J.C. Reid hits up Heritage Barbecue in southern California
There's a long history of Texas-style barbecue in Southern California, and Heritage Barbecue in San Juan Capistrano is its latest evolution. (free link) https://t.co/kWkZX2b9MT
Daniel Vaughn reviews “From Barbycye to Barbecue” by Joe Haynes and found it “convincing, and sometimes exhausting”
A fresh look at #BBQ history.@BBQsnob stated “anyone planning to write seriously about the history of barbecue shouldn’t take on the task without first reading, and then referencing, From Barbycu to Barbecue.”https://t.co/VnRiASke88
This week we have a guest post from great friend of the blog Sean Ludwig of The Smoke Sheet and NYC BBQ. Sean recently attended the BBQ Fest on the Neuse in downtown Kinston. I have yet to make it to Kinston for the event but after reading Sean’s recap, I have added it to my ever-expanding list of barbecue joints, contests, and festivals for the eastern part of the state.
This article has been reprinted from The Smoke Sheet with Sean’s permission and a minor edit to reflect when the festival took place. Both The Smoke Sheet and NYC BBQ newsletters are invaluable resources for the barbecue-obsessed and if you aren’t already subscribed, I can’t recommend it enough.
On the first weekend in May, an estimated 100,000 attendees showed up for the BBQ Fest on the Neuse in Kinston, North Carolina. The annual BBQ Fest — held alongside the Neuse River — featured food trucks, vendors, live music, rides, family fun activities, and more on Friday night and Saturday day.
The BBQ Fest on Neuse attracted tens of thousands this past weekend in Kinston, NC. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)
But the real star of the show for die-hard barbecue fans was the 42nd Wil King Hog Happenin’ BBQ competition — the world’s largest whole hog cookoff. The competition, sanctioned by the North Carolina Pork Council, featured 40 Professional and 47 Backyard teams that cooked hogs on Friday night into Saturday morning. This whole hog competition is one of the top competitions held annually in North Carolina, alongside events like the Newport Pig Cookin Contest.
“This is the largest whole hog competition in the country,” Chris Fineran of the highly decorated Beach Boys BBQ team said. “And at the Newport competition, they have 68 cooks, and every one of them has to compete in the same Professional category. Here it is broken into two different groups. … But everybody shows up. There are probably six to eight prior Pork Council champions competing.”
The BBQ Fest hosts the world’s largest whole hog competition. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)
Competitors select their hogs using a lottery system on Friday starting at 8 p.m. and then go to work cleaning and prepping them. No special seasonings can be used, only salt. Teams cook for roughly 10 hours before judges begin tasting and testing hogs at 8 a.m. Just four judges were in charge of evaluating the 40 Professional team hogs, and four judges scored the 47 Backyard teams.
Employees from Kings BBQ Restaurant prepare chopped whole hog for the public at the BBQ Fest. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)
Almost all of the hogs and hog parts that are cooked during the cookoff end up being chopped up and served for BBQ sandwiches during the main event. The crew from Kings BBQ Restaurant in Kinston, North Carolina, is in charge of selecting what meat and parts go into the pork and chopping it up in style. The BBQ sandwiches and “bulk BBQ” in plastic containers sell out each year, with this year being no exception.
Around the U.S., traditional whole hog cooking is not easy to find, with only a handful of restaurants still serving it weekly. It takes a lot of hard work but the result is special.
“You can get some of the bacon, you can get some of the ham, the shoulders, the loins, and all that is chopped up together,” Fineran said. “With whole hog, when you put it all together, you got all the flavor profiles with the white meats and the dark meats. There’s no better barbecue.”
Fresh whole hog sandwiches for the public are prepared Saturday morning of the fest. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)
During the awards ceremony, cooks who had been up for 40+ hours finally found out the results. In the Backyard category, Kenneth Clark of Backyard Bubba won first place, earning him $300. In the professional category, Billy Narron of Wicked Pig took first place and won $500. (See more winners from the event from the Neuse News.)
Billy Narron of the Wicked Pig team from Middlesex, NC, won the top prize in the Professional category. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)
The strangest thing about the BBQ Fest on the Neuse may be that you could go to it and not experience what makes it special. On both Friday and Saturday, thousands of attendees bought tons of non-BBQ food from street vendors, watched popular country artist Easton Corbin put on a show, and checked out classic cars.
But the whole hog competition, which purposely has teams putting in so much effort Friday night and Saturday morning, is not really meant for the general public. That said, I did see a lot of people in the know walking around before the event kicked off on Saturday, and they were able to get some fresh whole hog bites from teams after they had been judged. And the masses can at least try some of the whole hogs in the form of tasty sandwiches throughout the day.
