Luther Echols has taste for bacon, ribs and cooking championships

When Luther Echols ventures down to Orange Beach, Ala., in a couple of weeks, he will be attempting to bring home the bacon — a $10,000 prize that could lead to $100,000 if he whips up the overall “best dish.”

In fact, the Columbus native will be using a “Bacon Explosion” he hopes will do the trick, along with several other pork-related dishes and desserts. His efforts will be part of the World Food Championships, which take place Nov. 9-15 and are being billed as “The Ultimate Food Fight Experience.”

One thing’s for certain, this is not the first culinary rodeo for Echols, 60, a retired heating and air technician who has been cooking for both passion and any prizes that might come with it for more than two decades. The Baker High alum has tasted success at competitions across the South, including the well-known Memphis in May event.

At the World Food Championships, he will be among 450 or so cookers competing in categories that include bacon, barbecue, burger, chef, chili, dessert, recipe, sandwich, seafood and steak. Echols stamped his ticket to the championships after winning a “Take Home the Bacon” competition in September in Dothan, Ala.

“Winning my category would be an incredible feat. But winning the whole tournament with the best dish? That would be a dream come true,” he said of the event that looks to be filmed for national cable TV. It has appeared on A&E and Discovery in the past.

The Ledger-Enquirer talked with Echols recently about the competition, what it takes to do well, and any advice he has for backyard grillers and smokers. This interview is edited a bit for length and clarity.

Q. You’re obviously not new to this.

A. I’ve been doing competitions, barbecue cooking, for well over 20 years. I’ve won big time in Memphis. I’ve won first place in ribs up there. I’ve won a lot of local stuff here.

Q. That’s Memphis in May?

A. Right. I’ve been up there several times. This one here (in Orange Beach) is totally different. This is not a barbecue competition, which is my forte. This is ‘food’ and they have nine categories. I won the bacon category (in Dothan). It kind of blew my mind. I’ve got some really good dishes I’ve been practicing on. I’m pretty stoked.

Q. What types of dishes?

A. I won with what they call the “Bacon Explosion.” I didn’t invent it, but I perfected it. I make a bacon weave, then I fry a pound of sausage and lay it on top of that bacon weave. Then I fill it with eggs and cheeses and peppers and potatoes, and I roll it up into a really, really good looking rope with a bacon weave around it. Then I cook it. That’s my signature dish. That’s what I won with to get to this competition.

Q. Are you timed on preparation?

A. I’ve got two hours to make that and in the same two hours I’ve got to work on another dish that incorporates cornbread and bacon. I’ve got an hour and 10 minutes to do that. I’m making cornbread, bacon, waffles and throwing them in the bowls, and then I’m going to make maple bacon ice cream. I can make it on site with two plastic bags in 10 minutes time. It’s out of this world. Then I’ll candy some bacon and crumble it on top. I’m going to candy some cornbread crumbles in simple syrup and toast them so they get crisp, and put the candy cornbread crumbles on top. Then I’ll make a spicy bacon swizzle stick, with twisted bacon. That’s my, what they call, structured dish.

Q. How many folks will you be competing against?

A. I’ll be competing against 50 teams in that … If we make the top 10 in my category, then we’ll have an infusion round and we have to use their chocolate. There are two different kinds and we take our choice, and I’ve chosen a really, really dark rich savory chocolate with sea salt. I’m going to make chocolate bacon sauce linguine.

Q. Will you have any help with this?

A. I do have a serious executive chef that’s going to fly in from Miami. He’s on my team. He’s been to Memphis with me three times. His friend, I don’t know if he’s going to be on site or not, was an “Iron Chef” competitor. I don’t know if he’s going to be here physically or just throwing ideas at us. There will be four people (on the team) if he comes.

Q. Is that the limit?

A. I can have as many people as I can squeeze into my 9-by-9 cooking area.

Q. How did you get into competitive cooking?

A. We started barbecue cooking basically at Bobby’s Bar 30 years ago, with “who can burn the best piece of meat,” and we started having competitions up at Lake Harding. And I won a lot of them. Then the Riverfest announced if you think you can cook on the grill, come on down. So we went down and entered in the Backyard Division and wore ’em out. Then I advanced from there into the major Memphis in May barbecue network and started competing all around the South.

