Arrogant Swine

Linkdown: 9/17/14

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– Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor of Texas Monthly, is definitely the right man to write an article about being “meat drunk”

You’re experiencing a rapid heartbeat, flush cheeks, and a sweaty brow. All are symptoms of overindulgence, but not of the alcoholic kind. Rather than an elevated BAC, the cause might be a high that even a teetotaler can get. You’re getting meat drunk.

– Speaking of Texas Monthly, their annual barbecue fest was this past Sunday and it looks like it was a blast (more photos here and one blog’s top 5 bites here)

– The title says it all: “For traditional Carolina barbecue, a trip to Lexington, NC is a must”

A tanked economy winnowed down the joints, but not the residents’ passion for barbecue shoulders. That’s what makes Lexington barbecue different: Many pit masters have tried the typical ribs, beef briskets, turkey and chicken, but few now offer them except on a few days a week and on special occasions.

“Ribs never caught on in Lexington,” Yountz said, adding that he also tried beef brisket but found it too wasteful and the novelty soon wore off for his customers.

– The latest entries in Tyson Ho’s How I Built a Barbecue Restaurant in Brooklyn series looks at the interior decorating on a dime aspect and standing before the community board

– Elizabeth Karmel (aka Grill Girl) has left Hill Country to start Carolina Cue To-Go, an “online barbecue shack” that will offer whole mail order whole hog barbecue; it goes live on 11/1 (via @BBQsnob)

But after more than a decade focused on Texas-style food, it is time for me to go back to my North Carolina roots.  I have partnered with a childhood friend to form an online “Barbecue Shack” that will sell traditionally smoked Eastern Carolina whole hog barbecue nationwide.  My whole hog is inspired by my long-time barbecue buddy, Ed Mitchell, and it will be sauced with my signature Lexington-Style Vinegar Sauce.  In my opinion, it will be the best of what North Carolina has to offer.

– More coverage on the Great NC BBQ Map

– The Carolina/Texas barbecue joint Curly’s Carolina, TX Barbecue in Round Rock, TX closed last Sunday

– Barbecue Rankings made his way back through NC last week

– Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples visits Skylight Inn

This is eastern North Carolina, so the hogs started whole and then got chopped into hunks. At the Skylight Inn, cracklins intermingle with the meat.The occasional crunch is entirely intentional. The pork doesn’t need accompaniment, but a bath in the thin, vinegar-based sauce produces an entirely different flavor explosion.

Linkdown: 8/27/14

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– Tyson Ho of Arrogant Swine writes a post about creating a menu at his upcoming whole hog joint in Bushwick and has this great quote:

“Every time brisket shows up on a Carolina menu, God runs over a basket of sweet fluffy kittens with a Mack truck.”

– Marie, Let’s Eat! returns to Fox Brothers Bar-B-Q and provides some great perspective on Atlanta barbecue in the process; also, Grant, I’ll take you up on that offer next time I’m in town!

– Sounds like crowds weren’t quite as good as hoped for at last week’s RibFest in Raleigh due to competing activities in downtown

– Carolina Barbecue off Business I-85 in Spartanburg gets some good marks

– “Valley BBQ tradition involves caring” includes a little bit of history

“Virginians don’t have a barbecue tradition,” Matthew Poteat, a Stauntonian from eastern North Carolina, starts to say, then rights himself before setting off a small war.

The nationally renowned North Carolina-barbecue style came from Tidewater Virginia, the Carolina Q Pig Pickers owner admits.

Pig done Poteat’s way involves pulling pieces of pork off the roast, chopping it coarse with a cleaver, and mixing the dark and white meat together, crispy skin and all. His sauce is “vinegar and red pepper sauce, real thin.”

While Texas and other states prefer red sauces, the vinegar-based sauce is the oldest and first in the country according to Poteat, who’s also a history professor at Lynchburg College.

