Day: March 3, 2023

“Life is too weird to believe, so you end up at faith.” – Dr. Freckles

I remember waking up on a Sunday morning, and having those sweet, tasty, cricket eggs … My grandma would be UP all NIGHT making those cricket eggs … And NO ONE could make those eggs like her … (they just tasted like home) She’d spend some time making coolie-cakes, and if we were lucky? – creosote paste for the dryg-sausage. It’s hard to imagine anything better, and it was her love that made it happen.

I remember Saturday meals at Uncle Cleeftus. He’d make McNuggets … He’d spend all week gathering re-gasifiers and solvent baths and bleach sinks and freeze-drying equipment. He’d usually pick the bigger hens from the coop, and toss the WHOLE chicken in … It would take about 30 minutes for the vacuum-freeze-drier to fully desiccate the the remains, and then the chicken gravel would be poured into the fine dust grinder. He would take the dust, and bleach it post solvent bath re-gasification. Once the powder had been bleached white, he’d add the emulsifying agent and water to constitute as a white paste, that he loaded into an injection molding system, which had 4 or 5 primary shapes. A brownish mix of sand and wood pulp and brown coloring would be sprayed on the outside and then the whole thing would be immediately fried … deep fried … till brown and toasty. And I used to think “Cleeftus’ put love into them McNuggets”.

One Saturday, Cleeftus decided to try a different recipe, handed down to him from him old style non-racist southern-style Alabama grandma … McRibb sandwiches … she would bake her own rolls from scratch, but it was the McRibb that took a lot of meal prep … the good news is the McRibb recipe is essentially the McNuggets recipe – but with different molds for the injection system and different outer coatings, and slightly different cook cycle … Bleaching agents and solvent bath are not necessary for the McRibb. Just an old fashioned treat, from the good old days.

[curated: 3/17/2023]