Fans of processed meats, unite!

Last week the Crew's favorite red-head mentioned an intense fondness for braunschweiger (a tubular shaped loaf of smoked liver paste)...and with that came the early-beginnings of a lunchtime challenge. This week, that intrepid red-head located said braunschweiger and divided it, pizza style, into wedges for the groups consumption. All personal opinions of the mystery meat aside, the cold cut truth is that the collective 2pmLunchCrew palette is peppered with processed meat fondness.

Sure, we've all experimented...dabbled in the world of jerky, canned 'chicken,' and the ever-present and often force-fed mystery meats favored by cafeteria workers. (Have you ever seen a frozen turkey-loaf that is half dark meat on the bottom and half white meat on top? You literally cook this processed-turkey-meat-hybrid and slice it, so you have a perfectly shaped 50-50 meat patty every time! Ponder that for a minute). But in the hierarchy of processed meats, somewhere between the seemingly indestructible SPAM can and the Holy of Holys...the corn dog*...fall a selection of lovable and unhealthy eats that tickle the tastebuds. For every braunschweiger fan in the 2pmLunchCrew there is a devotee of bologna or salami. There is deep affection held for the summer sausage, non-all-beef hot dog, and McDonald's chicken nuggets (What exactly are those hard little bits you chomp down on every 8th nugget or so, and how has McDonalds avoided a lawsuit over the equally inevitable and exorbitant dentist bill that follows said chomp?). There is also a cheerleader for the elusive Amish Country made 'trail bologna' (still not sure what that is, but we're assured it's not a cow pie).

Despite the fact that we live in a world where stomach and ovarian cancer can be tied to the excessive consumption of processed meat, we continue to salivate when we smell baked made-with-rib-meat chicken patties. At the end of the day, you can grind up anything you want, mash it together and put it between bread and someone, somewhere will eat it. Our hunter-gather ancestors would be ashamed...but then they would probably taste a Rodeo Burger at which point they would put down their spears and don a Burger King crown.

*labeled as such because it is a self-contained meal on a stick, and everyone knows if it's on a stick its automatically superior (aka holy)