North Carolina barbecue tradition lives on
The death of North Carolina barbecue has been greatly exaggerated.
Recent years have seen the rise of Texas barbecue as the national food media’s favorite child, with many culinary celebrities and personalities making the pilgrimage to Austin or Houston to worship at the altar of post oak-smoked brisket and beef ribs.
This has caused some consternation (and certainly envy) among supporters of other American styles of barbecue — particularly in North Carolina, where barbecue traditions can be traced to the earliest settlers of our country.
Barbecue aficionados in North Carolina are no less passionate and argumentative than their Texas cousins. The perception that North Carolina barbecue has taken a back seat to the traditions in the Lone Star State is clearly irksome. But in some ways, it’s grounded in reality.
Like Texas barbecue trends in the 1980s and ’90s, North Carolina barbecue has recently seen the introduction of automated pits into many of the state’s most famous barbecue joints. The use of gas or electric pits in place of the much-harder-to-use, all-wood-burning pits is a sore point. Barbecue cooked with gas lacks the smoky complexity of wood-smoked versions.
The problem became so severe in North Carolina that two of the state’s most celebrated barbecue authorities, John Shelton Reed and Dan Levine, created “The Campaign for Real Barbecue” to celebrate and recognize joints that cook only with wood.
On a recent road trip to the East Coast, I swung through the western part of North Carolina, known for the “Lexington-style” barbecue that is named after the city that made it famous. I wanted to taste for myself the distinction between gas or electric and all-wood-smoked ’cue.
Lexington-style barbecue en- tails pork shoulder cooked over hardwood coals. The shoulder is then chopped up and served as a sandwich with coleslaw and a vinegar-based sauce.
The “chopped barbecue sandwich,” as it is listed on most menus, is a culinary wonder. Though not particularly photogenic — more of an advertising problem than you might think in a social media-saturated society — it is an ideal combination of flavors and textures.
The meat’s rich porkand-fat flavor combines perfectly with the acidity of the tangy, vinegary and slightly sweet sauce. The crisp coleslaw adds crunch to the soft and slightly chewy chopped pork.
My first stop was Allen & Son Bar-B-Que in Pittsboro. Unlike another location in Chapel Hill run by a different family member using all-wood smokers, this location uses an electric cooker, as my server confirmed. The sandwich here, though lacking much smoke flavor, was quite good. The pork was well seasoned and the coleslaw and sauce well prepared.
From there I headed north to Greensboro, to visit Stamey’s Barbecue, one of the most traditional of all North Carolina joints. I ordered the chopped sandwich and a side of Brunswick stew, an iconic dish of the American South. The smoke flavor of the pork was far more noticeable and the texture more irregular, with pieces of pork skin mixing in with the shoulder.
My final stop was Lexington Barbecue in the nearby city of the same name. As I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, an attached smokehouse pumped out fragrant smoke of burning oak and hickory, hinting at true ’cue inside.
I ordered a sandwich and asked for extra “outside brown” — the smoked pork shoulder’s crispy bark. The coleslaw piled on top was more vinegary than the other places I’d visited, and the sauce had a more sweetand-sour character to it. It was the best sandwich of the day.
In the context of the current American barbecue boom, it is understandable that some North Carolina barbecue fans see their beloved tradition losing ground to the Texas phenomenon. Indeed, it is not completely unreasonable to say the North Carolina tradition is dying because of the influx of gas and electric cookers.
But at those historical places that still cook exclusively with wood and have resisted adding trendy dishes such as beef brisket and ribs to the menu, locals still pack the dining rooms. North Carolina barbecue is still alive and well, if you know where to look.