Day 5 - A chicken salad sandwich, a side of fresh fruit, and a sparkling water
Look, I know Nia is short, but did the AT really have to order something off the kids menu for her? This is just insulting. A sandwich is a snack, not a meal, and whilst I do like a fresh fruit as much as the next person, you're probably just going to be more hungry after all the sugar in it spikes your insulin. Sparkling water is also shit and inferior to regular water. Fight me sparkling water people.
Day 7 - A [allegedly] nice bowl of chili with cornbread
Given that this was sitting out for at least an hour, this meal would probably be the driest thing known to mankind. Cornbread already makes me feel like I'm just pouring flour mixed with grease into my mouth, and adding a chilli that's cold and soaked up all it's sauce into the mince, I'd be absolutely ruining this with the palette destroying taste of purified water. Gross!
Bad Tier
Day 6 - A plate of beef and cheese enchiladas with Spanish rice and refried beans
This suffers from the same problem as the chilli and cornbread, in that it seems specifically designed to make you need to drink, but without providing anything that doesn't taste like ass to actually take in. I'm not entirely convinced that whoever designed these two meals for the kids was some sort of secret sadist, trying to ruin the one taste of non-awful food they've fought for, which is a major dick move. That said, I'm a slut for refried beans so this goes up a tier.
Day 3 - Blackened chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and seasoned green beans
Again, where
is the moisture?! - If you even added some gravy to this it'd be a solid Good Tier meal, but no! I do love almost every component of this meal though, especially if the seasoning on those beans is some butter and pepper, that shit is the bomb. Chicken and mash is simple but great, and blackened chicken gives you a bit of a texture contrast that you don't normally get, with the crunch of the skin going up against the smoothness of the mash.Acceptable Tier
Day 10 - Chicken-fried steak and collard greens
Man, Abe got cucked with this meal, because the terrorists just gave out a better version of it three days later to someone else. That's rough. Apart from the LACK OF DRINK, this meal is pretty great - And I find that steak, if you cook it properly (e.g, barely), doesn't need moisture to go with it most of the time. That's a little more suspect given that chicken fried steak is generally a super thin cut, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. One other big problem here though is the lack of different flavours to make the meal really pop, as both the steak and the greens are a relatively savoury/unami taste - and they're both going to have similar textures as well, being slightly crunchy but not really. Still, I'd be pretty happy with this meal.
Day 9 - Three mini lobster rolls, a bowl of potato salad and two liters of coke
There's a lot to like here, even if I'm not the biggest fan of lobster. You've got some noticably different flavours and textures, with the crunchy-salty of the rolls, and the soft-unami of the potato salad, and a decent drink to top it off. The thing keeping this from being in good tier though is the size of it, at least from my definition of mini rolls, which are the little starter sized ones. A full portion of those in a meal is like, 9, minimum, let's be real here.
Good Tier
Day 8 - Chicken and waffles, with syrup and a pitcher of grape flavor-aid
Do my eyes deceive me, or do we finally have a SAUCE? Someone call a doctor, I think the cook's got a fever! This is actually generally hated in the UK, and I can only order it from specifically American style restaurants, but I'm a huge fan of the meat + sweet dough combo. The idea of drinking grape flavoured water with it is kind of offputting, I'd much prefer a coffee or something else, but I suppose the bitterness taste profiles match up so maybe it wouldn't be too bad. This would likely be incredibly filling, as well, as the chicken is almost certainly breaded and fried - So whilst you'll probably wish you had more later on in the island, you won't by the time you're done eating it. Ideal.
Day 2 - pulled-pork sliders with coleslaw and a Coke
Bread and meat is quite possibly the single most common food combination in all of human history, and that is for a goddamn reason. The slider represents the apex of many thousands of years of effort to provide the most efficient way to put bread and meat into your mouth at the same time, and quite frankly, I think that's great. The coleslaw gives you some extra texture and differing flavours, and you also get the all important drink. Out of everything on the list, this is the thing I'm craving the most, as I cut bread out of my diet a few weeks ago and oh god I miss it.
Great Tier
Day 12 - BBQ ribs and root beer
This is a very uncomplicated meal, but I am a very uncomplicated man when it comes down to it. There's something primal and great about just ripping meat off a bone with your teeth that you don't get with other food, and whilst it's not the most filling, it's so tender and full of fat that you don't normally mind. I do wonder what specific type of BBQ sauce they used, as that could take it all the way up to god tier if it's a whiskey based BBQ, or down to inedible tier if it's Kraft ownbrand sauce. Root beer isn't my favourite drink, but it goes well with the meal, and the carbonation will help you feel satisfied after devouring the ribs in approximately 12 seconds after seeing them.
Day 11 - A buffalo chicken pizza and a two-liter of Sprite
Pizza is great. I believe in the maxim that there is only so bad pizza can be, and whilst BBQ chicken pizzas are more sketchy than my preferred Hawaiian (which whilst it will never be the best pizza you eat, will never be the worst), bread-sauce-meat is impossible to completely balls up. Sprite is also a much superior fizzy drink to coke, adding some more acidity to counterbalance the sweetness, and not clinging to the palette as much in my experience. Highly rate this meal.
God Tier
Day 13 - Chicken fried steak with a side of macaroni and cheese and a nice chilled can of Tennessee beer
Let's be real, this is just glorious. Greasy goodness, slathered in bacon fat and cheese, with a drink that actually fits with the meal? The only issue with this meal is that maybe the trauma of SOTF would cause you to be unable to eat Macaroni again. Bone apple tea, my friends
Day 4 - A plate of pork and vegetable dumplings, fried rice, and a Coke
This meal checks all the boxes I want - A mixture of different flavours and textures that combine well, which we get in the crispy, savoury meat dumplings and more sweet vegetable dumplings, plus the fluffy/squidgy heterogenous texture of the fried rice, accompanied with a drink that compliments it like the Coke. My only complaint is that the Coke is likely to be too sweet and overpower the other flavours, so I'd prefer a subtle white wine, or gin and tonic - But beggars can't be choosers!
