Primanti Bros.

Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Date: April 22, 2011

Food Ordered: Hot Sausage  and Cheese Sandwich; Pastrami Sandwich

I'm too old to go on spring break, and have been for a few years now. But that doesn't stop me from feeling that I should at least take some sort of trip during that annual week off in April. A few years ago, I convinced my friend and teaching colleague Nick to take a spring break trip with me. I was already dating my now-wife, and he was married, so Florida or Cancun didn't seem quite right. We decided instead on exotic, sunny Pittsburgh. It was only a five-hour drive from DC, and the Nationals just so happened to be playing the Pirates at PNC Park that weekend. "And maybe we'll stop at Primanti Bros. too. They are supposed to have excellent sandwiches," I suggested to Nick during the planning phase of the trip. I tried as hard as I could to make this sound like an off-hand suggestion, instead of my secret motivation for taking the trip in the first place.

I had always heard about Primanti Bros, mostly from Pittsburghers who take as much pride in their local sandwiches as Philadelphians take in their cheese steaks. Primanti's claim to fame is that everything is in the sandwich: meat and cheese, of course, but also fries, coleslaw and sometimes a fried egg for good measure. According to legend, these sandwiches were popular with truckers, who couldn't be bothered with the inconvenience of eating sandwich, fries and coleslaw separately when they were on the go. While I had kind of always been curious about such a sandwich, I privately worried that it might be excessive or even disgusting. It wasn't. These sandwiches, which Nick and I ate at the bar of the dark and slightly dingy restaurant, proved incredibly satisfying. And while they were obviously stuffed with food, they never left me feeling like I would have to have the jaw of a snake in order to simply take a bite. Sometimes, even in the world of massive sandwiches, restraint is not so bad. (Are you listening, Harold's Deli in Edison? http://www.roadfood.com/Photos/18519.jpg)

Coolest part of the experience: sensing that we were new in the town, the couple sitting next to us asked how were liking Pittsburgh and how we had heard of Primanti's. We chatted for a bit, before bidding them farewell once they finished their meal. When it came time for us to depart, we asked for our bill only to be informed by the guy behind the bar that the couple, on hearing we were about to partake of our first Primanti's sandwich, had surreptitiously bought us our sandwiches, and left us a message: "Have fun in the Steel City!" I had never been on the receiving end of such a random act of kindness. As we left the restaurant, Nick and I vowed that if we ever found ourselves sitting next to tourists at Ben's Chili Bowl in DC or Faidley's Crab Cakes in Baltimore, we would continue the chain of good will. (Still haven't done it yet - but haven't forgotten either.)

The trip actually turned out to be a bit of a let-down overall: our game was rained out and the two of us went back home after only one night. But we got a weird and memorable sandwich out of it - the sort that can only be found in Pittsburgh, as a matter of fact. And we left the restaurant feeling a little better about our fellow human beings.

Verdict: Five out of Five Stars. If they open a sandwich Hall of Fame, it should be in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania - halfway between Cheese Steak City and Primantiville. There should definitely be a bronze bust of Primanti himself (whoever he is). They can put it next to the busts of Joe (namesake for the Sloppy Joe) and Ruben (namesake for the Ruben).

Note: I didn't take any of these pictures. However, I did display the middle one on my Facebook page shortly after returning from the trip to Pittsburgh, prompting Maya to complain, "I've posted so many nice pictures of the two of us, and the only picture you've ever posted is of a sandwich!" Valid point.

Rutt's Hut

Location: Clifton, NJ

Date: November 11, 2010

Food Ordered: Hot dogs (rippers) with Relish; Root Beer

It didn't take long, after my sister gave me the book, for me to seek out one of the featured spots. (In truth, I had already been to two or three of them by accident, before I knew that Roadfood was a thing - but this was to be the first of many explicit Roadfood Quests.) On the day after Thanksgiving, when it would probably have made the most sense just to eat leftover turkey, I instead took my sister Julia and her then-boyfriend/now-fiance Chris to Clifton, New Jersey in search of what was purported to be the best hot dog in the state. This trip had all the earmarks of a classic Roadfood Quest: it was a drive of at least forty-five minutes to a place I would have otherwise had no reason to visit, and the pay-off made it all worth the trouble.

Despite growing up in New Jersey, I hadn't given much thought to Clifton before: it's a pretty nondescript town outside Newark. Come to think of it, Rutt's Hut is pretty nondescript too. It's a plain brick building, surrounded by a parking lot. (And the counters inside offer primo views of this incredibly un-extraordinary parking lot, which cracks me up.) The entrance is half-glass and half-plastic, and super unfashionable. It looks like a large phone booth. A disproportionate amount of people inside Rutt's Hut looks like they root for the Jets - meaning sad, short and overweight. (If I'm guilty of stereotyping on this one, so is the Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703859204575526524037798794).

But one doesn't come to Rutt's for the atmosphere or the conversation: it's all about the hot dogs. Since my eighth birthday or so, I haven't given much of a thought to hot dogs. I don't dislike them, but I also won't go out of my way for them. Rutt's hot dogs, called "rippers," are in another category. Apparently, they are fried in the deep fryer for so long that they rip in half. As a result, these shriveled little pink dogs won't win any hot dog beauty contests. Truth be told, they are kind of funny looking. But they have a pleasing al dente texture that makes them kind of addictive. All three of us started off with one a piece before breaking down and getting a second. No way we could leave there after just one dog. The guy behind the counter was friendlier than we expected. (Lunch counters in the NYC area are not exactly known for the friendliness of their servers. Think "Soup Nazi.") He steered us towards the relish, which "makes the hot dog," and he was absolutely right.

