This is the style of BBQ that surprised me the most. I thought I knew what the deal was with the Carolinas. BBQ here is made of pulled pork and the sauce is vinegar based. I thought it was going to be kind of like Portuguese Vinha D’Alhos. Tangy, and acidic. As usual, I don’t know anything.
Backyard BBQ Pit is in a sturdy but humble-looking establishment right off highway 55 (known as “Apex”), in Durham, NC. When I pulled up at noon there were two police cruisers parked in the lot and the lineup at the counter was a wall of digital camo clad soldiers. I felt pretty safe at this point.
I ordered a plate of their tried-and-true pork BBQ, and Marianne got the sandwich. This is reportedly some of the best Eastern NC style BBQ you can get at any price. Actual cost: $7.50 for the plate.
So why is this BBQ surprising? It wasn’t tangy, like Memphis BBQ. I thought the vinegar would make it tangy. Instead, it was unlike any BBQ I had from the continental United States. What it resembled the most to me was kalua pig – the Hawaiian traditional food. Kalua pig involves burying a pig full of really hot rocks in a dirt pit full of really hot rocks and a mesquite fire. The word “kalua” is a lot like the word “BBQ” in that it specifically refers to a cooking technique. The resulting meat is pulled, and looks pale, tastes smoky, and is pretty damp.
The Eastern NC BBQ was drier (though still very moist), a little spicier, and had a little more tang to it – but not to the point where I would say it had vinegar in it. It just had a different quality to the savoriness of the meat. Not so much smoky as a slightly melon-fruit-like quality?
It’s hard to describe unfamiliar tastes, beyond the simplistic seven “basic tastes” – I guess that’s the challenge of food criticism. Imagine trying to describe the difference between salt and salmiak (ammonium chloride). They’re different, but it’s hard to describe exactly how. You probably don’t know what salmiak tastes like if you aren’t Scandinavian, and I’m afraid I’m not going to be any help with that either.
Since it was so new to me, I had a hard time categorizing it, mentally. Certainly, it tastes great. I wanted to put it in a taco, make sandwiches out of it, or spread it over rice. I quickly finished my whole plate as I sat there thinking about this. The sides were perfectly functional, though not notably different from any other mac & cheese or collards I have had.
Later, driving through the city of Dunn on the way to Savannah, I stopped at the tourism info office because they have a restroom. I chatted with the tourism info woman at the counter about what I was up to, and she confirmed that Backyard BBQ Pit was a good choice as a representative of the style. “They do catering, too. Sometimes at a BBQ, everyone serves themselves right off the pig. They call it a pig pull.” Thanks, tourism lady. That fact was actually pretty fun.
Now that I’ve had this particular type of BBQ, I wonder what other supposedly unique cuisines I could find doppelgangers for. Is there a thing like lau lau out there in the American hinterlands? Are Marianne’s Appalachian brethren secretly using unconventional chloride salts to season food? Wikipedia did not make the connection between kalua pig and Eastern NC BBQ for me, though I have looked at those pages many times. Some things must still be found out by looking for yourself.
