Diplomatic Assistance from Raleigh

A colleague at our trade consulate in Raleigh provided a few other pork pointers. Number four is my favourite:

1. A NC bbq trail map:  http://www.ncbbqsociety.com/trail_map.html. Paula writes that "unfortunately, my hometown isn't part of that trail, but I can speak for No. 8 on the list. It's a good one, and a it's a hop, skip and a jump from the Raleigh Consulate."
2. If you want to add a veneer of academia to your bbq tour, you should google John Shelton Reed. (Note that this was Britt's starting point.) Here's the wikipedia link for him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelton_Reed. He's a professor (actually probably retired by now) at UNC-Chapel Hill (my alma mater) and has written extensively on Southern culture. One book of his, Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue, could be of interest. I heard him lecture from it a couple of years back, and he was really good - entertaining and intellectually stimulating (at least as much as you can be given the topic).
3. Also potentially of interest is Dennis Rogers. He used to be a columnist for the News & Observer (www.newsobserver.com), the daily paper for Raleigh, NC, and he wrote several columns on the barbecue wars in NC. Perhaps, you can find some of them in the paper's archives. As I recall, they were quite good.
4. Finally, I have to mention Rufus Edmisten. He was a rising star in the NC Democratic Party and held a couple of statewide offices. He was running for governor (or maybe lt. governor) and made a comment about how tired he was of eating barbecue on the campaign trail. Needless to say, that comment did him in. He lost the election, and now he's a lobbyist. We do take it quite seriously here; don't we.