The whole NC style ribs and beans thing has me smelling a rat. That both judges mentioned this is odd to me, since most NC BBQ joints do not, and have not ever, served ribs. Beans were almost as rare until just recently. Collard greens, sweet potatoes, boiled BBQ potatoes, and mac & cheese were much more common. The judges acted like they both knew what NC ribs were, but I'd never heard of them until this show aired the first time a few months ago. Of all the BBQ joints in and around Raleigh, I'd say 85% don't do any ribs, 14.999% only do BB's, and just Ed Mitchell and the judge's restaurant do untrimmed spares cooked in vinegar. Odd how they both cook the same way? I'm thinking there might be some mentoring going on here. I sense a scandal in the making. There has been a cover-up! The show is fixed!
As to the mixed beans, I thought I started that. Seriously. I had beans made that way for the first time at a restaurant in Atlanta GA called Tanner's Rotisserie Chicken in 1987. I loved them and started to make mine that way. Until this show I'd never seen anyone else in NC do the same, and people at my catering jobs comment frequently that they have never had beans like mine before, so if they're NC style, it's news to a lot of native NC'ers. So I don't know again. Maybe I had to move to GA to learn how to make NC style beans?
I try to remember that this show exists to promote the people on it. The show tries to build them up to a point that looks kind of silly if you have some background info. The bit they did about Ed's special pigs for instance. Well, A) I know where he gets his meat, I've bought some there myself, and the pigs are nothing unusual for NC. B) The metro Raleigh area is about 750K-1M people. Just east of Raleigh 20 miles or so is pig and tobacco country. In 2001 when Hurricane Floyd(?) hit, 400,000 hogs drowned within a 30 minute drive from me. We've got lots of pigs around here, but this show made it sound like Ed's pigs were the pork version of Kobe beef.
Don't get me started on Ed's custom designed and built cooker. If cutting an oil drum in half and filling it full of charcoal makes it "custom", then Ed's is surely custom. Is there anything he didn't invent?
Ed's maybe trying to solidify his "legend" status. Next he'll be telling us he invented the NC Internet and the Carolina blue sky. I can imagine the picture of Ed Mitchel, Al Gore, and Dean Smith(legendary UNC basketball coach) all sitting around a table circa 1976 laying plans to invent everything. Heck, Ed and Al even had a side bet about smoking and global warming........