Lord of the Ribs

At first we weren't sure whether Tolkien's timeless epic translated well to the world of barbecue. We knew the chicken was Gandalf, the cow was cast as a man of the Second Age (Elendil, presumably), and the pig was some Second Age elf (Elrond or Gil-galad, we assumed), but it all felt contrived. Not as contrived as other barbecue-related stretches we've encountered, to be sure, but where were they going with this? If the One True Rib promised to enslave the free peoples of Middle Earth, then our protagonists want to destroy it? And that's going to sell pig meat?

Then we realized we were looking at it all wrong. We were seeing the details but missing the big picture. For what is J. R. R.'s tale about? Beyond the comings and goings of bearded weirdos and a bunch of business about a giant, evil eyeball, it's a story about brotherhood and sacrifice. Brotherhood and sacrifice? That's the hallmark of modern "food" animals!

It all made sense! Who knows more about sacrifice and selflessness than cows, pigs, and chickens? Who is better suited to hit the battlefield of Dagorlad—also known as the backyard barbecues of North America—and offer themselves up for their friends? In this respect, all the animals are Sam Gamgees, bearing all our burdens, long-suffering, never questioning our motives or intentions.

Epilogue: Five minutes later it stopped making sense again.

Guerrila Q

Even though we've seen this kind of "food"-animal-as-radical-smasher-of-the-system before, we still don't get it.

Look at El Jefe here. The Castro-esque cigar, the Che-esque beret, the revolutionary's bandoleer made of pig ribs… It's sad, really.

Sad that he thinks he's, you know, accomplishing something. Standing up for a principle. Fighting an oppressive regime. Instead of what he's actually doing: Joining the struggle to be eaten. In the streets, we suppose.

It's not exactly the stirring stuff of romantic myth-making.

Addendum: And here's the (even less logical) kinder, gentler version of the barbecue-themed freedom fighter.

Franklin's Battle of the BBQ

The Civil War is a contextual grounding of increasing popularity (see here and here), and we think we know why: Suicidefoodism takes war, with all its hatred and moral ambiguities, and nullifies it. "Hatred?" the Civil War imagery simpers. "What hatred?" If something as bloody and desperate as war can be brought under control, can anyone or anything threaten suicidefoodism's power?

Indeed, warfare's aggrieved parties, in this case a pair of pigs, shrivel not in hatred, but instead bask in the glow of amity.

They've laid down their arms. They've cast aside their suspicions of each other. Of the very system that brought them to this impasse. Are they not equals, sharing their status as commodity, the fact of their Thingness? Where they saw only an enemy before now they see a brother.

Hallelujah! Barbecue has wrung wickedness from the world! All that remains of a once-destructive institution is a proud and storied heritage of being eaten.

Battle of Brandon BBQ Challenge

The pig cavalryman is mad. The chicken soldier is mad. Even the cow horse (?) is mad. All the animals are mad! They're up in arms! But look beyond and beneath the anger. What do you see?

Unity. Something has gathered them together, unified them, and joined them in a single purpose.

What has the power to tame the forces of distrust, the mutual suspicions and hatreds that set North and South against each other? What can bridge the gap between Agent and Object—that is, between the rider and the ridden?

Only one thing we've discovered can forge order from chaos, line up competing drives and desires like iron filings in thrall to a magnetic field: the prospect—the hope—of being cooked and eaten. It transforms animals. It gives them all something to fight for.

Charge!

Fat Albert's

Not only is Fat Albert a late inductee into the ranks of the copycat pigs (he's a member in good standing of the Overalls bunch and, down in the lower-left, a dead-ringer for this fellow), but he's also the barbecue equivalent of a talent agency!

The extravaganza he's put together is quite the spectacle! Albert is all about one-stop shopping!

From the, let's say, arresting wordsmithing ("Put the BOLD TASTE of the WEST in your CHEST") to the use of striking imagery, he's hitting the audience right where they live. We especially enjoy the porcine member of the Canadian Army. We're not sure how Albert was able to persuade him to serve as a (literal) poster boy pig—surely most soldiers need a villain to fight—but there he is, rifle at the ready. Do you think Albert let him know the gun's loaded with blanks?

