McDonald’s cult sandwich, introduced in 1981, was taken off the menu and just brought back this year for six weeks in December in Canada and the U.S.



It’s raining outside, and it’s dark. It’s five o’clock when I walk up to McDonald’s, its Play Place looming like a sinister castle in the gloom.

This is the home of a fast food legend.

The McRib

It sounded to me like an impressive sandwich that has five baby-back rib racks layered on top of each other, encased in a gargantuan bun dripping with barbecue sauce.

But this is McDonald’s we’re talking about—the McRib is nothing like a dripping Carl’s Jr. burger. How it became a cult icon is a mystery to me.

Introduced in 1981, the McRib was taken off of McDonald’s menu the first time in 1985 when sales fell in the U.S. The sandwich that inspired the McRib Locator is made of a defrosted pork patty with pickles, onions, and a barbecue sauce which is mostly high fructose corn syrup. 19 years and three McRib Farewell Tours later, the “Boneless Pig Farmers” were temporarily back in business this year for six weeks.

The price and the package

The average price of your McRib sandwich is $1.99 – ninety-nine cents for the pork, pickles, and onions, and the other dollar for the nice packaging, I presume. With fries and a fountain drink, the cost can go up to four or five dollars. After eating the McRib, you may be grateful to have the soda to wash it down.

Unlike McDonald’s other sandwiches and burgers wrapped unceremoniously in paper, the McRib receives its own box which declares, “Your old friend is back.” Whether that refers to the McRib or a rise in blood sugar escapes me.

The experience

The first thing I saw after opening that cheery red McRib box was a none-too-attractive bun sprinkled with something like sesame seeds. On the deflated bread sat the pork patty, where two pickle slices and nine chunks of onion sat bathed in grease.

I picked up the McRib. The bottom bun felt soggy (characteristic of many McDonald’s sandwiches), like it had been left in the rain, and smelled faintly of generic packet barbecue sauce. I looked around and noticed that no one else was eating a McRib—chicken nuggets, yes; fish burgers, yes; but the McRib—I was all by my lonesome.

The McRib is all bun and pork on that first bite. It occurred to me that I didn’t get any spicy sauce to go with my McRib, as the original in 1981 did. Without it, the McRib simply tastes like sugar, and the tangy flavor that’s advertised is absent. It doesn’t have much pizazz, flavor or presentation-wise, and I figure I could probably make this thing at home—and it would taste better.

I guess you would have to have had the original McRib back in 1981 to really appreciate what little is offered by this legend. At the end of the day, the McRib is just a 500 calorie ghost from fast food’s not-so-glorious past.

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