Some things you can always count on. Tide comes in, tide goes out. Grass is green, the sky is blue, and McDonalds will always bring back the McRib. What is the appeal of this sandwich from the world's most famous burger joint? Is it the slathering of sauce, the fact that the pork patty is shaped like a little rack of ribs, or the sheer mystery of it's limited availability?
It's definitely a mixture of all these ingredients that brings people back to ingest mass quantities of machine separated pork, but does it really taste all that good, I mean, really. Look at this damn thing:
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Actually this is more put together than most McRibs I've seen.[/caption]It's a mess! Upon cracking open that little paper coffin that holds your sammich, the first thing you are going to notice is that there is barbecue sauce everywhere. It's on the "rib" patty, it's on the bun, and a thin layer of it is covering the entire inside of the box. It is going to get on your hands at some point (and if you are like me, also your work pants so you have to work half a shift with your own lunch slathered all over your pants. Stay classy, me.) Then you might notice the fact that they put stupid raw onions all over it-- as a matter of fact they are probably currently spilling out of the damn thing. Gross! Who wants raw onions? Maybe if they cooked'em up a little bit that would be good, but as it goes you gotta get those freakin' things off of there. Also there's a couple of shriveled up gross pickles. I suggest you remove this as well. The McRib isn't about a flavor relationship between a meat McDonalds can legally call "pork", onions, and some shitty pickles. The McRib is about a reationship between meat, sauce, and your mouth.
The sauce? It's basically ketchup. Yeah it's pretty unspectacular-- as a matter of fact the BBQ sauce that comes with a serving of McNuggets (when you feel like nuggin' it.. Nugg Lyfe! I'm Nuggin' it!, etc.) might taste better actually (which begs the question, why not just use that?). You certainly get enough of it though, like I said, it's everywhere. I'm surprised the bag they hand it to you in isn't reddened and moist with sauce. They probably use the sauce, though, to hide the flavor of the main attraction, the McRib patty itself.
Created in 1982 by McDonalds' first executive chef Rene Arend ( who, according to Wikipedia also "fathered" the Chicken McNugget as well (and that's Wikipedia's positively horrifying choice of words there, not mine. "Fathered!?")) the McRib's main reason to exist was to have something (anything) to send to stores because at the time the McNugget was so wildly popular there was not enough of them to go around. That's right, the McRib was only meant to be a cheap replacement for the Mickey D's ground up chicken parts classic. As a matter of fact, both are produced using the same methods! So imagine everything that goes into a chicken nugget...except that it's pig! Kinda gross!
Anyways it does taste pretty decent (or at least its chemical additives trick your brain into thinking it does) and after having a couple with PXT co-writer Samantha the other night, she managed to put her finger on exactly why. It's just hot dog meat, they just hide it under gallons of sauce! Think about last time you ate one and try to seperate the taste of the patty from the taste of it's overbearing sauce brother. You'll discover the truth... MCRIB IS HOT DOG MEAT!
All in all though, the McRib in all its pretty gross glory is pretty edible, you'll just have to eat it with a heavy dose of shame... but then what trip to McDonald's isn't complete without feeling ashamed of yourself? At least it's not McPizza....or...*gag*... McLobster.
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