USA Today: BBQ joints keep the flame burning bright

From USA Today:

It isn't even noon and already a line has formed outside the order window at Grady's Barbecue, a 10-table joint awash in burnt orange laminate and the pungent aroma of wood smoke.

Owner Steve Grady, 72, has been here since 1 a.m., laboring out back in the small white cinderblock pit house, where two whole pigs are blistering over a bed of oak and charcoal.

There are secrets to the arduous preparation and to how they achieve what Grady's wife, Gerri, calls the "zing" in the barbecue sauce, a recipe handed down from Grady's granddad. They won't reveal those secrets, but they will divulge a psychic component to producing outstanding barbecue.

"It's loving what you do," Gerri Grady says.

From the wooded byways of North Carolina's fertile tobacco country to the strip malls of its burgeoning suburbs, barbecue isn't just something you heap on a soft white bun and serve with a side of slaw.

In these parts, slow-roasted pork smells of heritage, history and home. It ignites passions and sparks rivalries. And with the creation this year of a statewide barbecue trail, it's attracting tourists, too.