NC Barbecue Final Four

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Porky LeSwine

According to the The Dispatch, a recent article in U.S. News & World Report ranked Lexington, NC the fourth best barbecue city in the country.  It’s hard to argue with the cities listed ahead of Lexington–Memphis TN, Lockhart TX and Kansas City MO.  Although if good, traditionally prepared barbecue per capita had been the main criteria I’d argue that Lexington–with its 20-some BBQ joints in the “metro area” and just 20,000 people–would be neck and neck with Lockhart.

Here are my picks for top barbecue cities (and towns) in North Carolina.  If you like, you can consider this the North Carolina barbecue Final Four.

Lexington – As noted in the national rankings, Lexington is the best barbecue town in North Carolina.  There are more traditional wood-cooking barbecue joints in little 20,000-person Lexington than any other locality in NC by a wide margin. (Are you listening Raleigh and Charlotte?)  Lexington’s annual Barbecue Festival that draws 200,000 or so swine worshippers is further evidence of the town’s barbecue supremacy.

Ayden – Home to the Skylight Inn (aka Pete Jone’s place), which serves some of the best barbecue in the state and is perhaps the quintessential Eastern NC barbecue joint, Ayden is a little town with a lot of flabor.  From the food at the Skylight Inn to the rural setting, it doesn’t get much more authentic than Ayden . Better yet, tiny Ayden is also home to the cafeteria-style Bum’s, which is a classic southern restaurant featuring barbecue.

Salisbury – It plays second fiddle to Lexington, but Salisbury deserves its own acclaim, as it is (ironically) the likely birthplace of “Lexington-style” barbecue.  Today Salisburyians (?) continue to cherish their barbecue and the town has a couple of solid, traditional wood burners–Richard’s and Wink’s–to back up their proud barbecue history.

Goldsboro – At one point Goldsboro was arguably the Mecca of Eastern NC barbecue, between the still-famous Wilber’s and the now shell-of-its-former-self Scott’s.  Although it’s barbecue is no longer worth tasting, Scott’s still makes some of the best barbecue sauce available ($1.99 or so at your neighborhood Food Lion, or $1 more at Harris Teeter if that’s how you roll).  The Goldsboro area’s proud tobacco and hog farming history add to its permanent status as a true barbecue town.

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Saul’s: Vintage BBQ Advertisement

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Porky LeSwine

Below is an advertisement from the 1956 yellow pages for Saul’s Barbecue in Raleigh.  Thanks to hog historian/swine sociologist John Shelton Reed, who sent me a photocopy of the ad, which he came across in the archives of the fabulous North Carolina Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill’s library.

My favorite elements of the advertisement are its emphasis on local sourcing of ingredients (not just a 2010s selling point, it turns out) and, of course, the priceless plug at the bottom of the page.  I’m not sure if the Temple of the BBQ Jew would count as an acceptable “church of my choice” but maybe.  If any of you readers remember Saul’s, leave a comment, as I’d love to hear about the place.

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Free Pork Runners-Up

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Porky LeSwine

Although only one lucky reader won the free Battle Box from the NC Barbecue Company, I was lucky enough to receive seven other entries, and figured I’d share a few of them with you here.  Proof positive that BBQJew.com readers are the wittiest, most insightful readers of a Judea-centric barbecue blog anywhere:

A BBQ Haiku by Kevin “Bacon Oscar” Myers
N-C-B-B-Q
Vinegar tang and sweet smoke
Yahweh would approve

John Shelton Reed Preaches to the Choir
Why do I like NC barbecue?  Because it carries with it all the weight of tradition, respects the meat, and makes me happy.  My favorite part of the website is your unerring critical judgment and sometimes snarky sense of humor (not a “part,” exactly, but an aspect, or two).

We used a black and white print of the attached photo [from Wilber’s in Goldsboro] in HOLY SMOKE, but it’s even better in color.

 

A BBQ Haiku by Nate “Tender Beef” O’Keefe
NC bar-b-que is tender
For the giver and the sender
If at random you reply
The battle box will be all mine

Gorging with the Gorges: A Note from Boone “Pork Daddy” Gorges and his Wife Rebecca “Pregnant Pork Belly” Gorges
My wife and I are dyed-in-the-wool Yankees, but we love NC barbecue and have done several cue-focused tours of your fine state. Our most recent trip was in June 2011. Despite being 7 months pregnant, my wife indulged me in the gluttonous splendor of 20 different barbecue joints (ok ok – two of them were in southern VA) in the course of seven days. The attached pic shows my very preggers wife in front of Honeymonk’s.

You can read more about our trip here and see my live porkphotoblog archive here .

[Note from Porky: If the winner had been picked for best entry rather than random draw, you surely would have fun.  It seems you’ve found yourself the perfect wife so treat her like a queen–a queen who feasts on barbecue.]

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Pork Bottle Politics

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Porky LeSwine

The Democrats have upped the ante when it comes to barbecue-pandering in the 2012 presidential election.  The organizers of the upcoming Democratic National Convention are making local, regional and national headlines for their recently announced sauce contest.

Charlotte in 2012, the convention’s organizing body, released a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking the best barbecue sauces among the styles most common in the Carolinas.  As the RFP states, the organizers are “looking to work with a Barbeque sauce vendor as part of the merchandising effort for the Convention.”  I will refrain from picking on the committee for the erroneously capitalized spelling of “Barbeque”, as this would be a cheap shot.

