Last week, the Orioles released their annual announcement of this season’s culinary offerings at Camden Yards and, as always, it reads like the menu at The Last Days of the Roman Empire. The week before Opening Day, the team sends out a press release boasting of dishes assembled from various combinations of meat, butter, sugar and tallow shoved into some kind of waffle.

I’ve been to hundreds of games at that ballpark and I’ve yet to ever see anyone return to his or her seat with a macaroni-and-cheese-crab-hot dog wrapped in bacon. That could mean that A) no one has ever purchased that particular monstrosity or B) the guy who did purchase it didn’t live long enough to make it back to his seat.

The Birds have outdone themselves this year. Witness:

• A burnt-ends barbecue hot dog – Marylanders know that burnt ends are the charred remains of a hunk of beef cooked over a charcoal pit. And like the duds at the bottom of the popcorn barrel, they’re the best part. So sprinkle half a pound or so of those crispy carcinogens onto your nitrates and dig on in!
• Fried chicken tenders on a potato roll, topped with crab dip – Do we have to put crab meat on everything? This feels like it’s not even meant for people from Baltimore. Sure, we eat crabs. But not on chicken tenders. We’re not savages.
• Macaroni-and-cheese or meatball twisters – Step one: select your fatty mixture. Step two: dump it all into a braided bread cone. Step three: Insert face. Bonus: a meatball twister sounds like a medical ailment. “I had a meatball twister once, but I had it corrected laparoscopically.”
• Chicken, mushroom, beef or vegetable dumplings from Pinch in the Mt. Vernon Market – OK, now we’re getting somewhere. Unless this is a misprint and somebody forgot to write “and dump crab meat and Cheez Whiz all over them.”
• And finally, something called The Chipper – Three or four different concoctions involving pork rinds.

Behold, the Bacon Pork Rind Chipper, topped with cheese sauce, diced bacon, shredded cheddar, sour cream and scallions.

“Don’t you have anything more … y’know, filling?”

Sure we do! May we recommend the Pulled Pork Pork Rind Chipper, topped with cheese sauce, pulled pork, guacamole, sour cream, pico de gallo and jalapeños. Perhaps the only dish with back-to-back porks in its name.

“Well, that sounds just fine. But don’t you have anything with pork rinds and … oh, I don’t know … crab meat?!”

Just for you, the discerning glutton, we offer the Crab Meat Pork Rind Chipper, featuring crispy hog flesh topped with cheese sauce, crab meat, Old Bay seasoning and scallions.

“Cool. I’ll have that. Hold the scallions. They’re gross.”