This is the food of my people

Basically it’s a pork doughnut with a cult following. And until you sink your teeth into the crispy crust you just won’t get it.

My devotion to these lightly breaded and battered pork sirloin patties – tossed in a deep fryer until golden then set atop a bready mustard-smeared bun, and topped with fresh onion and pickles – began in early childhood.

Family folklore states that dad first brought me to Pork Chop John’s, a distinctive Butte institution that’s been creating cravings for Montana emigrants for decades, the day my first tooth broke the surface and signaled a readiness for solid food. I enjoyed a few splended years of relative PCJ’s regularity, but all that changed when my family packed up and moved back to Spokane in the late-‘70s.

This place, for all its glories, was a relative pork chop sandwich wasteland. For almost 30 years I pined for that one-of-a-kind flavor. (No, Butte doesn’t skew highly on my travel agenda.) Conversations with other Butte expats always included the wistful query: “Been to Pork Chop John’s lately?” Sigh.

And then, a few weeks ago, thanks to the famished teenager who demanded we eat something – like now, before he died of starvation (again) – our car veered off Trent into the Chattee’s Drive-In parking lot.

The skies opened up and dropped a serving of perfection on the table right there in front of me. Crispy on the outside. Hot, tender porkiness on the inside. Served with a heap of fries and (as if life could be filled with any more unexpected pleasure) a big icy cold glass of Diet Dr. Pepper.

The owners tell me their perfect-o pork patties come from the same place that Pork Chop John’s do. I say they come straight from heaven. You be the judge.