ANDERSON'S BARBECUE

Anderson's Barbecue exists in a realm of ghetto chaos, bookended by one defunct and one extant black college, as well as theological institute and two egyptian themed childcares (how often does one see IMHOPTEP SCHOOL sign replete with pharoah deathmask and alien constructed pyraminx?). Swarms of brick bungalow, burned out and failed businesses, urban zombies walking with one hand in perpetual tug on the genital region, Monte Carlos multiplying as if given ample bunny gene by some cranked-out Dr. Detroit, one hand in bluebook values, the other in pop-science apocalypse. (If Dave Mustaine hasn't written a song about it by now, he likely never will.)

Off Martin Luther King Dr it sits. Non-descript, enveloped in pulse of smoke. Memorial Day banner hangs from o'top, holiday faded out or perhaps inked out, which gives customers the ups on Anderson's as study in rampant linguistic negation. One look at a menu pondered, perplexed, revamped and crossed-out, NO in long Sharpie'd minus signs crawling with grease. There are pork ribs and beef ribs and chicken and stew. Customers can specify cuts and choose sides. But the real call of the wild is the $3 pig ear sandwich (marked $3.50 on the menu).

It's a simple and more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts affair. Kind of grub that will make the eater seriously reconsider this religion thing if genuflection is assumed to 1,000 pounds of porcine deity, a snorting, squealing, farting wobble of fat and meat that absolutely has no bad parts. Feet, ears, snout, tongue, brain, skin, belly, spleen, liver, heart. All good. No argument because none needed. Folks that bother not with the aforementioned are the types prone to washing their hands after a particularly energetic episode of Emeril Live. When ears are scorched of their hair and cooked down long enough to where the pink goes gray and the cartlige lies down in a relaxed blanket of white, they become sublime textural delicacies that should be as prized as sweetbreads.

Anderson's pig ear sandwich is two pig ears on white bread with ketchup, yellow mustard, and hot sauce. The ketchup and mustard mix --- something I've not had really since I was a kid --- is like a dressing composed of thumb tacks. Flavor is razor sharp. Heavy hand of cayenne based hot sauce (likely Trappey's or Texas Pete) gives the gelatinous, hotdogey ear a three alarm wake up. While it stews in wax paper and saran wrap on the way home the bread and ear and sauce complete that gymnastic orgy of symbiotic meld that usually only happens after 24hrs sequestered in a dark fridge. Crack a beer. Unwrap that sandwich. Be strong, Children of the Beast, and shout at the Devil.