By Yolande Robbins

It is the most authentically different taste on the menu. It is sinfully juicy. And many of us here look forward very much to its annual return and wonder why it isn’t here  year-round. Nothing can compare or compete with it.

A burger is a burger is a burger. There’s little you can do except supersize it, sell it for a buck, and glob it with ketchup and pickles.

Of course, indifference has long since crept into the whole operation.

If you’re close to home when you come from McDonald’s, you’re headed for the microwave.

You have to warm up those tepid fries and minimally warm, (un-melted cheese)burgers. The cokes are still cold, but that’s it.

But for all those bored or allergic to fish, McRib is still the thing! And to this day, I can’t envision chicken on a bun. Chicken is meant to be fried only, baked if you absolutely have to.

Once there was also a Philly cheese steak, and it was very good. But years having passed since we last saw that, we haven’t seen it again.

Is McDonald’s afraid of success?

Or dumbing down to the easiest meat?

Most available?

Most convenient?

Most redundant taste?

McDonald’s, we think, and all of its spinoffs are in a genuine tailspin.

Fifty years and billions of hamburgers later, people are just getting tired.

And technology and oat meal don’t bring back the edge.

But anecdotally, McRib is the thing. People never told other people exactly, but when first-timers tried it, they were hooked – and especially when what was touted to be its last appearance ever, the come-on pitch was 2 for the price of 1 buck more, and the deal was sealed. The portions were generous, and the price was right! It doesn’t get much better!

But even it has suffered in late seasons. Best when the meat was hot and the sauce was flowing, later versions were often stale. They sat too long and got too dry and needed to be nuked.

But at its best, it was so good you had to buy both and eat them right then.

The sauce and onions were just right and needed nothing else. McDonald’s really did win this one. They didn’t gild the lily.

People used to really think it was the beef disguised. But it’s still just pork with seared-in lines to make them look like ribs. It didn’t matter, and doesn’t still, that they’re only compressed pork. Applying the current lexicography, everybody knows they’re “fake”. Still they look like ribs and they taste like ribs. So might as well be ribs.

And on buns too, with pickles. Who’d ever think of that?

An older person I once knew used to say that “Sometimes only grease will do.” I think of her and what she said every time I go to the “Waffle House.” And sometimes to McDonald’s. There’s just no substitute for grease!

Do you remember “lard”?

Yolande Robbins is a community correspondent for The Vicksburg Post. You may email her at  yolanderobbins@fastmail.com