Hailing from SWVA I've pretty much grown accustomed to my pulled pork being just that 'pork' and only pork that you do with what you desire after it's on 'your' plate.

But as a kid I spent a good bit of time in far southeast VA and northeast NC where it was minced and spiced.

Then there's central N.C. where how it's prepared changes every 30 miles or so, vinegar based here, red sauce based there.

This week I was gifted a variety pack of sorts from a butcher shop in Lexington, S.C.

I had never tied mustard based pulled pork.

It was interesting for sure.

Shout out to Caughman's Meat'n Place

I really really want to bbq a whole lamb this year in kind of the Kentucky style.

Not a hell of a lot of info on it out there.

Want to learn whole hog too.

You have to wonder how all those different styles came to be.


Probably all developed around the same time frame.

I was in on a couple of whole hog cooks as a yute[basically observed], cooked in an earthen pit.

Memory says that was about the best pork I've ever had!

I’m not putting down anyone else’s pig, but the pig made in and around Lexington, North Carolina, not South Carolina, is the best around. I’ll say the same for our red slaw and hush puppies. No other region can compete, IMHO.

Never had any bad NC BBQ. Some better than others, but none bad. Other than Wilburs in Kinston NC. Ironically one of the holy grail BBQ places in NC. Tried it three times. Bad everytime.

Not big on the 'red slaw' but do like Lexington Pork

Is there such a thing as bad pulled pork? As long as it’s cooked through and there’s fat in it I’ll eat it plain or with whatever sauce you put on it.

Unless it’s stupid hot.

We put out red slaw and white slaw at our church BBQs. The red will our pace the white about 4 to 1.

Same here....all good IMHO

But the regional differences here are unreal[and how folk within those regions feel about it]

Every local BBQ joint here likes to add about 2 parts sauce to 1 part meat. It makes for a vinegar flavored soup sandwich. No idea why this is popular, and I don't see it in other places. I want smoked pulled pork. I'll add the sauce as I see fit.

I smoke, then add BBQ sauce and coke when pulled. Really juicy.

Buddy's is hard to beat for just good pulled pork.

Ate some of the Members Mark ( Sams club) pulled pork this past weekend. 2# was $11.

Was actually pretty good.

Comes in package Just meat. No sauce added.


Couple with the MM brisket baked beans , MM loaded tater salad, makes for a good quick meal.

I like the vinegar kind

Pretty sure, I make it a little different, every time I make it !

Smoker, crockpot, oven, all vary technique & ingredients.

No one's every said; "[bleep] Paul, your pulled pork tastes like schyte" !

Looking up recipes, it sounds a lot like hot slaw. Around here, hot slaw is often made with iceberg instead of cabbage.

I prefer the red sauce stuff, over the vinegar.
Restaurant we go to once in a while switched.
Bummer.

Eastern NC is my favorite. Whole/half a hog, vinegar based sauce.

Agree 110%. And Lexington BBQ, aka Honeymonks, is the top of the mountain. Eating there is a religious experience.

I've been to several Basque ropings, gathers etc where they cooked a 7 piece lamb (the head is piece #7) above ground and they didn't make a federal case out of it (the cook was operating off a tailgate mostly). He built his fire on the ground about a foot and a half wide and 3 1/2 feet long and drove his T posts or uprights parallel to the fire (it's a fire, not just coals), but not over it, then the crossbar from which the big crusher screen rack is suspended by adjustable chain. The lamb sections are spiced and lubricated by beer or wine, usual lamb spices, and any oil that will facilitate browning, applied as needed with a paintbrush. The sections are placed with thicker pieces like the hams are at the hottest area, but arranged so melting fat does not drip into the fire. People come and go at different times and the thin pieces are eaten first of course. A cutting board and a cleaver are on the tailgate for cutting bones and the brisket. The hams never get completely done at one time, and slices are cut off to suit the eater, re basted and browned again. When available they like to use mountain mahogany, I've had willow (good), and once broken fence posts...can't see much difference. If you were hosting a sitdown dinner it would take some skill to do the hams...or butterfly them. It's probably a big gourmet chef deal in Kentucky but not so much in the Great Basin.

