Jump to content

  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

The McRib is back!

jsmeeker

By jsmeeker
in Ready to Eat

 Share

Recommended Posts

Porthos

Porthos

Posted
Posted

For me, the McRIb provides an alternative sandwich to pick up for a meal. I know exactly what I am getting - chopped formed pork with a basic BBQ sauce on a basic roll. I have no illusions otherwise. Unlike my DW I gravitate towards sweeter BBQ sauces so this sandwich works for me. No, I would never drive over to Micky D's just to get one but when I am out and about I will drive through and buy one, maybe, two during the time they are available. It's all Carl's Jr's fault. Back when they still had the California Roast Beef sandwich that was my go-to sandwich.

Porthos Potwatcher
The Once and Future Cook

;

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Toliver

Toliver

Posted
Posted

I wouldn't say they're mushy. They do have a firm texture. The BBQ sauce is sweet and doesn't have any stand-out features.

I think the bun is a saving grace for the McRib. It's different than the usual McD's burger bun. It kind of reminds me of potato rolls where they have that little dusting of flour on the outside.

Let's see: the sauce has no "stand-out" features, suggesting, to me at least, that it's at best bland, and the BUN is the outstanding feature (my understanding of your comment). So what does that say for the star performer in this act, the McRib itself?

How much does a McRib (which, as I understand it, has no ribs) cost? I'm thinking that, on a weight basis, it may be similar in cost to some real BBQ, which I'd rather eat than a McRib.

No one says you have to eat at McDonald's. And if you deign to, no one says you have to buy the McRib. As Porthos pointed out, it's a change-up from ordering the usual McD's sandwich/burger. I just thought it could be done better.

And you can order two of them at one time, Porthos. Most McD's have a combo meal that includes two McRibs. Ain't life grand? :cool:

  • Like 1

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Porthos

Porthos

Posted
Posted

No surprises to me in the "undercover picture." I don't personally think I will ever confuse McDonalds with The French Laundry. I like an occasional McRib. I may love well-prepared salmon but I still eat fish tacos as well. There is a broad spectrum of offerings out there. My objections come when someone clearly tries to deceive me.

  • Like 2

Porthos Potwatcher
The Once and Future Cook

;

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Shel_B

Shel_B

Posted
Posted (edited)

No surprises to me in the "undercover picture." I don't personally think I will ever confuse McDonalds with The French Laundry. I like an occasional McRib. I may love well-prepared salmon but I still eat fish tacos as well. There is a broad spectrum of offerings out there. My objections come when someone clearly tries to deceive me.

Do you think McD's has tried to deceive you? I don't know what the hell that stuff in the picture is, but it sure doesn't look like any pork I've ever seen. Anyone know what it is?

(time passes)

I searched for ingredients and this was the first article that popped up: http://naturalsociety.com/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-a-franken-creation-of-gmos-toxic-ingredients-banned-ingredients/

Truth or fiction?

Edited by Shel_B (log)
  • Like 1

 ... Shel


 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rotuts

rotuts

Posted
Posted (edited)

SB: excellent ref.

at least its "" pig heart, tongue, or stomach ""

waste not want not. this is the efficient 'sandwich'

very 'green'

:blink:

I like the purple color of that ridged 'puck' they start with. thats pure flavor right there !

we take it or we leave it.

but i guess not in Singapore.

Edited by rotuts (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Alex

Alex

Posted
Posted

The McRib analysis to end all McRib analyses.

The McRib is like Holbein’s skull: we experience it as (quasi-)foodstuff, as marketing campaign, as cult object, as Internet meme, but those experiences don’t sufficiently explain it. To understand McRib fully, we have to look at the sandwich askew.

The McRib’s existence injects a measure of otherwise unrealizable gratification into the social fabric of food culture, like the McRib’s sauce covers reconstituted pork to make it palatable. Normally, psychoanalysis is meant to reveal a desire in order to satisfy it. But in the case of McRib, that satisfaction must be temporary, occasional, such that it can return again the next year. A good thing, too because who could bear it every day?

Yet, the McRib’s perversity is not a defect, but a feature. The purpose of the McRib is to make the McNugget seem normal.

