Plissken’s Shit Food Review: The McRib4

by SnakePlissken

I’m a pig. Not in an “all women should be in the kitchen making me a pie” way, or the “good lord your personal hygiene is questionable at best” sort either. Frankly I can make my own pie, and I give my undercarriage a tremendous amount of attention shower-wise. Some might argue to a degree that I carry the task beyond mere maintenance, but frankly I feel any job worth doing is worth doing right.

So what sort of pig am I? I’m more of the “you are what you eat” kind. Simply put, I’ve ate me some pig. Growing up in Iowa it was a food group along with corn, meth, and natural light. Summers full of bacon sandwiches and corn on the cob, and cold as shit winter evenings eating enough ham and potatoes to send you into a mild yet non-responsive coma. And, as in any tiny, shitty Iowa town – the kind so small they don’t even have a grocery store – there were at least ten places to get a tenderloin sandwich. But that’s for a different episode, for now I’m simply establishing my credentials in terms of my porkucation.

Instead, we talk about the anti-pork. The McRib. That delightful McDonald’s dish best described as everything but the oink ground up and molded into it’s namesake in a place which I can only describe as Hell’s play dough fun factory. What’s worse is they put pickles on it.

Ok first off, what the hell McDonald’s? Grilled chicken? GRILLED CHICKEN? That sounds remotely healthy.

Oh, thank christ. Wait, perhaps not. It does look a bit like I just opened the door to a porta-potty that just rolled down a hill. Ugh, let’s look under the hood.

Pickles, onions, and awful. I still hate the idea of pickles on this thing. It’s not that I’m all “fuck pickles in their ass!” or anything. It’s just not right with BBQ. Even the fake stuff. Let’s see how she handles.

Not bad. Good integrity in the palm. Nice balance. You might be able to eat this in traffic while texting and giving a taxi driver the finger. You really would think the amount of gloppy sauce would cause some bun to meat(?) slippage, but it hangs right in there. Dare I try it?

One bite and I’m scared. The texture is disturbingly soft. The kind of soft that can only come from an unprecedented amount of processing, not from slow smoking. And they said this brownish red glop was barbecue sauce. This is clearly whored-up ketchup. Or catsup. Whatever the fuck you want to call it, this shit makes me want to punch a sack of puppies. It’s almost nauseatingly sweet, but does do a fairly good job of masking the taste of the “meat,” which I can only describe as ambiguously flavored. If stressed, I would simply say it tastes fried, and leave it at that.

So how was it in all? It was an insult to barbeque, that’s how it was. True barbeque is a thing of beauty; a slow production that shows tremendous respect to the ingredients and time-honored techniques. This was, at best, a pale imitation. I must confess this was my first experience with the McRib. And my last.

2/10 flushes

SnakePlissken can’t get the smell off his fingers. His resolution for 2011 is to track down his white buffalo – the cheeseburger-in-a-can – which can be found in its natural habitat on the supermarket shelves of Germany. There’s a reward waiting for anyone that can hunt one down for him.