When I was a kid in the 1960s and 70s, my folks, myself and my siblings would take a drive down to our grandparents' house in southwestern Virginia, the house in which my mom grew up. One thing we all looked forward to, besides the visit, was frequent meals of pulled pork BBQ sandwiches. That was an exclusively southern thing back then. You couldn't find it north of DC.

I’ve not run into too many sauces I just didn’t like. Some are better on one type of meat than the other, but it’s all obviously subjective.



I used to cook up a whole pig every year. Always wanted to do a goat and or a lamb.

Argentine style on an iron cross over an open fire would be fun.

That and the flip flop style.

I got to get on it this year!

Did someone say pulled pork? I like mine with a little bit of Blues Hogg Tennessee Reds on it!!

I like vinegar and cayenne pepper or a good dry rub with ground mustard

that sugary ketchup schit they try to pass off as sauce is horrible

Nice CG!!

I looked up red slaw. One recipe had ketchup in it.

Is that right?

Wouldn't doubt it.
Not a fan of it.

Vinegar based for us, but not too thin.

Kroger sells a Private Selection Carolina sauce, I thin 50/50 with white vinegar and add enough black pepper so you can see it. Perfect.

Smoked pulled pork is a favorite of mine

Brine it it a salt water and spiced brine first.

There is a huge difference between pulled pork that is cooked at home and pork that is cooked for 16-18 hours on a specially designed pit. I've cooked Boston butts on my Pit Boss that I thought were pretty good, but when compared to a 25 pound shoulder that was cooked over hickory coals for 18 hours at the local BBQ Shack, mine comes up way short. I've tried the Carolina and Georgia pork BBQ and while some of it was okay, I do not like it was well as I do West Kentucky and West Tennessee style. Everybody has their favorite way of doing it, and that's how it should be.

Quite some time back, I made some very disparaging and rude remarks remarks on southern cuisine in general, and the universal use of sugar back there. An annoyed member I bought a scope from, shortly after, included in the scope package a bottle of 'Tennessee Red'.
I apologize to my southern brethren and would remark that is especially good on well prepared crow.

Pulled pork and beans make the best Chili!

I have a couple yearling goat wethers, a yearling doeling, and couple open yearling ewes. If someone has a recipe for Cabrito, Oveja, or Kentucky Lamb, let me know...

I grew up in Southern Ky. and live just across the state line in Tn. Everywhere you go in this part of the Country, they call it shredded pork. It's usually a vinegar based bbq sauce.

My time to cook at a very large Vietnam Vets reunion at Kokomo IN. a few years ago. Fire pit , two large cast iron dutch ovens , 30 lbs of pork butt.
Home made rub , pork seared in hot oil. Pork butt in cast iron , sliced peppers and onions. As I started to pour a 2 liter bottle of DR Pepper to cover the pork a few people watching me questioned what I was doing. 10 hours later at a temp. of about 190 degrees I pulled the bone out and said it's ready. Made a sauce with the liquid and poured it over the pulled pork. About 10 of the 30 people told me they wanted the same the next year. ( And we did ) The other 20 or so could have eaten Shinola and not know the difference.

I have always said that the "best" BBQ is the BBQ you happened to grow up with. Doesn't matter how good you claim it is, somebody from another region is going to say it's rubbish compared to HIS favorite BBQ. And vice versa.

Truth is it's all damn good. Might be different, but it's all good for seconds or thirds.

Just to piss someone off…

Chopped is waaaay better than pulled.

Growing up in Greensboro and weaned on Stamey's, you are absolutely correct!

Wilbur's closed during covid because the irs wanted to be paid, it reopened a couple of years ago under new management and the food is not the same. Real shame to cause I could eat there 3 times a week when it was in it's prime ,oh, Wilbur's is in Goldsboro and Kings is in Kinston they are still on hiway 70 on your out of town headed east.

I make up a dry rub and put it on a butt roast and smoke it. You can put whatever sauce you want on it. I have refer it without any.

Same with pizza.

I’ve spent lots of time all over the US and really good pork BBQ can be had in a ton of places. Even places as awful as Nashville, for example. Or Chicago.

It is all different but most of it is good regardless of the “style”. Beef, on the other hand….the Texans are the only one that have it dialed in.