Whole hog is a special type of barbecue. (Photo by Sean Ludwig)
I certainly was glad I showed up early on Saturday morning so I could see teams finish up their hogs, observe the judging, listen to stories from pitmasters, and taste-test a few hogs. If you do find yourself near the BBQ Fest of the Neuse, you should check it out. Just be sure to make friends with the teams cooking whole hogs, and you’ll be able to get the full experience.
Sean Ludwig Co-Founder, The Smoke Sheet
More from the BBQ Fest on the Neuse (Photos by Sean Ludwig)
In one of the latest signs of a return to normalcy, 60 teams participated in last weekend’s 40th Annual BBQ on the Neuse Festival, the world’s largest whole hog competition. Attendance was larger than expected, with upwards of 15,000 attendees (vs an expected 5,000) coming to downtown Kinston to enjoy barbecue, music, and a little rainy weather (at least on Friday night).
For David Gordon, this is his third year cooking at the festival and he said he woke up at 6 a.m. on Friday to prepare for this. https://t.co/ngQNuNBwNk
Indy Week reviews the Raleigh location of Sam Jones BBQ, which doesn’t even have a freezer on site
You can find hot new takes on southern-style cooking all over the downtown Raleigh food scene, but sometimes you just want to go back to the basics. Enter Same Jones BBQ. https://t.co/HxGXWryHNS
Daniel Vaughn spent a little over a week in NC and ended his tour at Jon G’s Barbecue this past Saturday where I was fortunate enough to meet up with him
A fitting end for this Texan on a barbecue tour in North Carolina. Fantastic brisket, ribs, sausage and a whole lot more at @jongsbbq. pic.twitter.com/0W3iCAIF8d
But of course Texas has a state high school barbecue championship
"Team coaches and mentors are not allowed to enter the cooking station. They must stand behind a perimeter of caution tape and offer guidance from the sidelines."
What a day at Texas's state high school BBQ championship looks like: https://t.co/qkaI03oCpz
In the latest sign that we’re slowly coming out of this pandemic, the BBQ Fest on the Neuse, “home to the largest whole hog cook-off in the world”, returns this May to Kinston, NC. This is on top of Governor Cooper announcing yesterday that as of this Friday restaurants can open at 75% capacity indoors and 100% outdoors. While this doesn’t mean that everything going’s to snap right back to how it was, things are definitely trending upward.
As for the BBQ Fest on the Neuse, the event hopes to be back in downtown Kinston but if they aren’t able to procure that permit they will go to the Lenoir County Fairgrounds. The barbecue competition will have less competitors, there will be less vendors, and the amount of bands and stages will also be smaller. Despite all this, hopes are high for “Kinston-Lenoir County’s signature event.
Says Joe Hargitt, Visit Kinston Chairman: “We want the overall feel to be a coming out party, after COVID, for the city of Kinston.”
The BBQ Fest on the Neuse, one of North Carolina's top annual barbecue events, is set to return May 7-8 this year in Kinston https://t.co/v0QCQJYoJP
Charlotte-based Mac’s Speed Shop eyes growth across the Southeast in the Carolinas, Tennessee and Florida
“We are aggressively looking and beginning to grow our pipeline of future growth,” says Shang Skipper, president of Mac's Hospitality Group. The popular barbecue concept has eight locations in the Carolinas. https://t.co/HxQvPoZcMZ
— Charlotte Business Journal (@CBJnewsroom) March 20, 2021
— Kenty Chung — Food Photographer (@kenty_eats) March 18, 2021
Non-Native News
Houston-based Blood Brothers BBQ, which fuses Asian flavors with central Texas barbecue, will open a location at the upcoming Resorts World casino on the Las Vegas strip in May
Read all about it: Blood Bros. BBQ talks to Alison Cook on opening in Las Vegas https://t.co/kEozQBsIwh
Ahead of his upcoming book Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue (out April 27 on UNC Press), Adrian Miller shares a few insights with Daniel Vaughn on his barbecue travels
In a new book, award-winning food writer Adrian Miller highlights the often overlooked contributions of Black pitmasters. Here, he shares a few things he learned while writing 'Black Smoke.' https://t.co/urF5mcnesL
More on that beer collab between La Barbecue and Zilker Brewing
la BEER is here! American Pilsner 5.0% Made in collaboration with @la_Barbecue
Time yields quality- whether you're smoking a brisket for 16 hours or waiting weeks for a batch of hops and yeast to ferment, it's always worth the wait… Order here: https://t.co/L7g9x2E2lYpic.twitter.com/Pl3v7z5jTa
Robert Sietsema tries the brisket sandwich at four new NYC-area barbecue joints: Virgil’s Real Barbecue, John Brown BBQ, Izzy’s BBQ Smokehouse, and Hudson Smokehouse
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