoops of applause and the odd yell of 'we love pork'. In all, the ceremony takes almost two hours - not that anyone seems to mind. The British team don't quite make it up- finishing 39th (out of 108) in the beef brisket category and 67th (of 121) in the pork ribs. Those are won by Fireman John's, a group from Madison in Mississippi headed up by, yes, a fireman named John, and High Life on the Hog, from nearby Corvada, respectively. And the Grand Championship - awarded to whoever scores highest overall, regardless of category - goes to Sweet Swine of Mine, from Olive Branch in Mississippi, who also won the Pork Shoulder category. Nevertheless, Mark and his team are satisfied: 'It's about the learning. We're competing against the kings of Barbecue - and one day we'll be one of them. We'll be back next year.'