# McDonalds Mcrib sandwich mouse fiasco **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 17, 1999, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628 "1999-08-17T20:36:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mikew711](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@mikew711](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikew711)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 1999, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/1 "1999-08-17T20:36:00Z")
A co-worker and I got in a heated debate over this topic. He claims that in 1992 or so a man inadvertely ate a mouse with is McRib sandwich. The bad press that resulted was the cause of the demise of this sandwich. I said fooey the sandwich stunk. Does anyone else know anything about this? ---
**Author:** ![According\_to\_Pliny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@According\_to\_Pliny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/According_to_Pliny)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 1999, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/2 "1999-08-17T20:44:00Z")
IMO the inclusion of real meat (even mouse flesh) would have been a great improvement for the McRib sandwich. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 1999, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/3 "1999-08-17T21:21:00Z")
The whole “someone found a mouse in their {fill in blank}” is pretty much an urban legend. ---
**Author:** ![Chef\_Troy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 1999, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/4 "1999-08-17T21:58:00Z")
Lumpy, if you found a mouse in your {fill in the blank} I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself. _wink_ In any case the McRib is not completely defunct. It appears as a seasonal item in the summer, at least here in the South. * * * Live a Lush Life Da Chef ---
**Author:** ![Bluepony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Bluepony](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bluepony)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 1999, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/5 "1999-08-17T22:05:00Z")
I think it’s because the field mice we have down don’t have as much preservatives or hormones like northern mice. Makes for a better cut of McRib, if I do say so myself. * * * “…send lawyers, guns, and money…” ``` Warren Zevon ``` ---
**Author:** ![Rodd\_Hill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3ab097/32.png) [@Rodd\_Hill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodd_Hill)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 1999, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/6 "1999-08-17T22:05:00Z")
As a survivor of the McRib (Canada) campaign of circa '82, I’ll add my two bits. We used to fry about 20 or so of these pre-formed pork patties, then dunk em in the stainless heated holding tank, full of what we called ‘agent orange sauce’. The sauce would permanently stain anything (except stainless steel) that it came in contact with; furthermore, the wooden-handled spatulas that you would stir the evil brew with every so often used to last about 5 days before the sauce ate through the wooden handle. I can recall no-one buying one of these puppies between 6pm and closing (12 midnight). There was one overnight cleaner who used to sit down and eat all the leftover McRibs. They truly were a breed apart. ---
**Author:** ![dwtno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@dwtno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwtno)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 1999, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/7 "1999-08-17T22:24:00Z")
This may reveal more about me than I care to disclose but… I’ve always loved the McRib. Call it a guilty pleasure. The tender meat-like substance, the tangy glowing sauce, the malformed shape - truly the pinnicle of fast-food achievement. When it shows up on the menu (it’s a seasonal item) I can be found making frequent trips down to the neighborhood Micky Dee’s. I eat 'em, two, three at a sitting (minus the onions and pickles). I love those things! Did you ever stop to realize what that shape was supposed to represent? Look closely the next time you order one. (You will order one, right?) They’ve included the bone shapes as well as the meat shapes in the patty. Do they think we actually eat the bones when we sit down to consume a rack of ribs? Maybe in other backwards southern communities they do, but in my backward southern sommunity, we take the time to discard the bones. It’s inattention to details like this that will eventually doom this delicasy McRib Lovin’ Derek ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 1999, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/8 "1999-08-18T04:01:00Z")
When I worked briefly at a McDonalds in downstate Illinois, we had the McRib all year long. So, I don’t think a “recall” ever actually occured. Rather, it was mainly phased out of most markets due to lack of sales. * * * “I guess it is possible for one person to make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.” ---
**Author:** ![Babar714](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Babar714](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babar714)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 1999, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/9 "1999-08-18T05:35:00Z")
I’d like me some french-fried pertaters. I reckon what you like to eat in there? I kinda like MacRibs. Kinda like candy corn. I could have one, maybe two in a month. Then it makes my sick. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 1999, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/10 "1999-08-18T14:16:00Z")
Not being a McDonald’s customer, I’m totally in the dark about this food product. How the heck do you make a sandwich out of pork spare ribs? (from the above, I intuit that the filling had as much to do with pork ribs as the nuggets have to do with an actual chicken.) Why did the McDonald’s marketing department feel that a notoriously bony, fatty cut of meat, albeit a popular and sensually evocative one, would translate to sandwichdom? For the record, I AM a meat-eater. I just try to treat the stuff with some respect when I prepare it, so that the lil piggies and lambies will not have died in vain… * * * Uke ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 1999, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/11 "1999-08-18T18:00:00Z")
Ike, reminds me of what John Waters once said: “I’d never eat anything that didn’t give up its life for me–makes it taste better.” Just for the record, I’m a carnie, too. Umm, I mean I eat meat, not that I work at a carnival. Uk–now that I think of it, does “carnival” mean “meat fair?” ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 1999, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/12 "1999-08-18T18:15:00Z")
“Carnies. Circus folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands.” ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 1999, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/13 "1999-08-18T18:27:00Z")
Flora, ah, yes! Mr. Waters’ favorite breakfast: 40 pieces of bacon and a gallon of whole milk. Just the way to start a busy day of “calling the box offices of the theaters in town playing the most embarrassing movies so I can hear the mortified employees say the title.” See “Puff Piece (101 Things I Love),” one of the funniest essays of the late 20th century, in CRACKPOT: THE OBSESSIONS OF JOHN WATERS, Macmillan, 1986. AWB: Source, please! That was vaguely familiar, and I won’t be able to sleep tonight until I can place it. * * * Uke ---
**Author:** ![Kristen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c4cdca/32.png) [@Kristen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kristen)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 1999, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-mcrib-sandwich-mouse-fiasco/2628/14 "1999-08-18T19:50:00Z")
actually, i think carnival means “farewell to flesh” in italian. . .kind related to meat