When the Spanish introduced hogs to both the Caribbean and the southeastern United States, pork became the meat of choice.

The Caribbean cooking tradition was introduced to the mainland by slaves in the early 19^th century. There’s also a possibility that Haitian refugees who sought asylum in America following a revolution in their country played a role in this introduction, too.

But since lemons were hard to find north of Florida, vinegar was substituted for lemon juice elsewhere in the United States.

The South began to see a partitioning of barbecue styles following the commercial introduction of ketchup. Heinz unveiled the condiment at Centennial International Exhibition of 1876.

Eastern North Carolina kept to tradition while North Carolinians west of Raleigh and others throughout the South began experimenting with different types of sauce and meat.

Full-fledged Lexington-style barbecue — or what we should actually call “Piedmont-style,” as to not forget Salisbury’s role in all of this — originated during World War I.

Barbecue was sold on the streets in pop-up stands. It was much easier to cart around meat from pork shoulder as opposed to a whole hog you’d smoke at a pig pickin’.

Piedmont-style barbecue is pork shoulder with a sweet and sour vinegar sauce.

Contrary to the belief of some Eastern-style purists, Piedmont-style sauce is not tomato-based. It still uses lots of vinegar but has a slight touch of ketchup that makes the mixture sweeter and redder, but not thicker.