The RFP seeks entries among “three different types of BBQ sauces, mustard, vinegar, and tomato that represent the different styles from around the Carolinas.”  I will pick on the organizers for this statement, which has the following flaws:

  • Every North Carolinian worth his vinegar knows that there is no such thing as tomato-based sauce here, but rather dips that are spiked with a touch of tomato/ketchup;
  • mustard-based sauces are a South Carolina thing and we frown upon them here in the real, civilized Carolina;
  • South Carolina will vote for the GOP nominee come hell, highwater, or Strom Thurmond’s reincarnation as a friendly Palmetto tree, so why waste time tasting that state’s Grey Pou-ponsense?
  • Reasonable people of all political stripes should have a healthy dose of skepticism about a taste test conducted by political hacks.  My guess is the winner will be whichever sauce receives the support of White House Brand Vinegar’s Super PAC.

Finally, though the sauce contest seems innocent enough on the surface, the Democrats are treading on dangerous territory.  Their attempt at an ecumenical selection of winners across three different styles risks alienating us North Carolinians, as we are die hard Baptists when it comes to sticking with what we like.  We each have our sauce religion figured out and don’t need the sauce teachings we believe in questioned by out of town operatives, whether they be Mormon, Catholic or just plain not from ’round here.  Of course, in fairness, political common sense dictates that picking three sauces will anger fewer voters than picking just one.  Perhaps.

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Ground/Chopped Hog Day

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Porky LeSwine

It looks like 6 more weeks of chopped pork in Lexington, even though Miss Charlotte did not see her dip-soaked shadow…

 

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BBQ on Wheels (Food Truck ‘Cue)

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Porky LeSwine

Food trucks, a popular concept in large cities like Los Angeles and New York for years, infiltrated North Carolina over the last few years and have really taken off.  The combination of low overhead and being able to seek out your customers seems to be a winning formula for food truck operators.  Although mobile taco vendors are probably the godfathers of the burgeoning North Carolina food truck scene, whether they know it or not, food trucks now run the gamut from burgers to Indian food to pretty much anything you can imagine.  And it didn’t take long for savvy entrepreneurs to put two and two together and realize that 2+2=BBQ.

In an ideal world, food trucks specializing in North Carolina pork barbecue will allow the use of inexpensive rural land and less rigid regulations to cook the ‘cue on wood-fired pits.  The operators can then “bring the pork to market” in the big city–downtown Charlotte, Raleigh, wherever–where property costs are high and wood-cooking is less practical.  For now this is a pipe dream, and BBQ food trucks are mostly gassers like most brick and mortar joints, but a man can dream.  Below is a list of North Carolina-based BBQ food trucks I’m aware of:

Surely there are others I’ve yet to hear about, so please add a comment if you know of any other Tar Heel food trucks that specialize in barbecue.

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Tender Beef or Flaccid Pork?

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Porky LeSwine

A new barbecue joint in Tulsa, Oklahoma is getting attention for its saucy name: Action Erection Beer & BBQ.  According to an article under the clever headline “‘Action Erection’ Restaurant Raising Eyebrows,” the new BBQ place is named after the owner’s like-named construction company.  No word yet on whether the barbecue is worth getting excited about.

(To bring this story closer to home for my fellow North Carolinians, note that an interesting but recently retired Durham blog took its inspiration from a double entendre flaunting construction company: Seegar’s Fence Company, whose motto was once “Dependable Erection Since 1949”.)

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BBQ on NPR

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Porky LeSwine

Want a sure sign that barbecue is squarely in the mainstream and spreading across the country’s collective consciousness?  Here it is: Yesterday National Public Radio (also known as NPR) aired a story on barbecue (also known as BBQ, barbeque, Bar-B-Q, et al.).  I enjoy much of NPR’s reporting, but they tend to be embarrassingly out of touch when it comes to cultural trends, so you can pretty well conclude that barbecue became a fad 2-3 years ago if NPR has just discovered it.

The story chronicles the barbecue binge of a road trip undertaken by a young woman-chef and her father, who set out from New York to experience the joy that is southern cooking, with an emphasis on pork barbecue.  Someday I hope to experience such a magical experience with my pork-averse daughters.

Texas gets the most love from the barbecue pilgrims featured in the story, but Allen & Son in Chapel Hill and Lexington Barbecue #1 in, you guessed it, Lexington receive solid shout outs.

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A Lesson in Gehography

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Porky LeSwine

A big tip of the snout to Eric “Cracklin’s” Calhoun for sending along a link to the below picture of a map from the Library of Congress archives.  The 1884 map shows the nicknames of the United States in spectacular form.  It is truly an impressive lesson in gehography.

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PorkNetwork ‘Top 10’ stories for 2011

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Porky LeSwine

Many media outlets feature entertaining year end top 10 lists and other wrap-ups of the past year.  Not this one.

Rather than enthralling you, loyal readers, with a witty and insightful take on 2011’s top barbecue news, I am taking a different approach.  I am offering you the opportunity to read short capsules of the top 10 stories of 2011 for pork producers, according to the editors of the pork producers’ trade journal, Pork Magazine.  $12 corn, a new slogan (“Pork: Be Inspired“), near-record high hog prices, and a criminally minded hog farmer, among other stories: read the full article and learn more here.  How’s that for (not very) inspired?

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