From top: Outside Scott’s BBQ; the wood chopping area; the mop bucket of sauce; the pulled pork; making a sandwich

My recipe for Kimchi & Pulled Pork Dumplings works best with Eastern North Carolina pulled pork. While Central and Western NC styles use a tomato based sauce and slow cook the shoulder cut of the hog, Eastern style BBQ uses a light vinegar based pepper sauce and uses the whole hog.  I think the vinegar base sauce goes better with the kimchi than the tomato based sauce.

Practitioners of Eastern style can also be found in the coastal areas of South Carolina and of some of the best is found in Hemingway SC, at Scott’s BBQ.  Scott’s pulled pork is melt in your mouth tender, with just a little crunch from mixed in pork bark, and has a mild smoky flavor and a tangy, medium heat spice from the sauce.  My original Kimchi & Pulled Pork Dumplings recipe suggested pulled pork from Wilbur’s in NC, but I am switching it up to Scott’s as the official recommendation.

The Southern Foodways Alliance has done a great interview with the owner, Rodney Scott, and various TV chefs and travel celebrities have made the pilgrimage to see Scott’s smoke pits.  The pits are behind a ramshackle old gas station that serves as the take-out counter and sit-down cafe. Rodney and his crew spend Monday and Tuesday chopping wood and making charcoal to fuel the pits and are open for service Wednesday to Saturday.  They cook 8-10 hogs per day and close down when they run out of the day’s supply.

Scott’s sells whole hog pulled pork by the hog ($500), 1/2 hog ($250), 1/4 hog ($150), the pound ($11 per lb) or in a small ($3:50) and large sandwiches ($5:50) or on a plate with sides ($7.00), they will also smoke your own hog for you for $120 ($22.00 for a gallon of sauce). They also sell home made pork rinds and whole and half BBQ chicken. The sandwiches are a strictly DIY affair, you are given two slices of white bread in a plastic baggie and a styrofoam to-go tub piled high with pork.  So you jam as much pork as you can between the slices of bread, slather on some extra BBQ sauce and eat.