Fat Albert provides a little something for everyone. Especially for pigs who have grown weary of living.

Assault From the Sky BBQ Competition Team

The grunts from Barbecue Division must not have read their rules and regs too closely. That, or they're the victims of enemy counter-intelligence.

Whatever the explanation, this operation is completely snafu.

They are parachuting behind enemy lines armed with the very instrument the other side is trained to use against them. It's like tossing Vlad the Impaler a big sharp stick and telling him to leave you alone! Those government-issue barbecue forks will be in the enemy's hands by 0900 hours.

Unless—and we hate even to suggest it—the pigs are collaborating with the enemy? Crazy, sure, but think about it. They call it an "assault," but they land smack-dab in the middle of the barbecues. (Imagine the scene: "Hit the deck! Dinner's landing right in our laps!") They equip the enemy. It's almost as if they've been programmed to surrender.

Now that we think of it, we haven't seen troops this poorly trained (or traitorous) in more than three years!

Susquehanna Blue Smoke

The barbecue battle, the boxing match, and other examples of ritualized warfare are here made literal.

This is actual combat, with uniforms and weapons and everything. The animals, naturally, reenact the Civil War and recast it in terms of combatants fighting for their chance to be eaten.

These aren't hobbyists playacting. This is that most terrible of all institutions: the art of war. And the stakes couldn't be higher.

Who can claim the title of conqueror? Whose banner will be hoisted on the rubble of victory? Who is the finest food?

Le Cornichon

If you're like most sex-crazed monsters bent on the destruction of everything sensible minds hold dear, when you think of fine French cuisine, you think of goosewomen offering up their legs for your consumption.

Like a cross between the Martini Bitter ads and the horrors of Rachachuros, this lovingly crafted portrait of a buxom half-goose, half-Marie Antoinette simultaneously titillates and shames.

She sits in her boudoir, waiting for us, petticoats splayed to bare those long, long legs, luxuriously anticipating the moment when we come to her, predatory gourmands, eyes alight with longing, hunger straining our nerves, and hack off her leg and eat it.

It's such a welter of conflicting themes it could occupy a cadre of psychoanalysts for months. Bestiality, cannibalism, good old-fashioned suicidefoodist denial: they all jostle for space in a scrum of specious propositions.

Is she woman? Is she goose? Is she food? She's all three, a feathered, smooth-skinned, avian, bosomed entrée! Her gleaming shoes are even garnished with parsley!












Lest you think Le Cornichon cares only for sexualized food, these images remind us that the suicidefoodist's reach extends farther than regal floozies.

Figures from history, figures bespeaking the finer things—these too can be coaxed into the same paradoxical machine, which can anthropomorphize and dehumanize at the same time.

And so, Napoleon is recast, improbably, as a squid (one with the erroneous, dumbbell-pupiled eye of an octopus) and a vintner as a rooster.

The artisan, the emperor, the princess all wish to be like you—to be better than you!—and also to be cast down in your sight as mere stuff.

Grill Sergeant BBQ

Line up, line up, you sorry wastes of pork!

Well, well. What do we have here? This is the most pathetic pile of meat I've even seen.

What do you think you're doing here, standing next to my beloved grill?

You pantywaists make me puke! Think you deserve this grill? You're not fit for scrapple, you gristly numbnuts!

If it was up to me, you'd be right back on that bus and driven home to Mama! Who'd wanna eat you, anyway? Flavor? You don't know the meaning of the word, maggots!

Now, my boss tells me I gotta work with you pissants. So that's what I'm gonna do! I'm gonna ride you! I'll be on you every second of the day! You don't shit until I say "shit." Am I understood? Do I make myself clear?

If by some miracle any of you morons listen to me and learn something, one day you might—I said might—be good enough to die for your country!

United Egg Producers, a digression

Now, regardless of what a certain site would have you believe, we spend very little time bashing the free-range movement (or addressing it at all). While we insist that many free-range establishments are not appreciably different from their counterparts, we will stipulate that in some circumstances, animals are better off living under free-range conditions than those found on "conventional" farms. Moreover, speaking pragmatically, we concur that some free-range provisions or laws might be necessary steps on the way toward true change.