  • Like 2

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Shel_B

Shel_B

Posted
Posted

I like the purple color of that ridged 'puck' they start with. thats pure flavor right there !

we take it or we leave it.

but i guess not in Singapore.

IMHO, one of the issues with the McRib is that consumers don't know what they're eating.

  • Like 1

 ... Shel


 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Meredith380

Meredith380

Posted
Posted

I like the purple color of that ridged 'puck' they start with. thats pure flavor right there !

we take it or we leave it.

but i guess not in Singapore.

IMHO, one of the issues with the McRib is that consumers don't know what they're eating.

Isn't that the case with the majority of fast food?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Shel_B

Shel_B

Posted
Posted

IMHO, one of the issues with the McRib is that consumers don't know what they're eating.

Isn't that the case with the majority of fast food?

Probably. The McRib is not unique in this regard. Recently there was an admission by Burger King that, in Europe at least, their patties contained horsemeat. This came after repeated denials.

Does the fact that other fast food chains play fast and loose with their ingredients make the McRib more acceptable? I don't think that's what you're saying ... is it?

  • Like 1

 ... Shel


 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
annabelle

annabelle

Posted
Posted

If I want authentic barbeque, there are a million BBQ joints to head out to. All of dubious sanitation measures as to food preparation and storage.

The McRib is a childhood take on a BBQ sandwich and is appealing to our sense of nostalgia. Without the bones.

I like them. Seldom eat them. I would rather have the McRib than a chicken sandwich from McD's.

Re: "The Atlantic". Could that magazine get any snottier?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
rotuts

rotuts

Posted
Posted

My local McD gets constant awards for its FastFood. yes there are awards for this.

Its very clean, fast, and the food is piping hot. Apparently people go around and count the # of frenchFries in the order, as SOME

FF joints stiff you here and there. And ooze grease: in the air, on the floor, on the table tops. Not this one. They are locally owned

and can vary quite a bit.

what it's not, nor does it claim to be, is healthy.

you take it or leave it. its up to you.

But what they are given to sell is another matter, and a bit interesting. Didn't know there were bones ground into the Nuggets.

What the industry should NOT do nor be allowed to do is to market to children.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rotuts

rotuts

Posted
Posted

to be fair, McD says "pork" if its from a Pig, it is actually Pork. might be Pork Parts, but ....

doubt the USDA defines 'Pork' as 'skeletal muscle from a Pig' but maybe

someone needs to ask that Q on the ref above re McD 's ingredients.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jaymes

Jaymes

Posted
Posted

Lancers.

:huh:

Now there's a blast from the past!

And an excellent suggestion. Lancers, or Mateus Rose?

As for the whole McRib brouhaha. Hard to understand that there's any controversy. I mean, really. Has anyone ever seen a large offset smoker and a pile of firewood out behind any Mickey D's? Of course not. It's not like they're putting something over on anyone.

Who could not realize this is just a "meat product" sort of barbecue? Tasty, if you're fond of it. But certainly nothing to take to the Kansas City Royal.

So, good for McD's. Free enterprise at work. Coming up with new products. Take it if you like it. Leave it if you don't.

As Porthos says, no one of even the most marginal intelligence level is going to confuse McDonald's with the French Laundry. Or Gates Barbecue, either.

In a world full of real issues worthy of getting one's blood up, real challenges to attack and conquer, I hardly think what is really in the McRib is the right hill to die on.

  • Like 3

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Porthos

Porthos

Posted
Posted

I may enjoy the occasional McRib (still haven't had one this season) but I would wash it down with a red ale if I were going to have any kind of alcohol with it. Most likely it will just be my usual diet Coke.

Porthos Potwatcher
The Once and Future Cook

;

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jaymes

Jaymes

Posted
Posted

The main thing this thread has done for me is to make me want to go try a McRib. Never have. Knew it wasn't real barbecue (I'm so insightful that way) and I'm lucky enough to live in an area with lots of excellent barbecue.

But now, I've just got to have one.

And so I will!

  • Like 2

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jaymes

Jaymes

Posted
Posted

let us know.

Oooh, I will.

And, I am a KCBS-Certified Barbecue Judge, so you can trust my expertise in these matters.

  • Like 1

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jaymes

Jaymes

Posted
Posted

are You in for one Big Surprise !

Wow! That tasty, eh?

  • Like 2

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...