The Royals’ new ballpark food is absolutely terrifying

Would you eat this hot mess?

I’m a huge fan of really dumb stadium food, but sometimes Icarus flies too close to the sun. That’s the case with the Kansas City Royals. On Monday, the team unveiled its latest sandwich, which is more like a stoner’s fever dream than an actual food item people should enjoy.

Conceptually, I understand the idea here. It’s that blend of salty, smoke and sweet that makes BBQ appealing in general, but this is just way too much. The issue is that we have a salty vs. sweet arms race playing out between the buns, and the pork is caught in the middle with no escape.

I have extremely strong feelings about pulled pork. Living for 15 years in North Carolina will do that. In my book there’s only one real sauce that should be put on pulled pork and that’s vinegar based and slightly spicy. Anything else masks the smoke and effort that goes into pit roasting a whole hog for 15 hours. Throwing molasses based sauce on pork is like putting ketchup on a steak — a sin.

That said, there is a place for regular BBQ sauce — especially if the pork is lacking in natural flavor, so I’ll allow it. It’s here that the sandwich goes off the rails. Someone clearly said “let’s put peanut butter cups in it,” which tilted the balance too sweet, so to rectify that they went and added bacon to infuse more salt into the equation. The result is an absolute mess of a meal that should not be consumed by anyone.

If you’d eat this thing then more power to you. I cannot fathom putting this abomination anywhere near my face. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.