North Carolina Barbecue: East vs West. In North Carolina, there are two styles of barbecue. Western style is pork shoulders glazed with a ketchup-based sauce. Eastern style is whole hog with a vinegar sauce. The debate over which style is superior flares up when after a state bill passed declaring the western-style capital of Lexington, NC the home of the state's official barbecue festival. I agree with Dennis Rogers when he writes, ""People who would put ketchup in the sauce they feed to innocent children are capable of most anything....Let the word go forth from this time and place that we, the Eastern North Carolina purveyors of pure barbecue, will not be roadkill for our western kin."