Memphis Style Cooking - Pulled Pork Crockpot Recipes

If you've been searching the internet for pulled pork crockpot recipes to try, you may keep seeing a theme recurring over and over. It seems that there are several regions, states, and even cities that lay claim to a particular "style" of a pulled pork sandwich. The Memphis style appears very often, as does a South Carolina sandwich, and just about every state south of the Mason Dixon line.

There is no agreement whatsoever on which region can claim which recipe. When I started comparing pulled pork crockpot recipes, I found many of the same ingredients and cooking methods claimed by a multitude of regions, states, and cities. If a dry rub is used in one recipe, I can find it used again in another recipe clear across the country, and again, claimed to be that region's style of sandwich. If there are a million barbecue sauce recipes, then there are a million pulled pork recipes. Let's narrow down a few ingredients or methods used to cook this sandwich and see if this puzzle can ever be solved.

Vinegar - Mixing this sour with a sweet of some sort is essential for any good barbecue sauce. However, several regions and states claim this ingredient as the quintessential ingredient that differentiates their pulled pork sandwich from any other.

Brown Sugar - In order to make a homemade barbecue sauce you need something sweet. Brown sugar is a good choice and is actually used in many recipes for both barbecue sauce and dry rubs. As a matter of fact, there are places that swear by using just brown sugar mixed with vinegar and a dash of cumin to season the pork. Some claim that this is strictly a South Carolina recipe, but I've heard folks claim that this simple recipe could only come from a place like Florida.

Dry Rub - This may be one of the oldest "new" seasoning techniques around. Memphis can lay claim to this in some of the recipes you'll read, but you'll find dry rubs firmly entrenched all over the South. Although dry rubs have been around for ages, the new focus may be on the availability of prepackaged rubs. The labels on the bottles are just as confusing, claiming to be "The Best Of…" one place or another and containing identical ingredients. It doesn't matter, really. To season pork with a dry rub you really need a standard list of ingredients which include paprika, cayenne, cumin, and lots of freshly ground black pepper.

Condiments - The most widely accepted condiment for a pulled pork sandwich is barbecue sauce. Even when there is no hint of barbecue sauce mixed in the pork itself, you'll normally find a bottle alongside the sandwich fixings. From there, you can put out yellow mustard, hot sauce, and hot pepper vinegar sauce. But never, never put a bottle of ketchup on the table. That's considered gauche. The one condiment that almost everyone agrees on its origin is cole slaw. Top your sandwich with a dollop of cole slaw and you've got a Memphis style pulled pork sandwich.

Cooking Methods - Even though using your slow cooker to make pulled pork sandwiches isn't a brand new idea, it isn't like the old fashioned methods, either. Your family's cooking method depends on how you learned to cook pork. Perhaps you have an outdoor grill pit or a smoker. You may have always braised the pork or just oven roasted it. Any one region would find it difficult to claim that a certain style of cooking is their own and no others. If you're walking Beale Street, you'll most likely see lots of smoky grills going, but you'll see those same scenes in other regions, as well. It's hard to pin a cooking method down to one place.

Whether you're sitting in Memphis reading this, or in Florida, or Mississippi, you've probably already dismissed all this nonsense about any pulled pork crockpot recipes that claim they are a certain region's style. All I can say is that no matter where you live, if your Granddaddy made the best pulled pork sandwich ever, then that's YOUR official recipe and don't let anybody take that away from you!

Pulled pork crock pot recipes that will tempt your family, and save money, and save time? That's certainly reason enough to try your hand at crockpot cooking!