That said, let's take a closer look at the issue.

The United Egg Producers, proud prodders of chickens, explain the matter with an utter lack of bias!

And we're right there with them. Who was it who tried to peddle that free range malarkey to the chickens?

Freedom? The chance to rejoin the natural world, with its, you know, environments and, like, weather and puddles? What kind of monster would lie to a bird about the fictitious benefits of a freely ranging existence? It gives one pause.

All along, we knew that free range was a scam! Chickens are obviously better off in cramped cages, where they, um… Wait. What?

Sorry. We just… Hmm? Oh, um, where were we?

That's right: the evils of free range.

You see, chickens (like any sentient beings worth their salt) prefer not to be preyed upon. Though they find themselves outfitted as for war, with their GI rifles and helmets, they would rather be done with the whole bloody business.

Still, we confess we never knew they preferred a lifetime of imprisonment.

It's at this point where our credulity is almost (almost) strained.

Not wishing to be snatched up by a hawk? Fair enough.

Not wanting to get rained on? Well… maybe.

But fearing criticism for the oniony flavor of the unfertilized eggs your captivity was established to produce and profit from?

Then again, if the chickens say so.

All in all, a persuasive argument against free range. Like we've (not actually) always said, it's a hoax!

(Thanks to Dr. John V. for the referral.)

The Hams Are Coming!

Giant, man-sized Easter Bunny. Blue horse. Ranks of hamfantry marching over the hills.

Either we are suffering from an especially nasty fever or the suicidefoodists have upped their game.

Remembering that no one has ever lost money underestimating the suicidefoodist's ability to baffle and appall (to paraphrase H. L. Mencken), we believe the fever theory has little merit. Which means the Movement has unleashed its most hallucinatory tableau in a long time.

Whom do they fight, these military meats? And what of this knife-and-fork nation, beneath whose flag they make the noblest sacrifice? And, while we're asking questions, what the hell?

On the surface, it's all pretty straightforward: The hams are going to war and the Easter Bunny is warning us, Paul Revere-style. Yes, naturally, but, no, the hams aren't going to war—they're coming to surrender. They are unarmed. This army was trained only to lose, and they demand no adherence to the Geneva Conventions. They ask only that they be put on sale at some Trader Joe's somewhere, bought, and eaten.

The only medals awarded in this conflict are numerous Purple Heartburns.

(Thanks to Dr. Mary for the referral and photo.)







Addendum: We can't help but be reminded of these parachuting lobsters.

Speedy's Barbecue Inc.

A lot has changed since we served in the military.* We didn't have GIs out of uniform, rollerskating through the mess, delivering their buddies (and sweet tea) on a tray. It's a whole different ball game now.

We don't know whether the pig waiter skated in from the National Guard armory a scant 2.5 miles from Speedy's, but we cannot discount the possibility that, in addition to being out of uniform, he is AWOL.

But never mind that. What's got us so concerned isn't the flouting of rules and regs. It's the upending of the military's code of honor. Where's the esprit de corps that forms the backbone of any fighting unit? This dogface has turned his back on his fellows, serving them up like so much cannon fodder.

But maybe there's more going on under that garrison cap—a plan to incur his own punishment, perhaps? Is that why he works against morale so diligently?

*This statement is a rhetorical flourish only.

Operation BBQ for Our Troops

The humble joy of gratitude has gone sour.

While we cannot but be moved by the pig and chicken's sincere expression of thanks, we are nevertheless queasy.

For doesn't their attitude make needless the sacrifice that inspired it?

If you were a soldier braving enemy fire, toiling to protect the rights of American "food" animals, only to see those same animals thank you by tossing themselves onto the coals, how would you respond?

Perhaps you would say something like, "Hey, pal! That means I protected you for nothing!"

Or, "Next time, kill yourself first and maybe I can just stay home."

Moving on, is that pig actually a piglet? With the baseball cap and the ill-fitting T-shirt riding up on the pudgy belly, it sure looks like a pig child getting ready to sacrifice himself.