I’m just getting back to the point I can look at pulled pork again. We cooked and vacuum sealed almost 2,000 pounds for our Boy Scout fundraiser last September.

I've eaten a lot of BBQ from a lot of places fixed a lot of ways. It's mostly good and I don't mind trying something different. There are only 2 ways I've tried it, and I don't want it. Some places put slaw on the top of a BBQ sandwich. I wouldn't mind it on the side, but don't put it on the meat. Generally I prefer a BBQ plate vs just a sandwich anyway.

The other is the mustard-based South Carolina type. Tried it, didn't like it.

have you tried the white sauce in Northern Alabama?

Not a fan of it myself.

no one should be

There's a BBQ place out here that has to sauce the crap out of everything they sell with that Alabama white sauce. Place is pretty popular with the locals. Damn shame the only way they survive is because folks don't know what good BBQ is.

No Pulled Pord to speak of here in NEPA (there are very good Porketta sandwiches and pork barbecues available though). I scratch the pulled pork itch once every month or two with Jack Daniels Pulled Pork, toasted Kings Hawaiian Slider rolls and a dollop of long cut cole slaw. It’s not bad.

We've done a pile of whole pig roasts, a sheep (not great), a couple goats, and more than a few whole deer (need lots of of mop sauce, dries out quickly). We have mastered most of it, but I'd still take some real Carolina BBQ over what we do.

Most people over load the sauce,and you loose the flavor of the pig ,if it's cooked right you don't need gallons of it sloshed all over everything, the taste of the wood smoke should come through and the sauce just needs to enhance and not overpower the meat . As long as it's pig and cooked properly it's barbecue if it's beef,chicken, bear,or anything else it's grilled or smoked meat but not barbecue

Maurice Bessinger’s mustard based bbq in Columbia was excellent. It’s long gone now.

The original Bridges in Shelby, NC was excellent too, but I haven’t been there in years.

Those two stood out as worth a trip for me all these years.

+1 on both. I have to hear that Maurice’s is no longer in operation.

Here in Charleston, of course, we get every style of barbecue imaginable and I like them all. Some places do only hams, some do only shoulders and some do whole hog. You’ll find every region’s sauce style as well and again, I like them all. When I smoke pork shoulders I usually make up three batches of sauce, one vinegar based, one mustard based and one sweet and spicy red sauce. I tell people they’re all my own, secret recipe, never quite the same twice. Nobody leaves here hungry, that’s for sure. I’ve had people tell me it’s the best they’ve ever had, but I figure those are people who just haven’t been around much.

This entire statement is spot on. Couldn’t be said any better.

used to order in Maurice's mustard sauce by the case just to change up our Memphis Q once in a while, developed a taste for it!... Best mustard sauce there was IMO...

I was gonna get bbq this evening and forgot.

I cook picnics or Butts on my PK grill on a little smokey hickory or apple wood charcoal and wood fire all day. Mine is as good as anything I bought. I just put a little Loisiana Hot sauce on it to eat it.

I like a Boston pork butt recipe that I believe comes from Paula Dean. It's pretty salty with salt and season salt, black pepper Gran garlic, liquid smoke, sliced onion and a few Bay leaved. Cook it in a crock pot until it about falls apart. I like to add some BBQ sauce on top as it's served.

Bb

LOL. yes!...

Yeah, it’s been closed for quite a few years. His brother has a restaurant in Charleston, and I saw the Bessinger’s sauce at Publix yesterday for the first time, but I don’t know if it’s the same. I’m going to try it out soon.

Y’all can pull your pork and crock your butts, but it don’t compare to barbeque . And if there’s not hardwood smoke involved it ain’t barbeque. Lots of “Eastern NC” barbeque is baked pork with very few working pits and chimneys.

If you think about it, drop me a PM and let me know what you think.

Another bbq we enjoyed was Country’s in Columbus Ga. Their chopped pork was really good, coarse with the outside crust, it came without sauce.

The lemon pies had merengue three inches high….dang makes me want to drive four hours.

Will do…

This Right Here ^^^^

Lancaster’s?

