Dana Hanson can still remember pulling into the tailgating lot of Carter-Finley Stadium for the first time five years ago.
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The Wisconsin-native and assistant professor of food science was used to seeing pregame cookouts. He was also experienced with all forms of barbecue — from Texas brisket to the West Coast’s tri-tip.
But in North Carolina, things are a little different.
“I was amazed at how many pigs were getting cooked,” Hanson said. “Tailgating was a part of life, but not like here.”
For football fans across the state, there is nothing quite like gathering around a cooker for hours on end before kickoff, and that is evident at almost any N.C. State game. Even as the administration placed a time limit in some tailgating lots, one of the main complaints was that such constraints didn’t allow enough time to cook a hog.
Good barbecue may be more of an art than a science, but that long-cooking process — and the chemical reactions within the meat itself — transforms hog into heaven.
“That’s the magic of barbecue,” Hanson said.
Low and slow
As a meat extension specialist, Hanson teaches classes in addition to working with red meat processors across the state.
In an interview last week, Hanson sat in his Schaub Hall office surrounded by his collection of meat memorabilia. A framed, stained-glass window perched on the shelf behind him displayed the cuts of beef in red and green. A statue of a smiling pig in a red sport coat and bow tie held a dry erase sign with the score of a recent N.C. State game. And plastered on the walls were multiple diagrams of all sorts of animal cuts.
To him, all muscle foods, “whether iguana, pork, chicken or beef,” are essentially the same — at least, chemically.
“My culinary friends may scoff at that,” he said with a smile.
Like all meats, he said pork has its own distinct flavor. But that flavor is heavily dependent on the cooking method.
Steak, for example, is cooked using direct heat. A hot grill, which can reach more than 500 degrees, can cook an inch-thick cut of beef in about 10 to 15 minutes.
Hanson said direct heat is best for the “middle meats,” located between the shoulder and the hip in pigs and cows.
“Those muscles tend to be naturally and inherently tender,” Hanson said.
As the meat cooks, protein in the connective tissue called collagen loses water and shrinks in a process called denaturing.
Hanson picked up his desk phone and pointed to the cord, twisted and tangled in knots, and said the hopeless mass would have a lot in common with overcooked protein molecules.
“In severe cases, denaturing causes toughness,” he said.
But cooking barbecue follows a different method.
It’s called indirect heat, and Hanson said it can be boiled down to a simple philosophy: low and slow. By keeping the temperature down and extending the cooking time, Hanson said pit masters take the meat through a “little more gentle” chemical process.
“The real science is a low temperature,” he said. “If you have the luxury of time, it’s an investment.”
Cooked at temperatures of 250 degrees or less, the collagen reacts with moisture in a process called hydrolysis. If the meat cooks slowly enough, that moisture can come from the muscle, which according to Hanson is 75 percent water. The collagen then converts to gelatin, with mouthwatering results.
“That’s when it falls off the bone,” Hanson said.
‘The flavor’s in the fat’
Not spending enough time cooking is a common problem for aspiring pit masters, said Sloan Griffin, a senior in soil science.
“I try to cook the pig as long as possible,” he said.
It is possible however, to cook a pig too long.
Lee Tyre, a senior in animal science, has helped his family cook barbecue since he was about seven years old. He cooked his first pig by himself during his freshman year at a senior send-off for his brothers in Alpha Gamma Rho.
“Much over 12 hours doesn’t do any good,” he said. “You have to wake up too early, and propane gets expensive.”
But Hanson said eight to 10 hours is about right for a large hog. That allows the fat, the major source of flavor for barbecue, to distribute evenly through the meat.
Fat protects meat from heat as it cooks and keeps it juicy, Hanson said. He also said fat is just as important as protein or carbohydrates.
“Fat has a bad rap as being this evil thing in all foods,” Hanson said. “The flavor’s in the fat — and the fat tastes good.”
Depending on where you are from however, the flavor comes from somewhere else as well — the sauce.
Western North Carolina is known for its tomato-based sauce. It’s thicker and is often used more for pork shoulders than whole pigs. Eastern North Carolina sauce, on the other hand, is vinegar-based and used on whole or half hogs. Both styles are pulled directly from the bone, straight off the grill.
Griffin and Tyre are both proponents of Eastern-style barbecue. They said their sauce recipes aren’t very scientific. Tyre said he’ll combine vinegar with different spices until it “looks right.”
While Griffin said his time as a brother in AGR has helped him to incorporate other techniques from people across the state, Tyre is a little less compromising.
“In the East, we know how to cook a pig,” he said. “We have good meat, and we don’t have to cover it up with ketchup.”
Pink pork
Beyond the considerations of taste, Hanson said food safety is also an important concern. Cooks can avoid cross contamination by washing hands and keeping cooking surfaces clean. This is especially important if the same surface and tools are used to handle both raw and cooked product, he said.
But since pathogens die at 160 degrees, they’re not as much of a concern after the meat gets up to temperature, Hanson said.
Tradition however, dictates that cooks must go even further to make meat safe by always serving it well done. The concern, Hanson said, stems from a parasite called trichina, which can cause nausea, diarrhea and heartburn in humans.
Hanson said this is “largely a thing of the past” and pointed out that the United States enjoys the world’s safest food supply.
“We pay a lot more attention to diet and management,” he said. “It’s an urban myth that you have to cook pork well done. It’s OK to eat that pork if it’s on the pink side.”
