Stew Leonard's Naked Turkey

We've seen it before, the "food" animal troubled more by being seen naked than by his impending death.

Still, we're confused when we come face-to-face with such disordered thinking. "This is what you're worried about?" we want to scream. The turkey's flushed cheeks, ripe with embarrassment, sum up everything that's wrong with suicide food. Clutching the barrel that masks his nudity, he spares not a thought to what is about to happen to him.

And maybe the blushing is a statement of a more generalized humility. All that "as served at the White House" business. It's like any fuss made on his behalf (while he's living) is just too much. It goes right to his head and he protests meekly. (No surprise there. Everything the bird does is meek.)

Either way, this is some poultry with messed-up priorities.

1. Get some dang clothes.
2. Let the fellas know that my family and me are nothing special.
3. Vacuum.
4. Get those bills taken care of.
5. Oil change.
6. Clean out the mud room.
7. Return the netflix.
8. Fix the toilet.
9. Call Gramma.
10. Avoid getting killed.

(Thanks to Dr. Trent for the referral.)

Loin Ranger Bar-B-Cue Company

Like some kind of unsettling worst-of-both-worlds mixture of this bovine lawman and these sell-out superheroes, the Loin Ranger patrols the West for wrongs to right.

Unfortunately, the injustices he aims to challenge are confined to matters involving substandard barbecue. In short, he wants to make sure you're eating his fellow pigs properly. And when all is finally peaceful across the land, when all the pigs are well and gently cooked at last, he will fire off a few celebratory rounds of his sauce-loaded sixgun and dismount right onto a grill.

"Who was that masked pig?" a bewildered townsperson asks. "Don't know," answers his companion. "But he left us this recipe."

It's a tough time for those who need a champion.






Addendum: The panel originally awarded this two nooses. But after an appeal, they tacked on a third for egregious punning.

San Valentino Porcellino

Happily the pig lays down his life to further the cause of romance. And why not? History has taught us that the animals will die for us at a moment's notice, to satisfy any whim. To furnish our snacks and adorn our celebrations, they lie down in droves. And this isn't the first time we've seen them sacrifice themselves for our romantic benefit.

To ensure the love affair gathers steam, the pig bares his belly for Cupid's meddlesome arrow. Punctured, he finds his life's purpose at last, as his pooling blood forms the backdrop for a charming tryst.

Pigs find their greatest joy when they are used to ignite the kindling of our love lives. Correction: their second-greatest joy. The greatest comes at the moment when they are consumed.

Bacon Valentine

On this day when we bare our hearts, we see the central theme of suicidefoodism laid bare. Namely, that the animals want to serve us so ardently, they will do anything we ask—anything! They experience their most flushed flushing, their most thrilling thrills when we ask them to do for us the one thing we'd never think to do for them: die.

Take this peculiarly (almost wickedly) smitten pig. In exchange for the love of a boy, he will surrender to the caresses of the cleaver.

But the boy is put off by the pig's aggressive affection. The boy might not even want the pig's flayed carcass, hard as that is to believe. The pig's profession of love is frightening, too weighty for the boy's innocent shoulders to carry.

In his fixation, his lusty drive to be killed and eaten, the pig persists. Whose wish will prevail? The boy's, to carry on as before, blameless and unknowing? Or the pig's, to die horribly, his repugnant love finally requited? Thankfully, the valentine leaves the outcome to our imaginations.

(Enjoy our previous celebrations of meaty love, from 2008, 2009, and 2010.)

She Thinks My Slabs Are Sexy

No, we don't know who "she" is who thinks his, um, slabs are sexy. Does it matter? The pig takes pride in his ribs as edible objects, and whether he imagines a potential mate or consumer relishing his ribs hardly seems to matter. And this, of course, presupposes that his lover and consumer are different people. Alas, we have learned to our endless regret that the two categories—predator and paramour—need not be mutually exclusive.

So. Fine. Whatever.

The pig is impressing his lover-eater. It's really the central theme of suicidefoodism, played out in the form of a blue collar pig with well-defined anatomy.

His masculinity, his fitness as a sexual partner, and his ultimate purpose as a commodity—all are achieved simultaneously. He is a stud! He is a virile foodstuff! He is all things to all people! Or at least to all people who want to eat him.

Sexy Chicken's Firehouse

Are you all right? Do you need a glass of water? Maybe you should just… Yes, yes, have a seat. It's true—this is a lot to take in.

Just when you're over the cook-me pumps, you get to the hot pants. As soon as you clear that hurdle, you're faced with the giant chicken breast. Make it past that, and it's the basket of tiny (baby?) chicken parts. And you're still south of the neck! This thing is a whole project! It could be hours before you're through all of it. But we wouldn't recommend dwelling on it that long.

We would suggest limiting your visit to Suicidefood City. With sexy chickens staffing the firehouse, we cannot vouch for the place's safety. Leaning provocatively against the trucks, will they attend to the alarms?

The real question, which we can no longer ignore: Do they look at fires as opportunities for "career advancement," which, to sexy chickens, means "getting cooked and eaten"?

Butt Lovers BBQ

Sex sells. We get it. What we don't get—what we still can't ram through our stupid, thick, rational skulls!—is why the sex they're selling is sex with, you know, animals. That you're supposed to eat. After you have sex with them.

