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WTF is Up with the McDonald's McRib?
The McRib is a food with both a devout following and many detractors.
But what is the genesis of the world’s most popular fast food chain’s
most mysterious menu item? And why, oh why, is it not available all the
time like the majority of the rest of the McDonald’s menu?
Cooking ribs in the Americas predates the colonial period. But the
earliest records of Europeans cooking foods near what we would call
barbeque were in colonial Virginia. Settlers observed a native way to
cook meat, and they adapted it to their tastes. Later, as slaves were
brought in from Caribbean plantations, the food genre we know as
barbeque developed.
In fact, the word barbeque is a loan word from the Taino language of the
Caribbean. It was originally called barbacoa. It is unclear whether the
name comes from the native islander's method of cutting the meat or the
wooden frame on which the food was smoked. In any case, after it
arrived in the North American colonies, it spread wherever pork was
plentiful.
Important here to the story of the McRib is that barbeque, in the proper
sense, is any meat that is slow-cooked over indirect heat, usually
wood, and not merely meat with barbeque sauce on it. It can take up to
eighteen hours to turn raw meat into barbeque for it to reach
perfection. If brined first, it can take an additional day.
That is part of what makes the McRib a surprise. Rib joints usually
slow-cook. Many places brine it before smoking. Additionally, cooking
with a wood fire is inherently messy. Barbeque meat is also often hand
butchered. None of this lends itself to a fast food chain that in 2011
had to abandon the idea of using celery root in one of its food items
because to offer the item, McDonald's would have had to buy all of the
world’s celery root supply, and there still would not have been enough
celery to meet the projected demand. A frequent problem for the
restaurant chain that annually serves 1/27th of all restaurant food
consumed in the world, and caters to about 1 percent of the world’s
population on any given day.
Sponsor: Incogni - Use code BRAINFOOD and get 60% off an annual plan using the link https://incogni.com/brainfood
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
View all episodes
By Cloud10
4.6
3030 ratings
The McRib is a food with both a devout following and many detractors.
But what is the genesis of the world’s most popular fast food chain’s
most mysterious menu item? And why, oh why, is it not available all the
time like the majority of the rest of the McDonald’s menu?
Cooking ribs in the Americas predates the colonial period. But the
earliest records of Europeans cooking foods near what we would call
barbeque were in colonial Virginia. Settlers observed a native way to
cook meat, and they adapted it to their tastes. Later, as slaves were
brought in from Caribbean plantations, the food genre we know as
barbeque developed.
In fact, the word barbeque is a loan word from the Taino language of the
Caribbean. It was originally called barbacoa. It is unclear whether the
name comes from the native islander's method of cutting the meat or the
wooden frame on which the food was smoked. In any case, after it
arrived in the North American colonies, it spread wherever pork was
plentiful.
Important here to the story of the McRib is that barbeque, in the proper
sense, is any meat that is slow-cooked over indirect heat, usually
wood, and not merely meat with barbeque sauce on it. It can take up to
eighteen hours to turn raw meat into barbeque for it to reach
perfection. If brined first, it can take an additional day.
That is part of what makes the McRib a surprise. Rib joints usually
slow-cook. Many places brine it before smoking. Additionally, cooking
with a wood fire is inherently messy. Barbeque meat is also often hand
butchered. None of this lends itself to a fast food chain that in 2011
had to abandon the idea of using celery root in one of its food items
because to offer the item, McDonald's would have had to buy all of the
world’s celery root supply, and there still would not have been enough
celery to meet the projected demand. A frequent problem for the
restaurant chain that annually serves 1/27th of all restaurant food
consumed in the world, and caters to about 1 percent of the world’s
population on any given day.
Sponsor: Incogni - Use code BRAINFOOD and get 60% off an annual plan using the link https://incogni.com/brainfood
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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