Traditional American barbecue sauces have always had an air of mystery. The lengthy ingredient lists. The complex flavors. The secrecy surrounding the recipe. The mythical pitmasters who vow to take their formulas to the grave.
So the notion of a barbecue sauce that contains only three ingredients smacks of heresy — even more so when you can assemble it in a matter of minutes. But there are precedents in regional American barbecue. Each of these recipes requires just three ingredients (not counting salt and pepper), and all will take your barbecue far beyond the sweet tomato-based condiment most of us call barbecue sauce.
“Vinegar sauce is the original American barbecue sauce,” said John Shelton Reed, author of “On Barbecue.” While a watery mix of cider vinegar, red pepper flakes and salt and pepper may not seem like barbecue sauce to most Americans, North Carolina-style pulled pork just wouldn’t taste right without it.
The vinegar counterpoints the fatty pork, while the black and hot peppers crank up the heat. In western North Carolina, ketchup is added for sweetness. The debate as to which is superior remains fiercely fought. Personally, I prefer the ketchup-free version, agreeing with Wilber Shirley, the founder of Wilber’s Barbecue in Goldsboro, North Carolina, who once said, “You don’t put vinegar on beef, and you don’t put ketchup on pork.”
South Carolina’s contribution to regional American barbecue is mustard sauce. Barbecue buffs — from Columbia, South Carolina, through Georgia, and in parts of Kentucky and Florida — understand the wonders that mustard can work on pork; how the spice enhances the meat’s sweetness, while the acidity cuts through the fat.