Pork BBQ? BBQ? BBQ???

As promised, I supported Canada’s pork industry today in the East Block Courtyard.

I showed up early in order to scout the location and chat with the reporters who were on site to cover the event – CBC had a live truck, RDI was also doing live hits; TVA, CTV, OMNI, CP, Maclean’s and the Hill Times were also on the spot.

It seemed a bit disorganized at first – I showed up at 11:30 sharp, and they didn’t seem to be ready.   They were moving stuff around, setting up a sound system.  Worse, the BBQs weren’t blazing!

Two long tables were set up with non-pork items – cookies, brownies, vegetables, cheese.  No sign of pork.  I started to get a little worried – did they forget to bring some hog along?

A few minutes of waiting around and talking to politicos and media-types, and finally they brought the buns and trays of  steaming pulled pork.

I was disappointed – I was expecting something with more bang – like sausages, pork chop sandwiches, or some bacon explosion, but the Canadian Pork Council wanted to stay classy and low key.

But I was here for the right reason – supporting our pork producers.

So I lined up, ignored the cameras zooming in and got myself a pulled pork sandwich.

This pulled pork was “Au Naturel” – no BBQ sauce, no sloppiness.  Just pulled pork, in its own juice.  Big chunks too, which made it hard to fill the bun properly.  No worries, I added some cheese to stabilize it all.  The pork was quite tender, but I would have liked some sauce with it. I mean, here we has a BBQ with no barbecueing and no BBQ sauce.  Was it really a BBQ, or was I had?

Nevertheless, my sandwich was pretty good, and as the Agriculture Minister was using the event as a photo-op, and Iggy was jumping the queue, others started to get worried they wouldn’t get any.