Kansas City is chief among barbecue cities: Here's why tailgate town crowns culinary champs

Barbecue inspires regional pride and identity as powerful and distinct as college football. 

Texas barbecue aficionados boast their slow-smoked beef is better than Carolina pulled pork — just as Longhorns fans believe their young men play a finer form of football than those who attend Clemson. 

Kansas City fans have one claim to fame no others can match, at the smoker or on the gridiron. 

It's the undisputed chiefmaker among all of America's regional barbecue hotbeds. 

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The Kansas City Barbecue Society is the judge and jury that issues the final word on the best in this indigenous American culinary art form. 

"Kansas City didn't invent barbecue, we just perfected it," Rod Gray, the CEO of the Kansas City Barbecue Society, told Fox News Digital. 

His beloved hometown Kansas City Chiefs battle the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday in Super Bowl LVIII. 

The nonprofit Kansas City Barbecue Society was founded in 1986. 

It's since grown into the official authority in the man-eat-meat world of global competitive barbecue. 

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The KCBS operates some 400 competitions around the United States, and another 40 internationally. 

Judges are culled from a community of about 10,000 Kansas City Barbecue Society-certified judges.

Gray himself, a native of Abilene, Kansas, is a legend of Kansas City-style barbecue. 

His brazen band of barbecue brothers, Pellet Envy, was named Kansas City Barbecue Society Team of the Year in 2009. He became chief executive of KCBS in 2022. 

Burnt ends, the crispy edges of smoked brisket, are the signature meat of Kansas City-style barbecue, he said. 

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Kansas City barbecue sauce, typically tomato or ketchup based, is sweeter than Carolina sauce, made from vinegar or thick molasses-based Texas sauce, according to the former champ. 

Kansas City-style barbecue is traditionally smoked with hickory, oak or pecan wood, Gray added. 

Gray is professionally impartial when it comes to naming America's best region for barbecue. 

His football loyalties are no secret. 

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He predicts a 27-24 Chiefs win over the 49ers on Sunday. 

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