Rib is Back, Back Again

I am never going to argue that McDonald’s makes good food. Their burgers, fries, shakes, and whatever else is on the menu is neither nutritionally healthy nor well made, not in a traditional, gourmet cooking sense. They make shit food that’s fast and cheap, and at this point it’s not even cheap. The only thing their food has going for it is that it is, in a weird way, kind of addictive. Nothing else looks, smells, tastes, or feels quite like a McDonald’s burger. Anyone that grew up having McDonald’s food from time to time knows that nostalgic feeling they get when they bite into a McDonald’s burger and get that sense of reliving a childhood memory. It’s powerful. I have to think the only reason why McDonald’s is still in business is because of that nostalgia. It’s certainly not their prices.

That nostalgia is a powerful thing that McDonald’s wields like a hammer. They suck you in with certain food items, especially during seasonal specials. Fans online rave about the Shamrock Shake, a horrid, green blast of minty, milk slurry they call a shake, and every time it comes back for the St. Patrick’s Day season, people go out and drink it in droves. I don’t understand the appeal, not for that shake, but I can’t deny I have a similar reaction for another food item any time it comes out: the McRib.

Like with their burgers, I’m not going to defend the McRib. This isn’t a good sandwich, it’s just “McDonald’s good”. It’s different and unusual, the only sandwich of its type on the market at fast food restaurants. Yes, you can find similar formed-meat pork at grocery stores, in the frozen aisles, but those don’t come from McDonald’s with their fries, chicken nuggets, and other shitty food. It’s an experience, and, right now at least, one that no other fast food restaurant offers. Most don’t do pork barbeque in any form (and I’m using the term “barbeque” here very loosely), and those that do, like Arby’s, try to dress it up better. McDonald’s, though, doesn’t dress up for anyone, so you get the same old McRib you’ve always had, just as gloriously shitty as always.

For the uninitiated, the McRib is (per McDonald's) a seasoned boneless pork patty dipped in tangy BBQ sauce, topped with slivered onions and tangy pickles, all served on a toasted homestyle bun. Or, at least, that’s how the restaurant says it’s made. Depending on where you go, the reality of the sandwich made me less “dipped and arranged” and more, “scrap globbed on top of a sandwich that, itself, was carelessly thrown in a cardboard container”. Certainly that’s how the sandwich came out to me when I ordered it recently: a dry patty on a dry bun, with a squirt of barbeque sauce half on the sandwich, half in the container, while onions and pickles were half-heartedly thrown in (but nowhere to the amount shown in McDonald’s advertising). Either the workers at my local Mickey D’s were tired of making these, or this is just the level of quality McDonald’s encourages in the assembly. I’m betting on the latter.

Naturally the uneven assembly process led to an uneven eating experience. When everything came together – the meat, sauce, onions, pickles, and bun – the taste was great. It was soft and pliable with a nice mouth feel, good chew, and a tangy taste. Again, there’s nothing quite like it, both from good places and terrible ones. This isn’t really barbeque but it kind of fools your mouth into thinking it is. It’s a weird level of awful that’s also kind of good, just like McDonald’s, and for those moments you can understand why people rave about the McRib, eagerly awaiting its return year after year.

But at the same time, this only works when the sandwich is properly assembled. Mine wasn’t, and half the sandwich was dry and awful. No onions and no pickles on that half, and the sauce was in the container, not on the patty. This also meant that the sauce got cold before the sandwich did, so even dipping the McRib into the sauce that was supposed to come right on it left everything feeling kind of gross. Biting into the sandwich when it doesn’t have any sauce lets you realize that all the flavor is in the barbeque as the patty itself is largely flavorless. Without the toppings, without the goo, the McRib is a very boring pork patty.

In the end, after eating the half that was well assembled, I went to my fries and nuggets (because I had to get nuggets) and left the rest of the McRib off to the side. I ended up reassembling it properly before putting it in the fridge, finishing it the next day after microwaving the remains. On the plus side, the sandwich was no worse for the wear having been microwaved, but at the same time that doesn’t really say much for the quality of the food to begin with. If it’s already shitty, nuking it can’t really make it much worse. The flavor was at least better, but nothing about this sandwich really felt appetizing the second day.

What this led me to realize was that my love for the McRib is mostly powered by nostalgia at this point. This was an inferior experience that left me feeling rather cold (like the sauce globbed half-heartedly onto the sandwich and pooled in the container). This sandwich can be tasty (even if not “good”), but it does need some care in its assembly. It would also be nice if the way it’s supposed to be put together (patty dipped in sauce) was actually how it was made. I used to really enjoy this sandwich but now I have to admit it’s all pretty boring and bad, which is especially egregious when I paid six bucks for this sad little sandwich on its own.

Which, again, is much like McDonald’s itself. Why get this shitty food when absolutely no care is put into its assembly and the company now charges an arm and a leg for their food. The McRib can be tasty, and it can be a good time, but not at the current version of McDonald’s, and not for the price they want. I think the next time the McRib comes around I’m going to take a pass. It no longer meets my nostalgia anymore.