When the city gets a little overwhelming, The Biscuit needs a reminder of home. Not much else can do that better than some good barbecue. There’s plenty of it around New York, as the area’s seen a recent craze for smoked and sauced-up meat. As good as it gets, though, none of it has that authentic flavor. To truly please the taste buds, only the real thing will do.

Cue (ha) Ed Mitchell. The owner of The Pit in Raleigh saved the day this summer when he headed north to participate in the Barbecue Block Party in Madison Square Park. Mitchell showed fourteen other pitmasters how it’s done in North Carolina, and he did it more authentically than anyone.

Of all the participants, many of whom hail from barbecue-averse regions, Mitchell brought the flavors of his home with him. From handing out thin crispy chips of skin, crackling (way better than hunks of chicharron The Biscuit bit through in Brooklyn the same way you’d crush a chicken bone), to talking to the people waiting in the hour-long lines, the Wilson, N.C. native wanted to please the attendees with the real deal.

“We just try to show people all about the food. Barbecue is having fun, the cooking, the eating, the experience, the smell, the sound,” Mitchell said.

For the event, Mitchell and his crew drove their effigy-covered bus through the night from Raleigh to Manhattan. At 5 p.m. the day before the weekend-long festival, they placed 190-pound pigs over a mix of hickory, oak and charcoal in massive mobile smokers. Twelve hours later, as the sun rose, they were up making sure the batch was finished, then chopping the loads of it up. Lots of work, but it sure paid off.

The meat had a very full, smoky flavor, not like the bland, chewy matter covered up with sweet sauce a lot of places above the Mason-Dixon serve. Charred bits brought a little crunch, and the fresh, adequately-mayoed cole slaw added a complementary crispiness. A little Eastern-style dressing on top completed the treat.

After enjoying the much-loved and much-missed meal, The Biscuit had to tell Mitchell that no one in city was doing it like him. We also had to find out what he thought about every one else there.

“Frankly, I am really stuck on Carolina barbecue,” Mitchell said. “It’s the original, what represents it. I might be a little biased, but it’s what I grew up with.”

There’s no bias. Until people in the North growing up loving barbecue the way Mitchell did, they’ll have to travel south for a decent bite of meat. The Biscuit will heading to The Pit come August.