Lost Transmissions: DingoRibs
Created | Updated Nov 20, 2011
Entry: DingoRibs (TM).
The dingo1 is a medium-sized dog-like creature that survives by scavenging the kills of other larger animals and is the backbone of some of the more adventurous food chains.
Those species that revel in cooking and eating what is effectively a walking garbage disposal unit tend to be tough, sturdy races with atomic-grade bacteria in their digestive systems2. Their cookbooks, once these races had made interstellar contact and their ethnic cuisine was fleetingly perceived as fashionable, didn’t sell a single copy, not even to the Dentrassi who would have used the recipes to gleefully poison their employers, i.e. the Vogons.
However, once these charming animals had been exported to poorer worlds to eat any mountains of foetid trash they happened to have lying about3 after, say, a catastrophic environmental disaster or an extinction level meteor impact, found that once everything else had been devoured the dingos were, in fact, the only option.
The kidneys, as we all know, are toxic to all life as they contain the filtered remains of everything the dingos cannot digest, which is a short and vile list that will not be repeated here4. In short, dingo’s kidneys make wonderful pest control but should be avoided as food.
As for the rest of the animal, once the meat has been shaved, hosed down, boiled, left in the sun to dry out, roasted, carved, diced, filtered and blasted with radiation, small amounts could eventually be used in desperation to make a thin soup, provided you happened to have a lot of other ingredients with overpowering flavours.
This posed a bit of a problem. Due to the vast waste supply that only the dingos seemed willing to eat, their numbers exploded into vast wandering packs, eating everything in their path. Something had to be done.
Enter the four-time winner of the Star of Andromeda chef Nooom-Akracheim "Hey! Call me Nooom, whydon’tcha?" Bronsk-Jo’honson. He surveyed the dingos with a critical eye, sharpened his knives and leapt. Months passed, the only sounds emanating from his impenetrable research kitchen being loud, tearful retching5.
Many ingredients passed through those hallowed portals only to be rejected and replaced with yet more potent and powerful spices.
The news crews of the assembled galactic media set up camp and waited, their small tent city wafting gently in the breeze as local farmers set up their stalls and overcharged them for everything, especially toilet paper.
A firm favourite was the K’hlong stall of Mu’hug Queslar, a kind of barbecue rib shack that served everything covered in a dense sticky sauce that was so good you could have eaten a car battery and asked for a second helping.
Days later Nooom appeared and shook his head. There was nothing to be done. While he was speaking Queslar handed him a plate of K’hlong and so his interview was given around much satisfied chewing and smacking of lips. Nooom was explaining his efforts as his chewing slowed. He stared down at the plate, stared up at Queslar’s smiling face, took the man by the shoulder and vanished into a tent.
No one is sure exactly what was said6 in that meeting but, as Nooom’s DingoRibs franchises appear on every landmass large enough to stand up on and Queslar’s private planet was built on commission from Magrathea, it was inevitable that the dingo would soon become an endangered species and die out.
These days no one knows what goes into a DingoRibs meal but, thanks to Queslar’s incredible sauce, nobody really cares.
Entry Ends.
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