The first thing I do when I get to the annual Hogs for the Cause barbecue event is take a stroll around sprawling grounds, swirling with barbecue smoke, humming with music, crisscrossed by people in festival mode. I’m checking out the spread of 95 cookoff teams arrayed in clusters between the music stages, each with their stand, some of which are like campsites, some more like theme park attractions.
This stroll is my preview of the dishes the teams serve, and it also gives a taste of what makes Hogs for the Cause different from any other food event, festival or fundraiser.
After all, it’s the teams that give Hogs for the Cause its wildly creative flavors, starting with barbecue and going far afield from there. If it can be stuffed, grilled, skewered, wrapped in bacon or smoked you may well find it here, and that goes for dessert too.
The teams who make the food also give the event its hearty sense of fun, its formidable fundraising muscle and its character, a tapestry of individual expressions stitched to the same goal. It’s like getting an invitation to 90+ different parties in one place.
Hogs for the Cause returns Friday and Saturday to the grounds outside the University of New Orleans Lakefront Arena.
Hogs for the Cause raises money to support families contending with pediatric brain cancer. Some of the teams have grown into essentially their own year-round civic organizations, making six-figure contributions to a total annual haul that reaches the millions.
Over the weekend, they’re all out there competing for barbecue awards, and also serve an array of food to from their stands that’s extraordinary in variety and creativity, from outlandish meaty creations to snacks for the kids. They’re trying to draw your eye and your appetite, and it always works on me. Before my own preview stroll is done, I already have a long list of dishes I must try.
This is how the mission-driven fundraiser Hogs for the Cause has become one of the great eating weekends on the local calendar. Because yes, this is Louisiana, and we do have special eating weekends marked in advance.
