Josh Markowitz

North Carolina Barbecue Story

The scent of smoking pork wafting through the air is a traditional smell in North
Carolina. But the states barbecue culture is changing. Environmental regulations and cost are
driving many of the states 434 barbecue joints away from cooking the old fashioned way, low
and slow directly over wood for hours. Now, over 75 percent of the barbecue places in the state
cook with gas or electricity. Right now we are going through a change in the definition of
barbecue, says Amanda Fisher, creative director at EDIA, which launched the Great NC BBQ
Map tracking every barbecue restaurant in the state last year. However, there is work being done
to preserve the states heritage.
A North Carolina institution
Barbecue has four deep rooted American hubs each with distinct flavors: North Carolina,
Texas, Kansas City and Memphis, but it is North Carolina where these flavors first appeared.
[Eastern North Carolina barbecue] basically continues a tradition that goes back to the
1700s or before, of cooking whole animals over wood coals, says John Shelton Reed, the
William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of sociology at the University of North Carolina and
the co-author (along with his wife) of Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue.
This cooking method was borrowed from Native American traditions and pork became
the meat of choice because many tobacco farmers in the eastern part of the state raised hogs to
feed themselves between harvests. Weve always been noted for production and consumption
of pigs, more so than our neighbors to the north, west and south, says Jim Early, a retired
Winston-Salem attorney and the founder of the North Carolina Barbecue Society.
Now, North Carolina is second only to Iowa in terms of pig production. While pork was
always the primary meat of North Carolina barbecue, it was not the divisive issue it is today.
Barbecue was a community thing and you cooked what type of meat was around. People
werent dogmatic about it, Reed said.
However, barbecue became highly localized fare as people developed recipes based on
these commonly found ingredients. In eastern North Carolina it was normal for everyone to have
secret family variations of the traditional vinegar based sauce.
By the time the states major barbecue style, the Lexington style, developed at the
beginning of the 20th century, the Eastern style was already firmly entrenched in that part of the
states culture. It did not take long for the Lexington style to do the same in the west.
Brought to the region by Germans who moved down the Shenandoah Valley, Reed says
the Lexington style is kind of a hillbilly version of a traditional German dish. Instead of using
the whole hog and chopping it up and mixing the meat together like the Eastern style, the
Lexington style utilizes only the pork shoulder.
The sauce is also changed in the Lexington style. Added to the traditional Eastern sauce
of vinegar, salt, pepper and a small amount of hot pepper sauce is a little bit of ketchup or tomato
paste that thickens it (though nowhere near the thickness of Kansas City barbecue sauce which is
the basis for most commercially sold barbecue sauces). A true North Carolina barbecue sauce
the viscosity of it is more liquid, says Fred Wilson, owner of Fuzzys Barbecue in Madison.
While the sauce is important to the barbecue in both styles, the meat is still the

centerpiece. If a pig is cooked well, it doesnt need much sauce. It should just be a slight
enhancement or compliment to the barbecue. The barbecue should shine, Early said.
As the Lexington style grew in popularity, the state became divided in its taste for
barbecue, with Chapel Hill serving as the unofficial dividing line. But this division did not
detract from the cultural relevance of barbecue.
Pig pickins, an outdoor hog cook often hosted as fundraisers or for special occasions,
were an integral part of the experience of living in small town North Carolina. The first time
you go to a pig pickin you realize its pretty special. Its more than a meal. Its like having
turkey on Thanksgiving, says Greg Hatem, owner of the Pit in Raleigh and Durham.
While pig pickins remain a tradition, the social nature of barbecue moved well beyond
pig pickins and into the restaurants that served barbecue to the masses. Traditional barbecue
joints were epicenters of the social scene in small towns. Barbecue places played that role as a
place you would go with your friends and have a night out, says Early.
In addition, North Carolina lacked fine dining establishments throughout the first half of
th
the 20 century so barbecue places became a natural place for people to frequent. Barbecue
places were prevalent, inexpensive and good, so people would seek them out, says Early.
However, as the decades progressed and North Carolina modernized many barbecue
restaurants gradually switched over from wood to the dark side: gas and electricity. The costs
and effort were simply too much for many proprietors who switched.
At Fuzzys they get a load of hickory wood for smoking delivered every week. They use
hickory because of the heat it can put out and the flavor imparts on the meat. Hickory wood
puts out more BTUs than any other type of wood, Wilson says.
But, because of the quantity needed, wood is getting harder to find and more expensive,
which is part of the reason Wilson believes many barbecue joints are switching to using smokers
or even gas/electric from the traditional brick pit that Fuzzys uses.
Another main reason Wilson believes places are shifting away from the traditional
method is the amount of meat lost in the cooking process. Wilson says that for 100 pounds of
raw pork, it yields about 50 to 55 pounds of cooked pork, whereas with a smoker there is less
shrinkage and about 65 pounds of meat can be obtained.
The final major factor in the decline of traditional barbecue is how difficult it is to make.
You dont have to be a pit master to cook with gas and electricity, Early says. Its simpler and
cheaper.
Nonetheless that does not mean that aficionados want to eat at places that do not serve
wood cooked pork. I understand why people do it, I just dont want to patronize them, says
Reed.
Preserving the tradition
Early founded the North Carolina Barbecue Society in 2006 while he was still practicing
law. He says he started the society after writing his book The Best Tar Heel Barbecue Manteo to
Murphy, a project which took him 4000 hours and saw him visit all 100 North Carolina counties
in search of the states best barbecue, because we should have had one 300 years ago, were the
cradle of cue.
As he completed his journey across the state, he discovered just how few places still cook
their pork the old fashioned way. In this process, he says he created a trail of historic joints that
still follow traditions because I wanted to honor these people.

