SEVERAL EVENTS WILL RVOLVE AROUND FOOD

May 18 through 20, the 23rd annual World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest will be held at the Memphis in May International Festival.

This event attracts more than 200 barbecue teams from throughout the United States.

Nearly 100,000 barbecue fanatics will experience the one thing, other than Elvis, for which Memphis is famous throughout the world.

The contest, in which about 30 tons of pork are barbecued, has a worldwide reputation, and Memphis has become the undisputed "Barbecue Capital of the World."

Its ultimate award was being acknowledged in 1990 as "the largest pork barbecue cooking contest in the world" by the Guinness Book of World Records.

During the fourth weekend of the festival, May 27 and 28, the Memphis in May board will initiate a new festival, the Great Southern Food Festival.

This festival will feature a party filled with the culture, charm and tastes of Memphis and the South -- enough to make even Yankees become southerners for a weekend.

Lyman Aldrich, president of Memphis of May, said visitors can pay to taste food prepared from more than 30 restaurants in the Memphis area during the event.

There will be a theatrical kitchen where noted Southern chefs will demonstrate how to prepare Southern foods.

While these food events come after the Beale Street Music Festival, people can still listen to music.

Country singer John Anderson will perform Sunday, May 28.

This year's Sunset Symphony, the traditional close of the Memphis in May celebration, will feature the Memphis Symphony orchestra in concert Saturday, May 27.

There will be fireworks May 27 and 28 to conclude Memphis in May.