Chicago: The city of broad shoulders and short ribs

(cross-posted from Thrown for a Loop)

Don't tell my rabbi!

If there was justice in the world, there would be no RibFest. After all, ribs are hard to eat, messy and don't really contain all that much meat for the amount of trouble it takes to get to it. It took centuries of poverty and slavery for this castaway cut to have been elevated into a culinary art form. Only through the crucible of great injustice could the joy of ribs have been discovered.

RibFest is an annual event in Chicago's North Center neighborhood, centered at Irving Park and Lincoln Avenue. Thousands of people come out every to eat messy pork products in public in front of total strangers and their dogs and despite the unseasonably cold weather last weekend, it didn't dissapoint. Here's the rundown:

Cy's Ribs won the competition last year, so that's where I went for the main course: a half slab of baby backs, smothered in a Kansas CIty-style sweet and tangy sauce (pictured above). The meat was tender, if not plentiful, and the sauce was properly thick, smooth and sweet when licked off the bone, but packing a spicy finish that was crisp, but not overwhelming. Good stuff.

Probably not a local catch.

Grizzly's Lodge's Alligator. Served on a skewer without any sauce other than the cajun rub it was marinated with, this exotic meat tasted like very dry chicken. I've had alligator jerky before (so-so) but now I can die having consumed gator meat on a stick, perhaps because of it.

Homemade root beer: You can really tell the difference between soft drinks made with high fructose corn syrup and those made with real cane sugar - it's the reason why Mexican Coke tastes so much better than its American counterpart. Although some may have considered it a bit too flat, I liked it.

Colvin's boneless rib sandwich: One of my RibFest companions had this sandwich, which is really seperated rib meat pressed into a rib-shaped boneless pattie, slathered in sauce and served on a bun. He said he liked it, but what's the point of going to RibFest if you're not going to eat something messy? None of us were on first dates, so there's no excuse.

Deep Fried Twinkies, Snickers and Milky Ways: I promised myself that I'm going to the state fair this year, where I will probably have one of these. However, I would like to be able to do so in reasonably good health and without the aid of those scooters used by people who are too fat to walk. Skipping desert was my one act of self-control the entire day.

I'm back on the sauce