It's my turn to provide the meal before our American Legion meeting next week. Pulled pork, Cowboy Beans, coleslaw, and potato salad. Somebody else will be providing the soft drinks, and the post beer bar opens after the meeting adjourns. I'll be doing two big Boston Butts on my smoker, with an injection marinade and my daughter's dry rub. 12 hours or so of smoke, to an internal temp of 200 degrees on a wireless digital thermometer. I catch the drippings from the meat and incorporate some of them back into the pulled finished product to keep it moist. Sauce on the side- - -or not- - - -"eater's choice".

This is true go to the lighthouse in ayden nc and you will see plies of wood and a guy chopping whole hog everything but the squeal as they say they been cooking there for about 50 years and some days there is a line out the door ,barbeque, slaw and cornbread that's the menu.

I get down that way four or five times a year. I’ll be checking that place out. Thanks for the tip.

The last time I went by there, which was probably August or September, it looked like they were operational. Is this recent? I go byBessingers in Charleston at least weekly but have never stopped. Have to swing in some time.

Like cole slaw, God shivers every time someone chops it. Another good way to ruin it is to have bottles of COLD sauce sitting out, expecting people to apply it to the meat instead of mixing it in hot.

You guys have proven my belief in "Here we do it this way and nothing else is BBQ". Right down to the gospel of pork versus beef, and then to the epistle of sauces. It's religion.

(Alabama white sauce? Duke's sells some that's damn good on chicken.)

You forgot grass-fed versus grain-fed beef (although your reference to (genuflect) Duke's does address the religion of regional worship).

Favorite here is plain pulled or chopped/minced, I'll add what I want if I want anything added.

Get it plain at several places, all hardwood slow cooked:

Little Richards

Statesville BBQ

Buddy's BBQ

Or do our own on the Kamodo
Sometimes I want a bit of spiced vinegar, sometimes a bit of sweet red, sometimes nothing.

It's all good.

Bum's there in Ayden used to cook on wood. I haven't been there in years but I thought it was better than Skylight back then and they had a full menu if someone didn't want pork.

It may surprise some, but pork butt is excellent just salted with some liquid smoke and cooked in a crock pot. The meat alone is that good!

Yea skylight I was not paying attention to my fingers or my mind, Bum's is still there and cooking good que also ,Parker's in Greenville and Wilson are still good but chop a little fine for my taste but the sauce is good . Sam Jones, the guy who inherited the skylight has his own restaurant in Winterville and cooks the same as the ayden restaurant but with a larger menu and better hours it's simply named Sam Jones Barbeque

Parkers is a bit dry for me. Sam Jones, Bum's, Skylight are all good. A couple of others that I'm not sure have been mentioned are Moore's and McCall's. Pretty good, but a notch down from the Ayden guys. Bill Ellis BBQ in Wilson was buffet-style and was very good as well. Unfortunately, it is no longer in business.

It's an abomination, and one thing that eastern NC got wrong about BBQ.

All very true. The BBQ should have a little vinegar based sauce here and there, while it's cooking if it's whole hog style, but the sauce belongs on the table.

What's the more popular vinegar sauce, Massengill or Summer's Eve?

Liquid smoke? Hard pass.

Well dang it is still open, run by his sons and daughter. That’s great news. I’m wrong and glad of it…

I sure heard they were closing it up after Maurice died in 2014.

By the way the Thomas Bessinger sauce I bought was not like Maurice’s, it’s very thin and much sweeter. Not terrible but not quite there.

That's the problem. It ain't rocket science.

As in no one ever experiments.


It's either salt rosemary and garlic or sometimes it's garlic rosemary and salt.


Maybe lamb/hogget is too expensive or hard to find for people to do much experimenting.


I have a suspicion that lamb/hogget would go very very well with a certain line of wild game cookbooks available now.

No liquid smoke for our crockpot recipe, but we do put either Coca Cola or Dr. pepper in.

They don’t have red slaw down East. At least I’ve never seen any down East. Piedmont (Lexington) style BBQ houses make gallons of it every day. Folks from out of town tend to love it. My coworkers from Indiana get containers of it to take home every time they come this way.

Morris bbq near hookerton was a favorite of mine. They only open on Saturdays, it's another old store...kinda looks like several old chit houses pulled together. Haven't been there in at least 3 years but it was great last time. Sorta like the Skylight Inn.

