Uncle Keith and the North Carolina Barbecue Argument
North Carolina has an argument about barbecue sauce that has been running longer than most businesses in the state.
If you are not from here, the short version is that the state is split on what barbecue sauce is.
“Uh, so Uncle Keith is on my mom's side of the family. And, uh, and there's a big debate in North Carolina about Eastern versus Western, uh, style barbecue sauces. And I respect and honor both of them, but Uncle Keith's is a vinegar based, uh, from down East.”
Gray Shipley
Eastern is vinegar and pepper, sharp and thin, on whole hog. Western, sometimes called Lexington, adds tomato to the vinegar and leans on shoulder. People hold these positions the way they hold other inherited loyalties.
The man you called
“And, uh, you know, Keith was a guy that you always call on when, uh, when you need somebody to stay up all night smoking a pig for a graduation, for a, for a wedding, whatever the case may be. And, um, so, yeah, you just, you remember those special events and those times when, uh, you know, Keith would just sit out by the smoker all night and, uh, and prepare a big, big feast for whoever's coming.”
Gray Shipley
Every family in this state has one. The person who owns the cooker, who knows how long it takes, and who will be awake at four in the morning with a thermometer and a chair while everyone else sleeps.
That job is not glamorous and it does not get shared. It is one person, one night, and a graduation or a wedding that depends entirely on them getting it right.
What the argument is really about
Not flavor, in the end. It is about whose family did it which way, which is why nobody is ever persuaded. A sauce argument that has run this long is not seeking a resolution.
Where beef sits in it
Outside it, mostly, which is its own kind of diplomacy. Barbecue in North Carolina means pork, and a beef farm can watch that argument from a safe distance.
The technique transfers though. Low heat, hours of it, and a cut with enough connective tissue to reward the wait. That is chuck and brisket as much as it is a shoulder.
“And then those country style pork ribs with our blue mist barbecue sauce, clean label, you know, doesn't have any preservatives, any additives in it, which is always really important to me.”
Gray Shipley
What it has in common with the farm
Somebody staying up all night because that is what the thing takes. There is a version of that in every part of this business, and it is the part that does not photograph well.
Dry-aged boneless chuck roast. In early, left alone, and it will be the thing people remember.
View ProductThe slow cuts are in best beef cuts for slow cooking, and the family it comes from in growing up on Shipley Farms.
Written at Shipley Farms in Vilas, North Carolina: a family cattle farm raising and dry-aging beef in the Appalachian Mountains, now in its fifth generation. No shortcuts since 1872.
Every quote on this page is Gray Shipley talking, the man who runs this farm. We sat down with him, turned on a recorder, and left his words alone.
This is a first-hand account rather than guidance. Reviewed 3 October 2026.
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