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North Carolina Barbecue

That’s East North Carolina. When I was a child there was only one barbecue. One didn’t have to specify “North Carolina” because we had never had any of the other versions of barbecue that one finds around the country. I discovered in my adulthood that they put (gasp) ketchup in it in Western North Carolina and I really, really don’t like it. I do like other kinds of barbecue but some of them seem to be more candied meat that barbecued meat.

I hesitated to do this topic because there is a huge group of total fanatics out there. There are web sites and discussion groups on line. One of the best is www.hkentcraig.com/BBQ. Lots of musings, restaurant reviews, critiques, and discussion. It has a tendency to make me homesick, and I haven’t been homesick for North Carolina since I was twelve years old.

This is a dish that can’t be cooked at home unless there’s someone to tend to it for a day. It’s slow cooked pork. Really slow cooked. When the sign says “pit cooked” they mean that it’s probably a whole hog slowly spit roasted over a pit of charcoal for 16 to 24 hours, being basted the whole time with a vinegar and hot pepper sauce.

When my grandmother was running a sandwich business she made everything except the barbecue. I can remember going with her to buy the barbecue and watching it being cooked. An old man sat next to the pig-over-the-pit constantly basting. It takes at least 16 hours to barbecue a whole hog. He sat on a low stool next to the carcass with the skin on. He’d turn the spit a little and pour on a ladle of the – let’s call it a marinade – then repeat. Slowly. I stood outside the shed in the dusty heat, smelling the cooking pork and vinegar with my mouth watering. I don’t know what’s done with the skin but it isn’t served with the meat.

There isn’t really a sauce the way one thinks of a tomato-based barbecue sauce. What happens is that the vinegar and hot peppers (usually in the form of Tabasco) are cooked in slowly so that they virtually pickle the meat. The result is a succulent, tender product that is pulled (shredded) and piled onto hamburger buns. Some folks chop the pork but it should be so well done that it falls apart anyway. The juices soak into the bun and moisten it, then traditionally the meat gets a pile of cole slaw on top.

Barbecue can also be served on a plate, with the cole slaw on the side and hushpuppies to go with. Hush puppies are made by deep-frying balls or elongated nuggets of thicker-than-usual corn bread batter. The legend is that they were named because they were thrown to the dogs to quiet them. That story has never really been substantiated, but hey, it brings up a picture of folks sitting around on the porch trying to eat and throwing goodies to the dogs to keep them out of the plates. Some people eat their hushpuppies plain but I prefer to butter mine. I’m not a huge corn bread fan so butter helps the corn go down.

I’ve seldom eaten barbecue from a plate. It somehow seems wrong to me. My memories are of the warm spicy barbecue and the cool creamy cole slaw combined in a single bite of a sandwich.

After we moved “north” (as far as Washington, DC) we used to go to the beach near Morehead City, North Carolina. I always made sure I got at least one barbecue sandwich. We would go by the drive-in or walk-up-to restaurant on the causeway between Morehead City and Atlantic Beach. I don’t remember the name, and I doubt that it still exists. They made a perfect pulled-pork barbecue sandwich with cole slaw that was just the right texture. It tasted best on one of those days that wasn’t a good beach day: overcast and chilly with a smell of rain on the air. We would take long day trips on those days and explore the area around the beach. A barbecue sandwich was a perfect travel companion.

Sometimes one can find real North Carolina barbecue up “north.” Many years ago there was a place in Kensington, Maryland that had nothing but barbecue and Brunswick stew. It was where Antiques Row is today, right across the street from the railroad tracks. Inside it looked more like a market. The walls were white tiled. There was a long counter where one could, if one wanted to, eat in-house, but mostly one bought the barbecue and Brunswick stew to take home.

There’s now a place in Derwood, Maryland (between Montgomery Village and Gaithersburg) that sells and serves North Carolina and several other regional barbecues. The man is from Indiana so he doesn’t really know about North Carolina barbecue. There isn’t enough vinegar or hot pepper in the preparation so it tastes more like long-cooked plain pork. The idiot seems to shake on the “pig juice” at serving time instead of cooking it in. It doesn’t work too well. He serves the hush puppies and cole slaw, though.

I miss good North Carolina barbecue. I haven’t had it in years and don’t have the facilities to cook it at home. I live way too far away from any barbecue place to get it, so mostly I live without. I have my memories and they’ll have to do: watching the old man baste the pig while my grandmother made her deal for the barbecue for the sandwiches she made and sold; eating the warm barbecue with the cool cole slaw in the back seat of my parents’ car at the beach; and going to what is now Antiques Row in Kensington, across the street from the train tracks, to a place whose only ambience was its food.

(c) 2008 Katherine DeWitt