Lexington is the only place I can remember getting it.

We make onion slaw every so often, just add fine chopped onion to regular slaw to taste. I like it but some don't. We don't use near as much sugar as some folks either. Sometimes if I'm in the mood I use Ken's Vidalia onion salad dressing with a spoonful of Miracle whip.
Yep, I said Miracle Whip.....

[quote=1beaver_shooter][quote=Featherweight6555]Never had any bad NC BBQ. Some better than others, but none bad. Other than Wilburs in Kinston NC. Ironically one of the holy grail BBQ places in NC. Tried it three times. Bad everytime.

1beaver shooter you are correct. I don’t know why I put Kinston. Maybe the Tramadol I’m taking for my jaw after toof surgery Monday. That’s what I’m blaming it on anyway:D
I use the by-pass around Goldsboro since it opened.

I’ve been iirc 3 times there. 1st to try it and the last two for school athletics. It’s mundane at best. Matter of fact the whole place is forgettable in my opinion. Some folks like it though it’s still in business, I guess. There’s one spot we drop by when down their way, City Barbecue in Huntersville. No fresh smoke but it’s still a good feed.

10-4 bud.

I don’t have an egg, so I’ll brown the shoulder on my grill with cans of chips smoking.
Maillard plus smoke, then crackpot.

Wilbur's is in Goldsboro - Kings is in Kinston. Which one was it?

Wilbur's has never been very good since the owner, Mr. Wilbur Shirley, died and his daughter took over. As mentioned above, it's under new ownership now, which I believe was one of the former employees.

Check out Marty's in Wilson next time you're here - they are about as good as it gets in today's world.

I agree - Parkers is terribly dry, and ground up so fine it's like eating sawdust.
If you liked Bill Ellis', try Marty's. Marty was Bill's grandson, if I recall correctly.

Dry rub, vinegar, white slaw here. If we use red sauce it’s on the plate and only Stubbs. That scheit is like crack cocaine.

Canned garlic dills on the side.

Wilbur’s. I’ve not been since it re- opened. Anything would be an improvement. I hear good things about it but I do not go through Goldsboro since the by pass opened.

If they are serving Alabama white sauce with anything other than smoked Chicken then they don’t know what the hell they are doing. Try some chicken with Alabama white sauce from Big Bob Gibson’s in Decatur and get back to me. I put their pulled pork right up there with anyone’s as well.

Yes sir, alabama white sauce is for chicken, not pork.

The Cancel Culture gang sure tried to shut him down while he was still alive. Maurice, in his younger years, wore a white hood and often made "controversial" statements. This was all public knowledge, but it was dredged back up in his later years and the Lefties tried to destroy him. All the grocery stores quit selling his sauce and the NAACP placed a boycott on his restaurants. To their dismay, the original Piggie Park is still going strong and there are several smaller locations around. I still eat there regularly, mostly for their great hash & rice and outstanding burgers.

I haven’t been to Columbia since I retired, I always stopped to get the hash and rice and a couple of pounds of bbq on my way home.

Food Lion sold Maurice’s Pork (frozen) for a few years and it was still really good. I don’t remember when they stopped selling it but it’s been a while.

Head over my way in Rowan and try yourself some Hendrix. I bet you thank me. Actually. I still owe you for that cart that I turned into a gun cleaning station. Head this way and I’ll spring for some Hendrix.

Cooked slow and smoky until it reaches the magical temp, 190* and stays there until collagen breaks down and pulls off the bone. Hold the sauce until served and have choices of different sauces for different taste. Either vinegar or mustard based for me!

Good stuff!

g

Wife's mom likes Marty's, she complains over the price in-between the great compliments.....then she forgets the whole event.
I'm trying to get my dick-do disease under control so BBQ joints are out for a while.
Hope you're doing well!

Yeah I got that turned around, it's a Piedmont thing. I pray for your co-workers from Indiana.

Some of the best pork BBQ I can remember eating came from a roadside shack in far southeast Virginia right along the state line.
With mom having grown up in Suffolk and having family between there and Little Washington she knew where to stop.

The only sauce available at those places was peppered vinegar.