Sertoma Chicken BBQ

 The Sertoma Club has been hosting "The World's Largest Chicken BBQ" at Long's Park in Lancaster for 57 years. Am I alone in not knowing anything else at all about the Sertoma Club? This is it right? I only hear their name once a year and its always in conjunction with a chicken barbecue. In fact, I can't think of a chicken barbecue anywhere ever without also thinking about the Sertoma Club. So I guess, if their goal was to create a legacy of barbecued chicken, congratulations Sertomans, you've done it! Now, I'm sure they are a wonderful organization that does many great things, and I am just too lazy to find out what, all I'm saying is: Sertoma. Chicken. Barbecue.

I have never taken part in the Sertoma Chicken BBQ, because the only other thing that I know about it, its that you AVOID HARRISBURG PIKE AT ALL COST on the day of the Sertoma Chicken BBQ. Through the years, I would occasionally get stuck in the unbelievably backed up line of cars. I would vow to never again make such a mistake, and NEVER EVER contribute to it by actually going to the Sertoma Chicken BBQ. I've stopped being such a curmudgeon (or maybe I've become more of one) and this year decided, "Meh... Why not? What's all the fuss about?"  To make a long story short - the answer is "Not much." Lets talk about it anyway...

I bought my tickets the night before and Saturday morning woke up super early (10 AM !!!), and set out for Long's Park. The line of cars by 10:30am was backed up about 3/4 of a mile. This added about 15 minutes to a normally 2 minute drive. Once inside the park, we opted to do the "drive thru" option and  we were looped around and around until one lane suddenly became two and it was time for everyone to get their chicken. The cars ahead of me were getting chicken by the ton it seemed, workers going back and forth shoveling box after box of chicken dinners into backseats, trunks, roof racks, anything.. These people GOTTA HAVE THEIR CHICKEN! I guess. Finally it was my turn, and with box in hand, I was on my way.
The whole "ordeal" took about 30 minutes. It was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. I took a different way to work later that day though, so I don't know... It might have gotten crazy later on.

As soon as I got  home I cracked the box open and was surprised by everything included inside. Sort of. All the components were there, chicken, potato chips, a drink, fruit, a small desert, candy bars... (candy bars?). Now lets have a closer look...

Okay. Fair enough. 57 years of doing this has brought one thing.. Sponsorship. I imagine the first few years, before it became a thing, the Sertoma Chicken BBQ was full of homemade goodies, cupcakes, maybe coleslaw, or maybe it was always just chicken, potato chips and candy bars.. wait, what?

Turkey Hill is a MAJOR sponsor, that's cool, I like Turkey Hill products, and most of the sponsors are "local" so that's nice. Turkey Hill specializes in delicious iced tea drinks and ice cream, both in a very wide variety of flavors. You would think there might be some choice here, or variety, but as far as I could tell everyone got one of these...

DIET?!?! WTF?! I'm about to eat a half a chicken... I think I'll be alright with the regular stuff, or at least let me choose. I promise I would never choose diet ever. That sweet Aspartame drip in the back of my throat that comes from fake sweetened diet drinks makes me gag every time. This was destined for the garbage can. And hey, maybe other people don't like "peach" or "white tea" and if you're not going to let the people decide, just throw in a bottle of water. Even I can't find anything to complain about with water.
Anyway...
Apparently, it wasn't so much of a "for your health" thing with Turkey Hill offering this diet poison, probably more that they just had a surplus of it sitting around because NO ONE BUYS IT. How do I know? Because they had no problem throwing in some "not diet at all" ice cream/gelato/sorbet thing:

These are okay, if you can't make it to Lititz for the REAL DEAL, or if you get it for free in a box with your chicken BBQ dinner. Otherwise, I'll pass.

I didn't bother taking a picture of the bag of Herr's potato chips or the roll, they are there, you can see them. We all know what rolls and potato chips look like. I guess the Herr's potato chips were there to play the part of the "vegetable" in this very well balanced meal.

There was a banana peeking out from under the bag of chips though, hmmm..

Wait, Whuuuut?

This banana looked more like a plantain. I did not adjust the colors here, it was also GREEN. What gives Spring Glen? I know you had 30,000 of these things to pack up for the World's Largest Chicken BBQ, but really? you couldn't have just skipped this banana for a yellow one? or maybe one that was a bit larger... here is a photo of the banana on top of the popular teen girl novel Twilight (I took this photo this morning, after letting the banana ripen for 4 days) to show you how small this banana is.:

 It's my girlfriend's book.

TINY! And completely inedible on the day it was served.  

So let's recap.

1) Gross tea. 

2) "Meh" ice cream/gelato/sorbet thing.

3) Herr's potato chips.

4) a roll.

5) an unripened baby banana. 

Pretty healthy so far... Oh wait... 

Really?

Are these necessary? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE candy, and looking at everything else, these were shaping up to be the best part of this meal. But why do we need them? We already have the ice cream/gelato/sorbet thing, seems like that would be the "dessert". And why do I need SEVEN of these things? Why not an even eight? I figure they got some sponsorship money from M&M Mars and just decided that they would throw in a quick handful like its some kid's Halloween candy bag so they can keep getting the sponsor money coming. Okay. Whatever. We all need sponsors (hint hint), and who doesn't like Twix?

Oh wait, I almost forgot.. The Chicken:

Looks pretty great right? Well...

Fresh out of the bag, it was cold. Not warm. Cold. Okay, its one of 30,000... they probably cooked it up at around 5am, and its been in a bag, in a box, for at least 5 hours... Understandable, so, following the instructions on the bag, I reheated it in the oven for about 15 minutes.

The leg, or drumstick, or whatever you want to call it, was first, and it was great. Tender, greasy, and delicious, the meat fell completely off the bone. Then it was time to attack the rest of this thing... 

We're talking about HALF of a chicken here. A LOT of meat, and most of it was disappointing. Sorry. Here's the thing, I never liked chicken that much, but lately I've been warming up to it, a few wings here, a chicken breast sandwich there, when done right, I've found chicken to be 100% delicious, and I was wrong all those years to avoid it. I think the reason I never really liked it was due to too much of this type of chicken barbecue chicken. 

This was not the barbecue I was looking for. I wanted sauce, melted into the skin of meat, burned and caramelized ever so slightly. Nope. This was more like "smoked" and thats it. So I guess in this case, "BBQ" means cooking outside with fire and smoke. The exterior was tasty, yes, but after I finished with the skin (which was the best part) the meat didn't really do it for me, maybe there was too much and I was just tired of it, but I found it to be a little on the dry side, and each bite got harder and harder to swallow.

I probably should have added some barbecue sauce to dip the dryer pieces into, but why should I? I must take these meals at face value. As prepared. Plus, I was out of barbecue sauce.

Look, I get it, like I said, 30,000+ of these dinners have to be packed up and ready to devour ALL DAY. This is a HUGE DEAL for a lot of people, the people making it happen, and the people who GOTTA HAVE THEIR CHICKEN!! I understand. I'm just saying that maybe with all of the corporate sponsorships and all the striving to have the "Worlds Largest Chicken BBQ" they've compromised quality a little bit. Maybe I just shouldn't complain so much, it was only $8 (which is a great deal no matter how you look at it) and its all for a good cause (next year's Sertoma Chicken Barbecue?). My job is simply to call it like I see it, or rather "taste it". And I was disappointed. There I said it. 

4.0

Oh.