Eastern North Carolina vinegar sauce
Cider vinegar, red pepper and salt, brushed onto a whole hog while it cooks. No tomato and no sugar, which is why it is the one American barbecue sauce that can go on from the beginning rather than the end.
What it is
- Base
- vinegar
- When it goes on
- apply during cook
- Burn risk over the fire
- low
What it goes with
Grouped by how the pairing is known rather than by how good it is. The first group is somebody else’s statement; the last is ours, and says so.
A source pairs them
A named source says this sauce or seasoning is used with this food. Follow the citation and you will find somebody stating it.
- Pork shoulder — The Encyclopedia of North Carolina describes the eastern style as a split hog basted with this mixture. Shoulder is the cut of that hog BBQHQ models.
Structurally compatible
A structural fact rather than a cultural one: what the sauce is made of against what the cook does to it. Sugar burns over a long direct cook whoever is doing the cooking.
- Pork spareribs — A sauce with no sugar in it cannot burn over a long cook, so it can be applied repeatedly throughout rather than saved for the end. That is what makes it a mop sauce and it holds for any pork on a long cook.
What this rests on
- North Carolina is documented as having two barbecue sauce traditions that differ in when the sauce is applied as well as in what it contains: an eastern whole-hog style basted during cooking with cider vinegar, red pepper and salt, and a Lexington and Piedmont style served at the table with pork shoulder, thin and tomato-based.