North Carolina Food & Traditional Cuisine

North Carolina cooking is Southern, but with its own arguments. The state line between eastern and Lexington-style barbecue runs roughly through the middle of it, and both traditions are older than the state's cities.

On the coast, seafood is fried in the Calabash style — lightly battered, named for the fishing town where it started. Inland, the table runs to cured ham, collards, cornbread and biscuits.

Sweet tea is the default rather than an option, and asking for it unsweetened marks you out.

Whole-hog barbecue, pulled and chopped, dressed with vinegar and pepper rather than a thick sauce — the eastern style, and the older of the two.

Lexington-style barbecue, pork shoulder with a tomato-tinged dip, served with red slaw made from the same dip rather than mayonnaise.

Calabash seafood: shrimp, flounder and oysters in a light cornmeal batter, fried and served by the platter.

Livermush in the west, country ham and biscuits everywhere, and Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which began in Winston-Salem in 1937.

Cheerwine, a cherry soft drink made in Salisbury since 1917, and Pepsi, invented in New Bern in the 1890s.

Barbecue is eaten at dedicated pits rather than restaurants that happen to serve it, and the good ones are often plain buildings on the edge of small towns, open until the meat runs out.

Farmers' markets are substantial here rather than boutique — the State Farmers Market in Raleigh and the WNC market in Asheville both run year-round and supply restaurants as well as households.

On the coast, buying shrimp and fish straight off the dock is normal practice, and the seasons are short and locally known.

North Carolina has a real wine industry, concentrated in the Yadkin Valley northwest of Winston-Salem — the state's first federally recognised wine region, working mainly with European varieties on rolling Piedmont ground.

Older than that is the scuppernong, a native muscadine grape grown here since colonial times and made into a sweet wine that is an acquired taste and a genuine local tradition. The Mother Vine on Roanoke Island is claimed as one of the oldest cultivated grapevines in the country.

The state also has a large craft brewing scene, with Asheville its centre.