The (Lexington) Barbecue Festival
As any connoisseur knows, Lexington, North Carolina is the Barbeque Capital of the world. The barbecue is legendary. Lexington's first barbecue restaurant opened in 1919 - a tent in the middle of town set up by Sid Weaver. Soon after that, Jesse Swicegood opened a stand, too. Business was good, and both men trained other barbecue chefs, including Warner Stamey. Now there are over twenty barbecue restaurants in Lexington (a city of some seventeen thousand people). The development of barbecue in Lexington reads like a family tree, with today's chefs using methods only slightly different from the ones Sid Weaver and Jesse Swicegood used over sixty years ago.
