Mystery Meat

Sometimes the food at shows leaves quite a bit to the imagination.

There's the questionable salad that might be potato, but could also be macaroni... or even a sad, sad, coleslaw.

There's the jugs of ambiguous juice or lemonade or sweet tea or unsweet tea... Or the big tubs with nozzles containing who knows what?

That being said, the most amorphous food item on the tour catering menu is the Mystery Meat.

This is the steaming pot of brown sludge next to the buns and forks. Inside that pot, soaking in a gallon and a half of barbeque sauce, are gobs of a meat-like substance which is supposed to be shoveled onto a bun. I want to believe that this is pulled pork, but there really is no way of telling.

Now, for you southern folks, I don't want you to get the wrong idea here. I really do like proper barbeque. That is not what I'm talking about here... That is like the difference between a bentley and a ball of belly button lint. Or, if you prefer, apples and oranges.

There are a lot if southern folks on this winterjam tour, and we play a lot of southern cities. The southern hospitality of these people and places is wonderful... And we've had some great southern cooking on winterjam...

But the mystery meat has, and probably always will, give me just a little shudder.