Originally Posted by
jcinnb
Dude..You ain't lived.
You cook a whole pig, split, over coals, real slow. When the meat start fallin off, you line up, at least those that are still ambulatory, and you pick (although these days a fork might be involved) the freshly cooked meat. It is bar b que of sort. During the cookin, the cook, on whom there is tremendous pressure to do it right, bastes the pig with his or her sauce, normally vinegar based.
Don't forget, I am from NC.
Takes a century or two to undo the damage of a good, down home pig pickin, though.
My sister lives in SC, and it is much the same there: vinegar and pepper being the seasoning of choice. They all have huge BBQs on wheels and hitches. My last visit they did a wild hog, which they had to keep penned and alive because my visit delayed. :-) It really should be a wild hog for a pickin, now shouldn't it? Domestic pig just doesn't taste the same. And so, before you can have pig pickin', you need to have a pig STICKin'. For that, you need a good hog-dog to track it down, like a Lacy Dog. I am a board member of the National Lacy Dog Association, and the motto for our breed is: "Man's Best Friend - Hog's Worst Enemy". The Lacys track the hogs down, and bay them (hold them in place) until the hunter releases the catch dog, generally a pit bull, which grabs the hog by the ear and holds it until the hunter 'sticks' it, and the BBQ is on. The dogs wear kevlar protection. Full armor for the catch dog - collars for the bay dogs like the Lacys, who are quicker on their feet than it's possible to describe.
Unfortunately (and fortunately at the same time) we don't have wild hogs in Arizona, so my Lacy is left with rabbits to chase. He caught a jackrabbit a couple of months ago. Good thing he doesn't chase bike riders, huh?