Dunkin' Donuts, You've Flown Too Close To The Sun

By Kristy Puchko | Guides | January 9, 2017 |

I love bacon, like all good, non-trolling humans. I love it candied or chocolated. I love it as chips. I love it in whiskey. I love it in cocktails. But on this dark day in human history, I learned there is a bacon food combo that is purely revolting: the Dunkin’ Donuts’ Sweet Black Pepper Bacon Sandwich.

I know. It sounds good! Bacon is good. The croissant sandwich is good. AND WHAT IF THE BACON WAS ALSO CARAMELIZED AND ALSO BLACK PEPPERED! Yeah. No. It’s too much. It’s Icarus. It goes too far and is too foolish. And so it crashes and burns, scorching your taste buds with its shuddering repellence.

Looking down the end of a long workday. I decided to treat myself with a Dunkin’ run. I went with an open mind, hoping some seasonal pastry would catch my eye. And then I saw “Sweet Black Pepper Bacon Sandwich.” Impulsively, I ordered. The promise of Sweet next to Pepper perhaps should have made me wary. Looking back, I think my brain may have misjudged the poster. I read it as:

But this “sweet” is not an exclamation. It’s an intense, unrelenting mouthful of sugar. I bit in and it felt like I’d done a shot of simple syrup. With eggs. I gagged. Then as I chewed, the slick of sweet gave way to a burning pepper. Somehow both flavor elements of this promising new sandwich are all wrong, out of whack, and frankly evil.

My loving husband looked at me with concern. I lamented the dreams of delicious that died on my tongue. His eyebrow quivered, curious. As he harbors an inexplicable aversion to egg sandwiches, I handed him a bit of bacon on its own. I watched his face brace as he bit. “Wow. That is sweet. Like really sugary,” he said, mulling and chewing. Then he coughed softly, “And there’s the pepper.”

We agreed that maybe, maybe the bacon would be salvageable on its own. So I stripped it from the sandwich and mopped off its residue from the cheese and eggs as best I could. But still, it stings of sweet. Sweet eggs and American cheese. I sit here staring sadly at the dismantled sandwich I can’t bring myself to eat.

In my head echoes the long ago scorn of my Catholic high school’s cafeteria monitor, “You should eat all of that. People are starving over there.” The over there was always unclear, but the Catholic guilt needed no such specifics to pang at our very cores. Still. My tongue cringes as I even consider placing the Sweet Black Pepper Bacon Sandwich on it once more. I didn’t know a tongue could cringe.

Maybe a bit more of the bacon. On its own…NO! Good lord! How do you ruin bacon!? In striving to perfect the breakfast sandwich, Dunkin’ Donuts scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should!

Kristy Puchko knows this is first world problems. We still get to have those. People who complain about it in the comments will meet the might of her banhammer.

Kristy Puchko is the managing editor of Pajiba. You can follow her on Twitter.

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