Reed did something similar, launching the Campaign for Real Barbecue along with food
blogger Dan Levine and beginning to certify places that cook with 100 percent wood. Even so
he recognizes that hybrid cookers that use gas or electricity to help control the wood can produce
acceptable results. You can cook good barbecue with these hybrids cookers, he said. It is just
not the gold standard and therefore not worthy of true recognition in his eyes.
Fuzzys is one of the places recognized by both Early and Reed. The Lexington style
joint was opened by Wilsons father in 1954, and Wilson says its a community place. People
come here to grab a coffee and a barbecue sandwich.
The restaurant is also emblematic of the classic small town barbecue joint. Wilson
estimates that 75 percent of his customers are regulars, many of whom eat multiple meals a day
at Fuzzys. Though, unlike many barbecue joints, Fuzzys has always opened for breakfast
(starting at 5 a.m.). When youre cooking barbecue we cook it late at night. We put it on around
midnight and it cooks for like 10 hours. So youre already there and it makes sense to open up
for breakfast, Wilson says.
Additionally, Madison was a textile town where many people were shift workers who
wanted meals at non-traditional times, so Fuzzys saw offering breakfast (available all day expect
for their homemade biscuits which they do not serve after 11 a.m.) as a way to serve the needs of
the local community.
Because barbecue joints are often so localized, they each have their own quirks.
Barbecue restaurants take on the identity of the town they are in, says Fisher. They are also
places that people from all walks of life frequent because they tend to be relatively inexpensive.
One of the nice things about barbecue places is you get all sorts of people in them, says Reed.
Though as the use of wood cooking in these local joints declined, a new group of
restaurants across the state have tried to capture the traditional flavors of wood-smoked barbecue
with a modern twist. Hatems two restaurants (both certified by the Campaign for Real
Barbecue) are on the cutting edge of this trend.
The original Pit in Raleigh opened in 2007 at what he calls a lowpoint in barbecue
because a lot of the old barbecue joints had gone away. The atmosphere may be different than
in a small town place like Fuzzys, but the cue is still whole hog wood smoked the old-fashioned
way in a homemade pit cooker. Were doing it the same way it was done in eastern North
Carolina 350 years ago, he says.
Instead, the Pit is merely putting its own twist on Eastern style barbecue (though
Lexington style sauce is also on the menu in the Durham location which lays closer to the
dividing line). Though Hatem insists he personally prefers a more traditional barbecue meal,
Im old fashioned. I gotta have chopped whole hog, mac and cheese, collards, hush puppies and
slaw, he believes that providing customers with things like special sides, craft beer and wine
only enhances their dining experience. Their spin on barbecue is meant to be fun and not a
distraction from tradition because Hatem recognizes nothing beats the old fashioned way. If
you stick to doing [barbecue] the right way, its pretty dang magical, he says.
When the restaurant opened, Hatem says there was backlash from the barbecue
establishment because of some of their new takes (and the fact that they offer meats like brisket
which are not native to North Carolina), but that as aficionados have realized preserving the
heritage of wood cooked pork is critical to the Pits mission this criticism has dwindled. The
whole point of this is for people to come in and see what barbecue is, he says.
While Reed has no problem with modern places trying to focus on making great old
fashioned barbecue, he believes the crowds they draw do not always reflect the states heritage.

You are not gonna get every kind of person into Buxton Hall (a modern place in Asheville).
Youre going to get yuppies who dont mind paying 10 bucks for a sandwich, but it is really good
barbecue, he says.
Even so, the resurgence of barbecue in North Carolina is real and a lot of that has come
from the curiosities of a new generation. There seems to be more interest in this generation
with cooking out, Early says.
And this new generation has also shown an interest in real food, which is part of why
Hatem believes that he has been successful using locally sourced, free range pigs for his
barbecue. Nobody wants to go to Burger King anymore, he says.
Despite the decline in the number of historic joints, barbecue in North Carolina has not
gone away, it has simply evolved. And this will not change anytime soon as long as people
continue to show interest in traditional wood cooking methods. It is too entrenched in the state
and it is something people take too seriously. As Hatem says, Barbecue is such a powerful
thing, its part of our culture and I dont think its going anywhere.