Barbecue enlightenment in the strangest places

You find barbecue gurus in the strangest places.

Here's an excellent review of barbecue fanatic Jim Early's book The Best Tar Heel Barbecue: Manteo to Murphy, complete with a very learned and complete exegesis of the different regional styles of North Carolina 'cue--in, of all places, the Anchorage Daily News. (That's "Anchorage" as in "Alaska.")

"[Down East] they make a vinegar sauce with white sugar, salt and pepper, water and hot peppers like jalapenos. It's very thin" so it can seep down through the chopped meat.

In the midsection of the state -- according to Early, from Raleigh west to the Piedmont region roughly bordered by his Winston-Salem home -- is where the barbecue techniques begin to shift.

"It's called Lexington-style barbecue by some. They cook pork shoulders rather than the whole pig. Sometimes they'll cook a special ham for a holiday, but that's about the only time."

The sauce is also different, he said.

"They call it a dip. It's also vinegar-based, but they add a tomato paste, or ketchup, and mix it up with brown sugar and other spices." What those spices are, he said, are supposed to be big secrets, but he thinks the differences aren't always that significant.

Finally, in the western portion of the state, there are pockets of another technique that Early calls Floridian-style.

I think I know what's going on here...

The Anchorage Daily News is owned by the McClatchy company, which also owns the Raleigh, N.C. News and Observer (located in the heart of barbecue country.) I'm betting that the Anchorage reporter did some time in the Tar Heel state.