NORTH CAROLINA
North Carolina has not one, but two distinct styles of barbecue. And while traditional pitmasters are united in their passion for cooking over wood, the sauce is a matter of hot debate
It’s a little after noon, and hungry customers are already queueing out the door. This restaurant is legendary, and Melvin is one of the state’s few remaining pitmasters serving up old-school, woodcooked barbecue. In the US, barbecue varieties are what fine wines, beers and cheeses are to Europe. Each region has its own style: in Texas, they love their brisket; ribs in Memphis; in Kansas City it’s thick, syrupy sauces. North Carolina, meanwhile, is hog country, where ‘barbecue’ specifically refers to chopped pork. In the eastern half of the state, it’s all about whole hog chopped and mixed with a vinegar-based chilli sauce, while to the west, Lexington-style is pork shoulder, chopped with a vinegar- and ketchup-based sauce. Durham, where we are, straddles the line separating the two barbecue rivals.
Joining me at Backyard is John Shelton Reed, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As well as being a preeminent sociologist, he’s a barbecue scholar who’s sampled practically every joint in the state. Alongside him is John’s partner in pork, writer Dan Levine. Together the two have spent more than a decade championing their state-wide Campaign for Real Barbecue, or ‘true ’cue’, as they call it. Their initiative honours the dwindling number of restaurants serving meat cooked over wood or wood coals, be it in a brick pit, brick smokehouse, cast-iron smoker or an old-fashioned, wood-fired oven. According to the pair, there are only about 50 or 60 barbecue restaurants in North Carolina still cooking with wood, including Melvin and his team.
Our food arrives, and immediately I can tell I’ve ordered too much. “This right here is what my ancestors ate,” says Melvin, explaining that his restaurant is an homage to African-American culture in the South. “Our people didn’t have the means to go out and buy bacon or pork chop
