You can take your Weber grills, fancy barbeques, electric woks, whatever, but they won’t get you into the Virgin Islands Coal Pot Cook-Off. It’s got to be the real thing.

Saturday the island celebrated one of its oldest culinary traditions, honoring the venerable coal pot. The event attracted even more folks than last year to the grounds of the Fort Christian for the second inaugural outdoor party.

Sponsored by the St. Thomas Historical Trust, five chefs and their crews labored happily over the smoking charcoal pots all morning to present their best dishes to an ever-growing afternoon crowd. If folks didn’t know about it already, the fragrant aromas drifting over the neighborhood drew them in.

Coal pots are a cooking method dating from the days before kitchen stoves became common. The pots are ceramic, iron or aluminum, all of which were used on Saturday.

The pots are by no means out of use. They are a mainstay at the Bordeaux Farmer’s monthly fairs, where they bubble over with stews and soups.

Trust president Ronald Lockhart said the cook-off was the idea of one of the Trust’s interns, Larise Joasil, who is now completing her senior year at the University of Virginia. A St. Thomas native, Joasil, who on Saturday was busy manning one of the volunteer desks, took a few minutes out to talk about her brainstorm, seemingly unfazed by the crowds enjoying what she had concocted.

"In the summer of 2012, I conducted a demonstration making johnny cakes over a coal pot in front of the Trust museum on Roosevelt Park. Everybody liked it, so I suggested having a community cook-off," she said. "I told my mother, who had used her mother’s coal pot, about the idea. She told me, ‘Get out there and show them how to do it.”’

And that’s just what the cooks were doing Saturday.

It was a day for eating wonderfully inventive cooking, with an added historical touch provided by the longtime band, Milo’s Kings and the Mungo Niles Quadrille dancers.

This year’s offerings catered to an imaginative palate, ranging from minature johnny cakes filled with chicken and mango, served by Chef Ashley Allen’s young interns Brandon Setori and Deuhante Petty; chef Harry Ralph of Hook, Line and Sinker’s kallallo or clam chowder, and for bites of his little round johnny cakes the size of donut holes; the V.I. Culinary Team chefs – captain Marco Sanchez, Taj Siwatu, George Sittig and Danika Joseph – who served seafood rumdown, a Jamacian fish stew; chef Shirley Honore’s smoked herring pilaf; to Jahleejah Peace of Natural Living Kulcha store and juice bar, who served an Ital rice made with curry and coconut milk, with grilled mangoes.

Some folks took to the tried and true. Addy Ottley praised Ralph’s kallalo, though he liked the seafood rumdown. Culinary team captain Sanchez, who is from Venezuela, said it is very popular in South America. The team is competing in Banco Popular’s Ultimate Flavors of the Islands May 30.

Chef Harry Ralph of Hook, Line and Sinker won the title of 2014 Best Coal Pot Chef on St. Thomas. The V.I. Culinary team came in second, and Chef Ashley and interns, third.
Ralph, who has manned the HLS grill for 26 years, is not easily rattled. He took the news in stride. Earlier in the day, he’d said it "wasn’t about winning, it was about having fun." He had folks – friends, family, visitors, the Hook, Line and Sinker family – in a seeming non-stop line all afternoon.

This was his first venture in the event. After the dust settled about 4 p.m. Ralph said, "It was very good and everybody seemed to enjoy what they were doing and that’s what made it fun. There’s still a few people here, seems like they don’t want to go, but the pots are empty."

Trust president Lockhart said the event is to promote local history and culture by demonstrating a traditional method of cooking in a fun and approachable way for locals and visitors.

Speaking late Saturday afternoon, he said he was pleased with the day. "Everyone has his own peculiarity, or means of creating a dish. It’s not like a chicken wing cooking contest. Everybody excelled. Everybody brings their own touch. It’s part of the culture. It was a good day."

Each chef has a vote jar in front of his or her station, where folks can vote with dollars to determine the winner. Cash from each jar is split between the chef and the Historical Trust to defray expenses.

Lockhart didn’t know how much the afternoon had taken in, but he did mention a little windfall for the Trust.

"Harry Ralph gave us part of his winnings," he said.

Event sponsors included Ace Hardware, Merchant’s Market, the V.I. Departments of Tourism, the Department of Planning and Natural Resources, the St. Thomas/Water Island administrator, the Virgin Islands Fire Services and many other organizations. A grant from the V.I. Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts also helped.