Barbecue is a cherished example of the cultural heritage of the
South to most Southerners, but within the region, debate as to
the nature of barbecue rages on. While barbecue-loving
Southerners agree that the "Northern" definition of barbecue-- a
cook-out in the back-yard-- is ludicrous, barbecue aficionados
also like to argue about what constitutes true Southern
barbecue. State by state, and even town by town, no method is
exactly alike. For the purposes of this paper, the one non-
debatable component of barbecue is pork, and the South is
bounded by the parameters of the "barbecue belt" (see map). With
apologies to the dedicated barbecue chefs of Owensboro and
southwestern Texas, Kentucky's misbegotten notion of mutton, and
the beef and mesquite of Texas simply do not qualify as
barbecue, and these regions will not be closely examined here.
Why do the regional differences in pig-roasting merit attention?
Barbecue is emblematic of a lot of things in the South-- despite
intra-regional differences, barbecue is b