When I first saw John Shelton and Dale Voleburg Reed’s book Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue, my first thought was “Huh. I would have thought it would be bigger.” Because let’s face it, if there is one thing that can start a small war in the South it’s a discussion on what is and isn’t proper barbecue. It is safer to talk about politics and religion. It is safer to talk about college football. It is said that North Carolina has more hogs than it has people, and you can be sure that every single one of those people has an intractable notion as to what belongs on a plate of barbecue. Barbecue is to North Carolina what chicken wings are to Buffalo, cheese is to Wisconsin, and merlot is to Napa Valley. By rights, any book on the subject should weigh in at about the size of one of the pigs it tells you how to cook. (That would be around 250 pounds or more.) But the Reeds’ “Definitive Guide to the People, Recipes and Lore” of North Carolina barbecue is one of those books that is bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside. It is a treasure trove, a testament (in the Holy Roller sense), an exuberant celebration of the one thing served in the South that is better than fried chicken...read full review