I can't say if money plays into the judging, but I can say this. I went to a crawfish cookoff once where there were 25 teams competing. Each team was given the same amount of crawfish to cook and submit their sample to the judges. People in the crowd could walk around and sample each team's crawfish and drop a ticket in a jar to cast their vote for "people's choice" but the winner would be determined by the official judges. One team who runs a small crawfish shack was putting out some great, well seasoned, not dusted, juicy, perfect peeling crawfish. Way better than most others competing. That team actually ran out of their crowd samples first and had to purchase more live sacks just so they could keep up with the demand. That team didn't even place with the official judges but won crowd favorite. The official winner was a team owned by Doctors and their crawfish tasted like shite. That's all I got.

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Posted by jlong4635

Member since Oct 2024

30 posts

Posted on 2/12/26 at 8:44 pm to Graton

Unless you're fundraising surpasses 10,000, dont even think about making your way on to that stage.

It is an awesome event that I truly strive to support, but it is all about fundraising. I championed a team for a few years and enjoyed the heck out of it, but you gotta have deep pockets to get onto the stage.

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Posted by Ryan3232

Valet driver for TD staff

Member since Dec 2008

27481 posts

Posted on 2/12/26 at 9:17 pm to LSUblondie

I judged at HFAC one year. If you’re a contestant, just don’t be that jackass that’s late bringing your food over to the tent.

It really is a crapshoot with the scoring/judging. It’s one of those figure it out subjective scoring charts for everyone with like 7 different qualities about the item. Think of a doctor’s office where they say tell me how bad it hurts on a scale of 1 to 10.

And if you’re a judge, you don’t get to try everything brought over. It’s been several years, but if i remember correctly, I think they have like 4 areas they designate under the tent so you only get to try 1/4th of everything brought over. (Told to me by one of the organizers). There’s 6 things you sample in each round for each category. They also place you randomly at tables each round so you get to mingle with new groups of people. Beers are included. It was a cool experience.

This post was edited on 2/12/26 at 9:21 pm

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Posted by Jameson2954

Member since Mar 2022

851 posts

Posted on 2/13/26 at 6:28 am to Graton

Sound like Crawfete. Quit competing, joke. It’s one thing to raise money for pediatric brain cancer, another to charge $100+ a person for the br epicurean society and have a complete sham of a “competition”.

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