Everyone is clear on the Carolina barbecue rules, right? Eastern-style is whole hog, basted with vinegar-based sauce with red pepper and no tomato. Lexington-style (it’s not called Western-style) is pork shoulder, basted with a sauce of vinegar, red pepper and a little tomato. South Carolina-style is either of the above, sometimes (not everywhere) served with a mustard-based sauce.
All of it is pork, all of it is cooked slowly over wood. No wood? No sale. Go somewhere else.
Pretty simple, right? But there’s still one issue to discuss: coleslaw. When restaurants outside the Carolinas try to cook the Carolina styles, that’s the one thing they get wrong.