nun bet

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting next to a friend at a dinner party. Knowing that I am from North Carolina, she shared with me about the time she spent in the Tarheel state. She recalled an occasion when she was invited by a local family to go out for barbecue. At the local barbecue joint, she was presented with a menu and ordered based on the recommendation of the waitress. When the food arrived, she said that she was unable to eat it. She said that it looked like vomit.

Now for those of you who have the misfortune of NOT being from North Carolina, here’s a quick barbecue overview. In NC, when we speak of barbecue (or BBQ or Bar-b-que), we are talking generally about roast pork, often the whole pig. There is an art to cooking the meat as well as preparing the thousands of secret sauce recipes. There are even regional differences! Barbecue from Eastern NC is different from that in the west. Follow this link for a whole primer on North Carolina barbecue.

The woman I was sitting beside is a very well educated and well travelled woman. What I found interesting is that generally when these well educated and well travelled people actually travel to a new environment they are willing to embrace the culture around them - you know, when in Rome. You wouldn’t travel to some remote African village and expect to get the kind of food that you find in Paris. Plus when you’re served grubs and exotic root vegetables in that African village, you are probably going to smile and at least make an effort to try something new.

Why is it for this culturati hip circle that barbecued pork in North Carolina is nauseating but funky cheese from France - or even bottom-feeding lobsters are delicacies?