Proof of Rutt's Hut's enduring coolness. Before we set off on our trip, my sister and I told our grandma (who was over for Thanksgiving) about our plans. Her eyes lit up. "Oh! I used to go there after school when I was in high school for hot dogs and root beer!" Yes, our awesome 92-year-old grandma - class of 1936 at Garfield High School was down with Rutt's Hut before it was big.  She rocks. And so does this place. We brought her back a t-shirt.

Verdict: 5 out of 5 Stars. Rutt's Hut has some unique, memorable and totally addictive hot dogs. This is Road Food at its best.

Note: Some time after this first Road Food excursion, I began the practice of taking pictures of each of my destinations - kind of to increase the scavenger hunt-like nature of this project. I don't think I have one from Rutt's Hut, so Google images it is.

An Unexpected Obsession

I didn’t expect when my sister gave me a slim yellow book for Hanukkah a few years ago that she was launching me head first into a new obsession. I doubt she expected it either: she bought it for me because she saw it on the rack at Barnes and Noble and it “seemed like something I would like.” I already had an affinity for road trips and for food, so her hunch was logical enough. The book in question was Jane and Michael Stern's 500 Things to Eat Before it's Too Late, a guide to the best regional cuisine in the country and where to find it.

(As it happens, the Sterns' book is just the latest in the wave of "things to do before you die" themed books. Those who take their personal bucket lists really, really seriously, can now find whole books devoted to places to go [in the world and in just the US and Canada], albums to listen to, movies to watch, hikes to take. There is a decent chance that the Sterns' choice of "before it's too late" in the title was less an aesthetic choice than a matter of copy-writing. There are at least two other food-related books on the market whose titles include the phrase "before you die." Still, it's a good choice either way. Who wants to be reminded of their impending death while trying to find a decent cheese steak?)

The authors, Jane and Michael Stern (formerly married, but recently divorced) have made a comprehensive study of American "low" cuisine. Their book features lists of basic junk food staples (the best burger, the best pizza, the best fries, the best ice cream) and also more specialized local dishes (the best New England Boiled Dinner, the best Meat and Three, the best Indian pudding). The two of them might be (somewhat charitably) described as sociologists. As Wikipedia puts it, they are “the first food writers to recognize that this food was as worthy to report as was the haute cuisine of other nations.” The two of them are chroniclers and preservers of culture, then – even if there are may be some who doubt whether grilled cheese is worth chronicling.

I learned some time after receiving the book from my sister that the Sterns are essentially the leaders of an underground community, surrounding their “Roadfood” books. The Roadfood website updates frequently with daily restaurant reviews and pictures of blueberry cobbler or fried chicken, and the movement’s disciples (shall we call them Roadfooders?) light up the site’s forums. Their bible, simply called Roadfood, is now in its ninth edition, and unlike 500 Things to Eat Before it's Too Late, focuses slightly more on the restaurant than on the food served there. As a result, some of the entries in Roadfood are more famous for being local institutions than for serving a particularly notable type of food. The Sterns’ lists essentially constitute an American Food Hall of Fame, and as with any such list, it is bound to generate controversy among those who care about this sort of thing. I have to say that I have agreed with their lists on about nine out of ten occasions, although a small handful of their selections seem to miss the mark (at least they did when I visited). There are also, it seems to me, some egregious omissions.

 

I check the Roadfood website from time to time (they have a cool map feature that marks all of the Roadfood destinations within a 50 miles radius of your location), but I don’t post on the forums. I am, however, deeply into Roadfood, and for the past four plus years, the book has provided me with a treasure map. My goal is to visit as many Roadfood stops as it is possible for me to do. This isn’t always easy. I’m a teacher, so I do have long vacations on which to take road trips. But I am bound by all of the normal factors that keep people from freely bouncing around the country: finances, professional obligations, the fact that I am in relatively good physical shape and that frequent consumption of Roadfood may hinder my ability to stay that way, the fact that I have to occasionally use vacations to visit family and friends, and the fact that I have a wife who would sometimes rather not spend the afternoon going on a quest for the third best ham in Virginia. She’s a good sport though, my wife, and she has been a willing co-pilot on most of our trips. We’ve had a few regrets (she’ll probably never let me live down that detour to a subpar burger place in Delaware), but overall, Roadfood has provided us with – I mean this in all sincerity – some of the happiest memories in our marriage.

This blog is the story of my unlikely, and admittedly kind of weird, love of Roadfood. Each entry tells an anecdote about my visit to one of the stops featured (or formerly featured) in either the book or the website. I don’t plan to do any research, other than actually visiting the places I write about. (Why attempt to rehash the very thorough work of the Sterns, which sometimes provides a brief history of the restaurant and a range of menu prices?) I would much rather write about my own subjective personal experience: when I went, who accompanied me, how I got there and, oh yeah, maybe a little about the food.