Page 7 - NOV2021 Digial Issue

ful to be with so many old friends and new friends. As to the Thanksgiving feast, we need buckets of roasted peanuts in the shell. While everyone waits for the feast to begin, they can eat peanuts and toss peanuts at each other the way we used to do at Crockett’s in Tullahoma Thursday night at The Jack. Bad, here’s ribbin’ you.”
Bad made sure everyone added at least one dish idea to the feast. And so it went. Fred, Merle, David, Craig, Peggy, Gary, Cliff, Donny, Silky, Butch, Steve, Beadle, Karen, Jimmy, Frank, Donna, Ted, Marty, Big Will, “Wild Man” Barry, Al, Jerry Jeff, Jerry, Townes, Janet, Bob, Paul and others added PASTRAMI BEEF RIBS, BBQ BEANS, BRUNSWICK STEW, COLCANNON, GRILLED SHRIMP, BBQ BALONEY WITH HEAD COUNRY CHIPOTLE, SWEET POTATOES, DRESSING, CORNBREAD, TOOTSIE’S PINTO BEANS, GRILLED CORN ON THE COB, CHEESY CORN, GUMBO, CHEESY POTA- TOES, FRIED OKRA, PECAN PIE, HICKORY NUT PIE, PUMPKIN PIE, ICED TEA, GEORGE DICKEL, OLD FORESTER, OLD CROW, JACK BLACK, JACK GREEN, JACK SINGLE BARREL, JACK RYE,GENTLEMAN JACK, WILD TURKEY, MOONSHINE, HENNESSEY, COFFEE and so forth until The Rib went full circle to Bad.
“Before we end this chat, it is my honor to pass The Rib to our friend, Marrica. I asked her to tell us about the 16th century roots of birria. Marrica.”
“Thank you Bad. Hello dear friends. Isn’t it wonderful that here in Diddy-Wa-Diddy our friendships stretch across hundreds, thousands, and millions of years in Earth Time, and we all speak and understand the same language? Una, one of my best friends, is a Neanderthal. She has taught me umpteen tips about meat fire cooking that she learned dur- ing her Earth life in what they now call ‘Eurasia’ about 800,000 years ago. My Earth life preceded most of you here by only 500 years, and now here we are together in Diddy- Wa-Diddy, where Time is just another word for it doesn’t matter anymore.
“You may be interested to know that my name, Marrica, is one of the popular Aztec female names for Fire. Now, about birria. It’s a long story, but I’ll be brief. When Spanish con- quistadors invaded my homeland in 1521 I was only five years old, but I remember it well. Remembering those sol- diers, I smell goats, stinky goats with tough, gamey meat, which I learned to like due to birria. Long story short, our preferred meat at that time was beef, but the Spaniards lit- tered our landscape with so many goats that our best op- tion for decreasing the goat population was to eat them! Naturally, that led to innovations in cooking and seasoning the goat meat so it was tender and tasted good. Our birria is a slow-cooked rich goat stew seasoned with chili peppers and various herbs. Cooks use a mix of traditional and unique seasonings. The name expresses our early attitude about goats. Birria means worthless. However, to me and
many others it is now priceless. Is that enough about birria for you Bad?”
“Thank you Marrica. That was perfect! And you know that getting a perfect from Bad is good! The rest of the birria story is how birria, cheese and tacos came about. It’s a much more recent story, beginning about three decades ago in Los Angeles when Mexican food truck proprietors began selling beef birria tacos. They caught on like wildfire over most of California and from there the rest of the coun- try. It took barbecuers to rock the birria taco to the next level of greatness. They introduced barbecued meat and grilled cheese to the birria taco and now that is spreading like wildfire.
“As far as I know, QUESABIRRIA SMOKED TURKEY TACOS are brand new. I’d love to see them play a star role in every- one’s Thanksgiving Feast this year. Meanwhile, the Thanks- giving feast we’ve envisioned awaits us in Angelo’s Celestial Picnic Pavilion. Have a TURKEY TACO, Pilgrims. Let’s eat!”
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