“S” is for Spareribs #AtoZChallenge @AprilA2Z

Spareribs are our staple.  If a Chinese restaurant has spareribs on their menu, we will have them on our plates.  They’re the common thread that we can compare and contrast from restaurant to restaurant.  Growing up, the ONLY food I would eat a Chinese restaurant was spareribs.  As my palate has expanded, so has my tummy.  But, I digress.  Sparerib, why do we love thee so much?

I think their appeal is the call to our ancestor self.  Eating meat right off the bone of a freshly killed, and cooked, animal.  You bite them, rip the meat off the bone, suck the flavor of every last morsel.  And then have another.  And another.

You don’t need a knife, nor fork to eat them.   Heck, you don’t even need chopsticks.  What you need is a voracious appetite to eat like a horse (but, not eat a horse.  Pork is preferable; Beef if you must).  You know you’re going to get sloppy eating.  And you know you’re (hopefully) going to love it.  And you really really love the lemon scent of the wet-naps they give you to clean yourself up afterwards.  Mmmmm… Ahhhh!!  Heaven on earth!

Slather on some tangy, sweet, succulent BBQ sauce, and you’ve got an elixir that’s guaranteed to satisfy.

There’s just some comfort that I get from the aroma of spareribs, the way they feel in my hands, the sauce that gets on my lips and chin, and happiness that I feel in by belly.  What a great start, if they’re good, to what I know will be a great meal.  Though we haven’t documented a perfect correlation between how good a Chinese restaurant’s spareribs are and how the balance of these dishes are, it’s still good to start your meal off with a good rib.  Or two!  Bet you can’t eat just one!

And if you can’t get your sparerib on, you can even make your own spareribs at home with the recipe we posted a few months ago.

Can you help me solve this conundrum?  Is it spareribs?  Or, spare ribs?

[polldaddy poll=8385732]

Thank you for clarifying this for Mee.

Humbly submitted for your consumption,

—Mee Magnum (“Chop!  Chop!”)