Colbert called North Carolina barbecue "sauceless, vinegar-based meat product."
Losing would made anyone bitter. But to go after the barbecue -- well, that's sacred.
Disappointed that South Carolina voters did not elect his sister to Congress, Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central's "Colbert Report" instead blasted North Carolina's barbecue as "sauceless, vinegar-based meat product."
Elizabeth Colbert-Busch lost to disgraced former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford in Tuesday’s congressional special election. Colbert, who grew up in Charleston, S.C., said he felt betrayed, so he was "going to turn my back on South Carolina.”
He said he'd become a North Carolinian and give up his home state's barbecue tradition.
His first act of defiance was to choke down North Carolina barbecue.
"Instead I now officially love North Carolina's sauceless, vinegar-based meat product that they call barbecue."
He then downs a bottle of South Carolina mustard barbecue sauce.
Now, messing with a person's barbecue is serious business.
Pitmaster Greg Hatem, owner of The Pit in Raleigh, N.C. said for 350 years North Carolina has been perfecting the art of cooking a whole pig. "If you don’t know how to cook good pork, you cover with sauce," he said.
In North Carolina, there are generally two forms of barbecue: Eastern style and Western or Lexington style.
Eastern style is pork meat, hand pulled, cooked with a vinegar-based sauce and a hint of heat. Western or Lexington style uses a sauce with a base of ketchup and vinegar, and a hint of sugar.
There's no telling which style Colbert was eating, but fans of North Carolina's barbecue were none too pleased, anyway.
On Comedy Central's Facebook page one user wrote: "Screw you, Colbert! You have mocked the sacred name of Tar Heel, and you have mocked the one true form of Barbeque. Return to whence you came -- you deserve to be represented by a charlatan like Sanford."
Another user wrote: "Stephen Colbert wouldn't know good barbecue if it came up and slapped him in the mouth. NC barbecue rules!"
Hatem invited Colbert to go to Raleigh and try "real Eastern pork barbecue" done to perfection. "He won’t need any sauce because he can pick it off the pig," he said.
Whether Colbert will take him up on the offer is anyone's guess.
Here's a look Colbert's barbecue rip:
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