Reporter-turned-barbecue purveyor Dan Huntley is peddling pork sandwiches and political gossip in Charlotte this week. The newspaper veteran, who covered politics and cops for the Charlotte Observer for two decades, now sells barbecue out of his Dan the Pig Man food truck. On Monday, Huntley chatted with Yeas & Nays while his truck fed the crowd at CarolinaFest on Tryon St.
Huntley explained the three types of barbecue sauce seen in North Carolina–tomato, vinegar, and mustard, which is the official sauce of the convention. “This is a red sauce that I personally like,” he said. “But the mustard-based is what the DNC chose.”
Huntley also shared tales from his brief days working on Capitol Hill for the late Sen. Strom Thurmond. “He loved to eat,” he said. “He wouldn’t steal food, but when we’d leave buffets, he’d stick stuff in his pockets. Biscuits, chicken, pork, it didn’t matter to him. And he wasn’t embarrassed by it.”
Does Huntley miss covering politics now that the week’s biggest political stories are in his own backyard? “Nope,” he said. “Print journalism is dying.”
The line for his pulled pork, on the other hand, snaked down Tryon St.
