Fried Neck Bones…and some home fries

I’ve been criticized by some since I’ve started this site for endorsing unhealthy eating habits and foods. Of course I deny this vehemently. All the vegetables, starches, fish, fowl, meats, and all their byproducts I’ve covered here over the years are maybe not the best choices, but certainly not the worst. Most of the restaurants discussed in these electronic pages serve food prepared lovingly by moms and pops from recipes handed down from generation to generation. What could be bad about that?

But to satisfy the few who do think I should at least give a nod to what is considered healthy food, I offer today’s special, a self proclaimed super food.

Some of the menu choices at the super food establishment I entered were wraps and salads, burgers made from either “100 percent grass-fed bison” or “homemade veggie burgers,” “power plates,” like the “lumberjack,” a chicken breast with roasted vegetables over brown rice with either lentil or chili soup, and entrees like quinoa turkey meatloaf, tofu stir fry.

My body not used to super food components, I was wary of a harsh reaction to them. I did not want to suffer a health food overdose. So after a long deliberation, remembering happily the sloppy Joe’s of my youth, I choose the “bison sloppy Joe.”

I was expecting this.

It came out very quickly. Encased in a cardboard-like whole wheat wrap. I was hungry and quickly tore it in half and took a bite. The let down was immediate. The taste memory in my brain was bitterly disappointed. This was nothing like the Manwich I remembered so fondly. There were black beans, cannellini and kidney beans inside along with brown rice and a scant amount of undressed cole slaw. If there was a barbecue sauce as advertised, I couldn’t taste it.

I got this.

My mouth needed lubricating after the very dry, bland bite—the only flavor was from the unfortunate gaminess of the bison. I reached for my bottle of water and drank half of it.

Super?

For me to continue, I had to find something to give the wrap flavor. I asked for sauce and was given a green, cilantro/jalapeno hot sauce. I doused the wrap liberally with the sauce and almost miraculously it became edible.

Maybe it was the perceived goodness of the ingredients, or maybe I was just getting used to the unfamiliar, healthy taste of the wrap, as I worked on the second half of the wrap I was beginning to actually like what I was eating. I did, however, need the rest of my bottle of water to wash it down

Green hot sauce helped.

I can’t really testify to the health benefits of the super food sloppy Joe wrap as opposed to, maybe, the pepper and egg hero at Parisi’s (The Hero of Mott Street ). Only our nutritionists know what constitutes a super food, and they seem to change that definition hourly. So though I have no proof to the superior nutritional qualities of what mom and pop prepare, I will continue to patronize their establishments and keep the faith that oxtail stew or ox tongue and tripe among other things will one day appear on that super food list.

Tags: Cheap Eats, culture, Food, Health Food, humor, New York City, restaurants, Vegetables