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The One True Barbecue

Host Frank Stasio talks whole hog barbeque with historian Rien Fertel and co-owner of Picnic Wyatt Dickson.

North Carolina is the number two producer of pigs in America, and barbeque is by most accounts the state’s food. But historianRien Fertelargues that most barbecue writing is hyperbole. 

"The One True Barbecue" by Rien Fertel
Credit Rien Fertel
"The One True Barbecue" by Rien Fertel

In his new book“The One True Barbecue: Fire, Smoke, and the Pitmasters Who Cook The Whole Hog,”(Touchstone/2016) he examines the history of the southern barbecue art, and the wide range of mythology surrounding the meat and those who tend to it.

Host Frank Stasio talks to Fertel about his book, and is also joined by Wyatt Dickson, the co-owner of the new Durham barbecue joint Picnic. Fertel reads at Malaprop’s Bookstore in Asheville tonight at 7 p.m., at The Regulator Bookshop in Durham Friday at 7 p.m. and at McIntyre’s Books in Pittsboro Saturday at 11 a.m.

Latham (Bum) Dennis -- Bum's Restaurant, Ayden, N.C.
Rien Fertel /
Latham (Bum) Dennis -- Bum's Restaurant, Ayden, N.C.
Sam Jones -- Sam Jones BBQ, Greenville, N.C.
Rien Fertel /
Sam Jones -- Sam Jones BBQ, Greenville, N.C.
Stephen and Gerri Grady -- Grady's Barbecue, Dudley, N.C.
Rien Fertel /
Stephen and Gerri Grady -- Grady's Barbecue, Dudley, N.C.

Copyright 2016 North Carolina Public Radio

Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.