It recently came to the Rib Rabbi’s attention (after reading a blog post) that an entire generation of young Americans are being duped. Their rightful inheritance of the noble tradition of barbecue is being bastardized by school board shortcomings and shenanigans.
A teacher named, coincidentally enough, “Mrs. Q” is eating school lunch along her students at a midwestern school this year (she’s intentionally vague). She blogs about the experience on Fed Up With Lunch, and in a recent post she reported that her cafeteria served something called “Rib-B-Que.” She’d written about this all-beef patty smothered in cloying barbecue sauce before.
These are not ribs.
Nor is it barbecue.
Shame on you, lunch ladies!
Pity the poor children. For their sake and our nation’s, I think it’s time we right this barbecue wrong. Let’s call a spade a spade a beef patty a beef patty. At least a few of the kids already do, as Mrs. Q reports:
I think somebody is trying to be creative with the “rib-b-que” meat (the illusion of variety), but the kids aren’t fooled. I asked one of my students “What did you have for lunch today?” and he replied, “A hamburger.”
Filed under: Rabbi's Rants/Raves | Tagged: barbecue, Faux 'Cue, fed up with lunch, school barbecue, school lunch |
BBQ Jew 
Don’t know if they still do it, but when I was in elementary school (late 80s – early 90s), Wake Co. schools served chopped pork sandwiches. Unfortunately, my first experience with one resulted in me throwing up all over some girl while our kindergarten class was lined up in the hall. For far too many years after that, I would not come close to pork bbq from any source.
So, yeah, shame on you lunch ladies.
I like that story, Michael, thanks for sharing and I can only hope your pork avoidance is a thing of the past! I can vouch that I have not seen anyone throw up from BBQ in days…
I’m right there with you, Michael. “BBQ on Bun” was a staple of my elementary school cafeteria in the 1970s. It wasn’t until I was in high school and my father started taking me to real barbecue joints that I realized that barbecue wasn’t a revolting, gooey concoction.
I have since made up for lost time.