It's not just us. It can't be. Growing up, we didn't know anyone with fantasies like this. Certainly not fantasies they cared to broadcast.

But in the world of the barbekooks, this predeliction rates as high as the dream of dallying with supermodels. It's a common trope, this desire to get it on with one's supper and make it to fifth base. That's the one that features knives and forks.






Addendum: That apostrophe really bothers us too.

The Rockin' Chicken

Have we finally reached it? After all the fakes, the has-beens, the wannabes, and the never-gonna-bes, have we finally found the true spirit of poultry-based rock-n-roll?

We've been around a while, you know. We've seen 'em come and we've seen 'em go. Fowl with big dreams and little else. But now! Now we might have found what we've been looking for all these years: a bird who can show us what freedom and rebellion are all about!

The Rockin' Chicken hits that stage and takes over.

He's got the look. (The way his comb turns into those sideburn things!) He's got attitude to burn. He drips with cool. This guy, he just doesn't care! He's looking out for number one and if you don't like it? You can kiss his ass!

And when you're done kissing his ass, you can wrench his wings off and fry 'em up! Oh, you want more? Well, how about carving out his, um, tenders, breading 'em, and shoving 'em in the oven?

How's that for rock-n-roll? Par-ty!

The Rockin' Chicken just isn't gonna play by your rules. He's a sleep-all-day, play-all-night, get-killed-and-eaten-when-you're-good-and-ready kind of guy.

Hogs N Heat Barbecue & Nut Fry

Finally, an explanation for at least one pig's perversity! He's an agent of pure corruption, in thrall to a psychologically devastated nihilism.

Suicide, murder, torture, the frying of testicles: it's all given license by this devilish boar.

The Cloven Hoofed One, the Hellhog, the Dark Swine. By whatever name he's known and cursed, he lingers in his excruciating afterlife, burning for eternity with a dream of dragging every last pig into his feculent sty. Death has been good to him. It's given him so much. He wants only to strew his blessings upon the multitudes.

Behind him, the Showgirls of the Damned praise his every repulsive lark. Choking on fumes, they sing for him. For all the pigs. For all the world!

(This whole business is not to be confused—we think—with the Hogs 'N Heat barbecue team.)

KC Smoke Dawgs

Like other "food" animals, disaffected young pigs of the stifled suburbs long for death-by-barbecue. In their hoodies and sweats, they lurk on street corners, waiting for their big chance.

Affecting the attitudes and rhythms of the streets they barely know, the gang aims for a sort of lawless cool, but hits instead a kind of clueless desperation. They've brought their own barbecue and they've stoked it up and parked it at the curb. And there they wait, the sweat trickling down their backs.

Hang back, fellas. Give it time. You're young yet. There's still plenty of time to die.

Pigs in a Spin Hog Roast

We can't help it. In spite of our years of training, our excessive—some would say redundant—history of observation, we just can't help wondering. Does this pig actually know what he's gotten himself into?

While he might, in fact, be "in a spin" (denoting a dizzy enthusiasm), surely he understand he will be in an actual, literal spin, one designed to ensure even roasting on a spit.

Our hesitancy surprises us. We have witnessed so many animals with so little regard for continuing in the shameful state known as "living" that you might think this would have stopped rattling us long ago. It's just… looking at this pig, with his smug grimace, we have to ask, to make sure: "Pig, have you considered all your options? Is this really what you want to be doing?" Then we take note of his "I'll see you in hell" eyes, and we know. He's like the others. He signed up for this joyride.

Big D's Barbeque

This is the sad kind of suicide food. This poor, poor, pitiful pig! This poor, stupid, trusting pig. Set adrift on the cruel seas, he thinks he's pleasure boating! Little does he know (or have the capacity to grasp) that he has been cast out, to be weakened by thirst and tenderized by the sun's pounding mallets.

It never even occurred to him to ask. Fork and tongs still held at the ready, he wanders farther and farther toward his doom, the one thought still rattling around his head like a pea in a jar: "Sure was nice of the fellas to invite me to their barbecue!"

He might have known, somewhere in there, that it would end like this. (Or with him dead one way or another, at any rate.) But he doesn't mind.






Addendum: It might be instructive—or, hell, it might at least kill a couple minutes—to compare the Big D's pig with the Landry's Seafood crustacean. They're sitting in their inner tubes in the same pose, feet dangling in the water. They're both at ease. But the lobster/crawfish/whatever is clearly more in-the-know. He's got a captain's hat, for Pete's sake! He's in charge of his own bloody destiny, whereas the pig is too darn dumb to steer clear of his.

Australia Day BBQ Competition

In the shadow of Seattle's Space Needle, hopeful Australians and their equally hopeful sheep gather to commemorate the arrival of the first batch of colonists—half of them convicts—to arrive in Australia, in 1788.

They do this, of course, by barbecuing their friends and/or being barbecued by their friends.

Which, we guess, is their quaint way of reenacting the warden/prisoner motif.

(Pardon us, but Australia Day was actually the 26th. We're late. But we're sure the animals had their chance to die, and that's all that matters.)