More on the South The Biltmore House Bluegrass in NC Mellow Asheville
Barbecue pits East against West — within North Carolina
By Estes Thompson, Associated Press, 9/4/2002
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More on the South The Biltmore House Bluegrass in NC Mellow Asheville
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One little word can provoke hours of argument as meat lovers across the country defend or decry grilling vs. smoking, tomato sauce vs. vinegar, Memphis ribs vs. Texas brisket, pork vs. beef.
Inside North Carolina's borders, it gets as particular as East versus West, and the debate over which is better can be as spicy as the sauce.
Eastern-style barbecue is characterized by a tangy vinegar-based sauce sopped onto chopped meat from a smoked whole hog. Lexington-style, also called Western or Piedmont, is prepared from pork shoulders and flavored with a red vinegar sauce colored with tomatoes and sweetened with sugar.
One of the rare places they coexist in peace is here in Kernersville, where Prissy Polly's Pig Pickin' BBQ serves both styles side by side.
Co-owner Gary Whaley said the family business was a newcomer in the centuries-old tradition of barbecue when it opened in 1991. The restaurant, named for his grandmother, at first sold only Eastern style — on enemy turf.
"It was kind of unusual because we were serving Eastern-style in pretty much Lexington territory," Whaley says. "A lot of times, we'd have people come in and find we didn't have Lexington style and they wouldn't eat Eastern.
"We couldn't have business walking out the door, so we made up sauce and mixed it with the barbecue."
Earnest researchers on the subject can travel in almost any direction to judge the subtle and not-so-subtle differences in North Carolina's most famous dish, says the author of an upcoming guide that features 100 restaurants.
"Bob Garner's Guide to North Carolina Barbecue," published by John F. Blair of Winston-Salem, is due out next month. It's Garner's second book on the subject: "North Carolina Barbecue," published in 1996 and now in its fifth printing, chronicled barbecue's history and mentioned several restaurants.
The new book, Garner says, will become a staple in what he calls "food tourism."
"Food tourism is on the rise in the state. It has to do with aging. A lot of retirees get the book to go somewhere," says Garner, also the spokesman for the state office of AARP.
He catalogs styles and restaurants from Bubba's Barbecue on Hatteras Island to Fuzzy's in Madison, north of Greensboro. Others include Short Sugar's in Reidsville, Stamey's in Greensboro, Wilber's in Goldsboro, and the White Swan in Four Oaks.
Some towns have multiple favorites: In Wilson, there are Bill's, Parker's, and Mitchell's. In Lexington, there are Barbecue Center, Jimmy's, and Lexington Barbecue.
Barbecue has long inspired strong feelings and strong words. In the 1950s, the editors of the Rocky Mount Evening Telegram and the Goldsboro News-Argus squared off in print.
Rocky Mount editor Vernon Sechriest called Goldsboro's barbecue "vinegar-tainted, half-burned nonsense." Goldsboro editor Henry Belk retaliated that Rocky Mount's barbecue was chopped so fine that it had "some resemblance to mush."
Experienced barbecue fans look for wood stacked near the restaurant as a sign that the meat is smoked over a real wood fire. But some cooks swear they get a fine taste by using a gas or electric cooker with wood chips to provide the smoke.
"We cook pigs on an electric cooker with a smoker attachment," says Prissy Polly's Whaley. "A lot of the barbecue restaurants are going to that because it's so expensive to keep wood in the pit. You go through so much wood."
Whaley concedes that chip-smoked meat "may have a little less of a smoke flavor." Still, the rich aroma of wood smoke permeates the air as a visitor walks through Prissy Polly's front door.
Whaley smokes his meat three or four hours by plugging the vents on the electric cooker. Then he vents the smoke and cooks the meat overnight.
At Mitchell's in Wilson, 45 miles east of Raleigh, the wood-fired pit is still in use, fueled with oak and charcoal. The pit is in the old part of the building, though customers eat in a gleaming, cafeteria-style dining room.
Owner Ed Mitchell plans to open an all-you-can-eat "pig bar" — a counter where customers sit in front of a whole hog and eat all they can.
Mitchell's Eastern-style seasonings — red pepper, salt, vinegar, and a little sugar — are mixed in with the meat after it is smoked and chopped. The barbecued pork can be served on a bun, with or without cole slaw, or on a plate with vegetables and even chicken or ribs.
As at most restaurants, the plates may include vegetables and other traditional side dishes — Brunswick stew thick enough to eat with a fork, hush puppies, and iced tea.
Ed's son, Ryan Mitchell, who came back to the family business after earning an economics degree, is of two minds about whether pit cooking is the way to go.
Pit cooking "keeps the smoke taste in there, but it's a little drier than the average gas cooker," he says.
Predictably, perhaps, the philosophy is different across the state in Shelby at Bridges Barbecue Lodge, where rows of neatly stacked hardwoods dry in the hot summer sun out back.
Faithful followers of the Lexington style swear by the consistency of Bridges' main dish, the tangy red sauce and the distinctive smoky flavor that can come only from slow roasting the huge pork shoulders over a wood fire.
"I used to work with some salesmen who would travel back and forth from Atlanta to Charlotte," says Wayne Hall, a retired textile worker who was eating lunch with his wife, Judy. "They would always arrange our meetings on the days when Bridges was open."
Tabitha Montgomery, who grew up in the town 25 miles west of Charlotte, now drives about 20 minutes from her home in Gaffney, S.C., two or three times a week to eat at Bridges.
It's worth the trip, she says.
"Eastern North Carolina barbecue? I hate it," she says between bites of her sandwich. "I don't like the vinegar taste. And I don't think their hush puppies are homemade."