Barbecue is a personal matter. Some people like the dry rubs and spicy mustard based sauces of Texas. Some prefer the picked pork of Carolma barbecue with its vinegar based sauces. One thing all barbecue lovers do agree on is that cooking it for a long time over low heat is the key.

Gourmet has relatives in North Carolina and has experienced a "pig pickin'" up close and personal: half a very large hog is roasted all day and toward dinner time people start pinching off mouth watering strips of pork. Eventually the meat is all pulled off and cut into fine chunks and tossed with a vinegar-based sauce. People take their barbecue very seriously in the South, but you don't see much authentic Southern barbecue in New England.

The Yankee Smokehouse in West Ossipee does a great job of bringing the real thing to New Hampshire.

The giant pig on the sign makes it hard to missand kicks off what seems tobe a porcine theme throughout the restaurant. I have never seen so many sculptures, pictures, banks, statues and the like. It feels like a barbecue restaurant of the South: very casual, with Formica tables laden with squeeze bottles of ketchup and barbecue sauce and a stack of napkins two-feet high — always a good sign. Awards from chili contests adorn the walls as well as Victorian-era photographs. It's an odd mix — pigs and people from another age — but somehow it works.

It was a busy Saturday night but we beat the wait and, throwing ourselves into the moment and theme of the Smokehouse, promptly ordered a pitcher of Pig's Ear Brown Ale, a local microbrew from the Woodstock Inn Station and Brewery. It was a nice surprise and very tasty: dark, with creamy foam like Guinness, but lighter and easier to drink, slightly sweet, not too bitter and just what we were in the mood for.

The menu has all the usual combinations of pork, beef and chicken with almost all the dinners available in choice of small or large portions, as well as all the necessary side dishes: coleslaw, BBQ beans, garlic toast and trench fries ($7.99-$15.99). Other offerings include salads, barbecue sandwiches, fried haddock, combination dinners for two and "The Smokehouse Feast," a gargantuan amount of food that feeds four to six people and features a whole smoked chicken, a slab of ribs, sliced beef, sliced pork, corn-on-the-cob and all the sides ($56.99).

We knew we had to try a cup of their Famous Chili ($2,99), and we now know why it wins awards. This is by far the best chili Gourmet has ever had the pleasure of eating, full of kidney beans, big chunks of pork, onions and bell peppers. But what makes it so good is the thinner than usual, wonderfully sweet/hot tomato sauce that is a lot more like barbecue sauce than typical. I asked if there was brown sugar in it and our server confirmed that there i was, but wasn't giving up too much about the recipe. I don't blame them; they should keep it under lock and key.

We decided, in order to get a taste of everything, to order The Smokehouse Sampler for two ($24.99), which comes with chicken, ribs, beef and pork and all the sides. Two huge platters arrived, brimming with enough food to feed a small village. But that's what barbecue is all about. If you don't leave needing a wheelbarrow to get you out, something's wrong.

I started with a pork rib and it was great, drizzled with sauce and coming off the bone easily, with a wonderful smoky flavor and slightly pink color; a signa- ture of smoked meat The chicken was covered in lots of slightly sweet, thick sauce and was moist tender and juicy. It was also slightly pink, which some might mistake for rawness, but experienced barbecue eaters know better. The pork and beef were slice thin, lean and made a great little sandwich with the garlic toast.

The BBQ beans were sweet and full of chunks of pork and the coleslaw was crisps and spicy. The only complaint I could have was with the corn-on-the cob. It was boiled to a complete mush. It didn't matter; there was more food than we could ever eat at one sitting.

As I was eating I realized that the food reminded me very much of barbecue I'd had in Florida: sliced instead of pulled, shredded or minced, with a sweet sauce. I asked our server where the original owners were from and the answer came back: Florida. Bingo! I would like to have had room for the homemade strawberry shortcake, which is apparently served the authentic Southern way with a biscuit instead of cake, but I was already looking for that wheelbarrow and thinking of unbuttoning a couple buttons to get through the ride home, so we passed. Next time.