Canadian Pitmaster Jamie Leighton
Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside. — Mark Twain
My pitmaster brother and good friend Phil Wingo is the inspiration behind and the founder of Porkmafia’s championship rubs and sauce which is what Porkmafia Canada is proud to use and sell. We both share a passion, almost an obsession, for cooking and the taste of old-fashioned southern-style barbeque.
In 2011, after spending two years talking about BBQ on social media with Phil, I wanted to learn the art behind cooking great barbeque from the best in the business — Jack Waiboer. I flew to Chicago and teamed up with Phil for a road trip across the southern United States of America before attending Waiboer’s Carolina Pit Masters Barbecue Cooking School.
After Waiboer’s cooking school, I was armed with the skills to create better BBQ meats. Phil went on to create a signature line of rubs and sauce, and I returned home to Canada and started my own catering company.
At least once or twice a year, Phil and I continue to meet up to either cook at a BBQ competition in places like Memphis, a low country boil in Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina and southern plantations like John Folse’s, in Baton Rouge, where hog farmer Tank Jackson hosts a Boucherie.
Often we combine these cooking events and turn them into a barbecue road trip from Porkmafia Chicago to South Carolina, and beyond. We wouldn’t miss it for anything!
