NC’s ‘traditional barbecue’ challenged on many fronts

“Even if they cook over wood [rather than gas], some new places’ inclusion of ribs (not traditional in old-line barbecue joints) and brisket (from Texas, whose barbecue North Carolinians profess to despise) has created what [John Shelton] Reed dubs the International House of Barbecue. Even if they cook over wood, will new places serve a generic version of mediocre barbecue?

“Some North Carolinians also rue barbecue’s gentrification, which in some cases has turned it from a working man’s food to a pricey night out. Disappearing are the mom-and-pop places, where prices are cheap and the patrons reflect the breadth of a town’s population.

“If traditional barbecue dies, part of North Carolina dies with it….”

— From “Why North Carolina’s barbecue scene is still smoldering” by Jim Shahin in the Washington Post (Sept. 21)

 

N.C. talks slow? What do eee-uuuwww think?

“Last week, I spent two months in North Carolina. I was in a courtroom, listening to the testimony of locals. Locals speak slowly.

“I know North Carolina is not the Deep South, and yet somehow its cadences are slower than in places such as Mississippi, where the syrup is thicker but seems to squeeze out more rapidly, like a blaat from a ketchup dispenser. In North Carolina, words and phrases ooze, like sap. The pace of discourse is glacial. The word ‘you’ is two and a half syllables, pronounced ‘eee-uuuwww.’ ”

— From Gene Weingarten’s column in the Washington Post

Among the 106 (at last count) online responses: “Ever few yars we enlist Gene to come down and write a dismissive and derisive column about N.C. To keep you carpetbaggers away. Thanks again, Gene. The check’s in the mail.”