Holy Smoke

An excerpt from John Shelton Reed and Dale Volberg Reed's book,Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue:

"The North Carolina Museum of History's online 'History Highlights' has two entries for 1924:  The founding of Duke University and the opening of Bob Melton's Barbecue in Rocky Mount.  It is not clear why Duke gets equal billing.  North Carolina already had a university, after all, while Melton's . . . seems to have been the state's very first sit-down barbecue restaurant."

John Shelton Reed is a retired professor of sociology at UNC.  His essays on the South are terrific and hilarious.  This book may be the best thing I've read on the subject, covering all the history and sociology, and throwing in some recipes and instructions on cooking your own.  There are even instructions on contructing a backyard pit with cinder blocks.