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Does the N.C. General Assembly really want to touch the hickory-smoked
third rail of North Carolina cuisine? That's what it would do if
it declared a cooked pig celebration in Lexington to be the state's
official barbecue festival.
North Carolina barbecue is a many-splendored thing. Wherever you eat it,
it's good. But there's good and then there's good. There's also
the original authentic genuine sho'nough article, as opposed to
unfortunate mutations, that, though perfectly tasty in their own
misguided ways, are not Proper.
Bob Garner's North Carolina Barbecue states flatly and without fear of
contradiction, "Eastern North Carolina barbecue is the original American
barbecue."
Amen, brother.
No less an authority than The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture patiently
explains that, "Barbecue begins in the eastern Carolinas, either as a
whole hog or shoulders cooked over hardwood coals. The meat is then
chopped finely, sprinkled with a sauce of apple-cider vinegar, salt, and
pepper, and usually served with cole slaw, hush puppies, and Brunswick
stew."
Say hallelujah.
"As one moves westward," the encyclopedia warns, "sauces thicken and
turn redder from a tomato or catsup base." In other words, they become
polluted. Which is fine if pollution is what you want – and
evidently that's what they want in Lexington and other places that are,
owing to cruel distance, tragically separated from the traditions of
Proper Barbecue.
Not only do our western cousins ruin their smoked pig with ketchup,
sugar and Worcestershire Sauce (a foreign abomination.) Not only do they
slice the pork rather than chop it. No, that is not
enough for these lost souls of the Piedmont. They also chop up their
cole slaw real fine and douse it with their travesty of a barbecue
sauce.
Have mercy.
An Honorable from this region of well-meaning but lost souls recently
said, "we have the best barbecue." Rep. Dewey Hill, who is from Columbus
County and knows better, pointed out, "I think
most people like our barbecue better." If they have functioning taste
buds, they do. But we guardians of the original and best are
magnanimous, owing to the perpetual good mood we enjoy thanks to
periodic infusions of Proper Barbecue and properly prepared side dishes.
We say if people out West want to pollute their pig, that's their
dinner. They're entitled to their pathetic
delusions and revolting concoctions. It's a free country, more or less.
But to make their vile vittles the focus of the state's official
barbecue festival?
Historically unsound, culinarily unthinkable and politically suicidal.
Article
published Feb 7, 2005 by the Wilmington Star News |
