Anybody Cooking in the Jambalaya Fest Cookoff?

No one wants that bland bone-in chicken jambalaya crap

where is this event held?

I might cook in the mini pot if I can find time to cook a practice pot on Friday.

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Are there crazy rules for this cookoff or something?

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yes

No sausage or pork
No pre-mixed seasonings or sauces
Very strict on what vegetables you can use
Bone-in chicken is the only protein permitted.

The purpose for these strict rules is to increase the difficulty of producing a tasty jambalaya and thus make the contest more competitive. However, it results in a vastly inferior product for someone who actually wants to eat it.

How the festival works is the big pot competitions all use these rules, and the contents of the big pots are sold as plate lunches.

While some of the really talented cooks will be able to make something that still tastes pretty good, most of the batches will suck, so it's a complete crapshoot whether or not you will be buying something delicious or something terrible.

If you didn't know any better, you'll likely buy some of that chicken jambalaya, hate it, and leave the fest thinking that jambalaya is terrible. Thankfully, they also have pork and sausage jambalaya available for sale, but you have to ask for it, and it's more expensive. However, the pork and sausage is typically far more flavorful, so it's worth the extra cost and hunting for it if it's not available at the same location as the chicken jambalaya.

On the flip side, the minipot cookoff rules are much much more lax, and are more or less "anything goes" as far as what actually makes it into the pot (although kitchen bouquet is still banned).

It is also way harder to coax a good color out of chicken compared to pork. With just chicken, nearly all of your color comes from browning your onions. Since color is a big part of the judging criteria for a jambalaya, you need nearly flawless technique and timing to get the color they're looking for out of a chicken jambalaya.

Jambalaya Fest is kinda like NASCAR. The rules don't really make sense, they don't maximize the flavor (speed) of the cars. What they really do is limit the cooks to as few variables as possible so that the competition is truly one of skill.

I get why they do it, but the end result is a lot of borderline inedible jambalaya.

Note: Your odds of getting a tasty jambalaya go up the later in the weekend you go because more and more cooks have been eliminated. On Friday, everyone is cooking. By Sunday, all the mediocre cooks have been eliminated, so your chances of getting a good batch are significantly higher. Saturday is a crapshoot.

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Since color is a big part of the judging criteria for a jambalaya, you need nearly flawless technique and timing to get the color they're looking for out of a chicken jambalaya.

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I cooked a pot for our baseball team and my buddy cooked another pot. He said he was in a cookoff and said the judges for it were looking for “cleaner” lighter color in the jambalaya.
Said the one that won looked like shite

The Jambalaya Fest is more about the music (swamp pop bands and worn out cover bands), carnival rides, and other events (car show, pagent, fun runs, etc) than it is about eating the food if you’re not a cook. The cookoff is a big deal for those who participate, but it’s nothing like the Downtown Jambalaya Jam if that’s the experience you’re looking for.

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With just chicken, nearly all of your color comes from browning your onions.

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You are a dumbass for this comment and know nothing about cooking jambalaya.

Usually cook in it but we had a scheduling conflict this year

everything said in this thread is the truth... its a glorified rice cooking contest.

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You are a dumbass for this comment and know nothing about cooking jambalaya.

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How many times have you been in the cook-off?