– Look for The Great NC BBQ Map folks on Charlotte Today next Friday

– More from Buxton Hall:

Linkdown: 8/13/14

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– This is my nightmare: the Lone Star Tick (named for Texas) can make you allergic to barbecue as well as burgers

– The 2014 NC Whole Hog Barbecue State Championship will be October 3/4 in Downtown Raleigh

This year, the State Championship will return to Downtown Raleigh as part of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Wide Open Bluegrass Festival. After the judging is complete, the mouth-watering barbecue will be chopped and sold in sandwiches to festival attendees on Saturday, October 4.

– Another article from the Mooresville Tribune on The Great NC BBQ Map; it was also listed this week as one of the 5 things you need to know in the South right now from Southern Living

– Barbecue on other lists, pt. 1: Garden and Gun named their top breakfast joints in the South and Southern Soul Barbeque in St. Simons Island, GA made the list

– Barbecue on other lists, pt. 2: in addition to legendary barbecue, Skylight Inn in Ayden apparently has one of the NC’s best burgers

– Thrillist’s list of The 15 Best New BBQ Joints in America

– A letter to the president regarding NC barbecue, plus a pork butt recipe

Dear President Obama,

It seems you like barbecue. You broke in line at Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas, but I guess the headaches of being president allow you some leeway. You had a cold Bud Light when you hit Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City, even if they had run out of slaw, but you stood in line there, so between the beer and waiting your turn, you showed your humanity and touch with the common man.

I know you’ve been to North Carolina many times, but I’ve yet to hear about you stopping at one of our well-smoked, traditional barbecue joints. They really are your kind of places. I’m not talking about the newfangled ones, where the emphasis is on selling you a liquor drink. No, we have some time-honored places where wood smoke meets the meat.

– 12 Bones Smokehouse makes this list of places to eat from The Telegraph’s (UK) guide to Asheville as well as Culture Trip’s 10 “must-try” local restaurants in Asheville

– How I Built A Barbecue Restaurant in Brookyln: A Lease Safari, from Tyson Ho of Arrogant Swine – you remember, Arrogant Swine is the Carolina style whole hog joint who is using Heritage Cheshire hogs that I want to go to next time I’m in NYC (via)

– A shot of the space where Buxton Hall will be housed

– Pat Martin, pitmaster of Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint, cooked the annual barbecue dinner at the James Beard House last Thursday and here was the draft menu

Linkdown: 6/11/14

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All North Carolina errthang edition:

– Parker’s Barbecue of Greenville was selected to be the provider of barbecue for the U.S. Open this weekend in Pinehurst

– Interview with Tyson Ho, who is opening a Carolina-style, whole hog joint Arrogant Swine in Bushwick this summer (via)

What’s this I hear about you trying to get a Thai pitmaster? You’re not going to turn Northeastern Carolina ’cue into Southeast Asian ’cue are you?
I figured I’d put an ad out there in the Thai community. Southeast Asians have been cooking North Carolina barbecue for generations. In fact the single largest diaspora community of Degars, natives of the central Highlands of Vietnam, live in Greensboro N.C. The pits of Stamey’s Barbecue in Greensboro, which is historically the most significant and influential western Carolina barbecue spot in the region, are run by a pitmaster by the name of Pon, a Degar immigrant. Several decades of traditional North Carolina barbecue has been served [and cooked] by a Southeast Asian American.

I’m not sure I’ll find a Southeast Asian pitmaster but if I do, we would be continuing a long standing tradition.

– Here is also a travelogue of NC Barbecue from last summer by the author of the above post and the aforementioned Tyson Ho, presumably as research for his upcoming joint

– Rocky Mount’s Eastern Carolina BBQ Throw Down will be on Destination America’s competition/reality show “BBQ Pit Wars”

– The Blue Ridge BBQ and Music Festival in Tryon makes Thrillist’s Top 10 Barbecue Festivals in the Country; the 21st edition of the festival is this weekend

– A recap of last week’s Hog Happenin’ in Lincolnton, with a shot of Big Wayner on the header photo

– A video from USA Today on the True Cue guys

– PSA: As was the case last year, dads eat free at Queen City Q on Father’s Day. See you there!