‘It blends the styles of Texas and North Carolina….’

“The carvers splash the pulled pork with the house barbecue sauce, which balances sugar with vinegar and mustard; [restaurant owner Hugh]  Mangum calls it Texalina because it blends the styles of Texas and North Carolina….”

– From “Big League BBQ Arrives,” restaurant review by Pete Wells in the New York Times (March 5)

Not unexpectedly, Wells’ paean to East Village barbecue has stirred a stampede of online naysayers, including “Matthew from North Carolina,” who asks, “Lemme guess, $25 for a chopped plate with slaw and potato salad?”

Can “Texalina”-style barbecue sauce be for real? Or is it a culinary cousin of the jackalope? Paging John Shelton Reed!