Q. Sounds like you really enjoy it.

A. I eat, sleep, live and breathe it. I’ll be glad to get this thing over with. My girlfriend tells me don’t mention the B (as in bacon) word anymore. She’s tired of it. (laughs)

Q. Do you have another job?

A. Believe it or not, I’m about half blind and I have to wear jeweler’s glasses to read. I’m retired on disability because of my vision, but I’ve managed to get by. I can see good; I just can’t read and stuff like that. I used to be an electrical trouble shooter. I was in HVAC. I got a degree in refrigeration technology and did that for years until I lost my sight.

Q. What’s the toughest part about cooking and competing like this?

A. For the barbecue competitions, the toughest part is I don’t sleep. This last competition I never went to bed for two nights. Some of my team didn’t show up and had some problems, and I had to man the grills. I’ve got a big trailer with cookers on it. The hardest part is doing the long hours.

Q. What’s the biggest honor you’ve tasted in cooking or barbecuing?

A. I’ve won first place at Memphis in May. I won first place in the Patio Porkers Division. I went back the next year and won third place in the Professional Division. I went back two years later with another team, but I was the cook, and I won first place with them.

Q. What’s your team name?

A. Club Red.

Q. And your email handle is hogkiller?

A. Yeah. (laughs)

Q. So you like to cook mostly with pork?

A. I cook a lot of stuff. I just like cooking and I’m good at it.

Q. Have you had any formal chef or cooking training?

A. None whatsoever. The way that I look at it is I learned to cook on an open fire when I was in the Boy Scouts, and I fell in love with it. Of course, from open fire I went to cooking on a grill. I started winning a lot of competitions and I really enjoyed it. So from there I progressed to three-time world rib champion.

Q. Why are you so good at ribs?

A. There’s a lot of things involved. I’ve had people ask, what’s the secret? The secret is slow and low. That’s what you say. Myron Mixon taught me how to power cook … He’s the world’s best barbecue cook on this planet and he’s a good friend of mine. He’s taught me a lot. So sometimes I power cook.

Q. How should the average person in the back yard cook their ribs?

A. Cook them slow and low, and when they turn mahogany take ’em off and wrap ’em (in aluminum). Don’t let ’em turn black. They will get oversmoked. So don’t oversmoke ’em.

Q. How long do you cook your ribs?

A. I smoke mine for about an hour. Smoke is a seasoning just like anything else. It’s going to be one of the first tastes that people get, is the taste of the smoke. You’ve got to have the proper smoke, the right kind of smoke and the right amount. If you oversmoke something it starts tasting bitter. When my ribs turn the color that I want ’em I know they’ve smoked all I want them to smoke, I wrap ’em in foil and cook ’em for another hour and a half. Then I cook for another hour with a glaze on ’em.

Q. Does equipment make a difference?

A. No. It doesn’t matter to me what you cook on. My cookers are custom made for me.

Q. So you’ll be hauling your equipment to Orange Beach?

A. I won’t take my cookers. This is totally different. We’ll have a kitchen arena. There’s going to be 100 barbecue teams cooking and there’s 50, I think, international teams cooking in I don’t know what categories. And there’s going to be 50 to 100 chili competitors cooking. There’s a steak category, and there’s sandwiches and seafood. So it’s a big deal. There will be 450 people cooking.

Q. It sounds like a lot of camaraderie, friendship and learning from each other as well?

A. Oh, yeah. I’ve got a friend of mine, she’s a really, really big winning girl. Her name is Tina Cannon and she won in chili last year. If I get disqualified and don’t make the finals, then I’m allowed to help her. She’s asked me to come help her. I’m not looking forward to getting knocked out of the competition, don’t get me wrong. But if I do I’ve got something else to do.

Q. How many rounds are there to win the bacon competition?

A. In the bacon category we just go two rounds. Then the winner of each category, they all compete against each other. So it’s going to be seafood up against the bacon entry up against steak. The winner of that gets $100,000.

Q. That’s a free for all?

A. Oh, yeah.

Q. What’s the prize for the bacon competition?

A. $10,000.

Q. So you’ve won some nice prizes or money through the years?

A. I’ve done decent. But most of the time if you get your expenses paid and a plastic trophy you’re smiling.

This story was originally published October 22, 2016 at 6:44 PM with the headline "Luther Echols has taste for bacon, ribs and cooking championships."