The Philadelphia Diaries: Menu United

Dear Diary 

I have tried several times to keep you but have failed miserably. My heartfelt apologies! As a peace offering, this is going to be my most sincere effort…so let’s start over, shall we?

 

                                                                                                                        August 21, 2021

Hola!

I’ve been in US of A for more than three weeks now and, honestly, I have been having a great time :D! I will be here for a year and in you I shall jot down- new things, fun things, not-so-fun things, strange things, bad things and everything that I find interesting and unique so that I never forget these 365 days. Let me forewarn you, I won’t write every day, don’t get your hopes up, you know me, and I am here to work, study and learn…but I will, from time to time.

Everyone I have met have been warm and friendly and it’s a beautiful weather here. I’ve been to New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia and each place is unique. But I shall come to that another day…today, it’s all about food! From the time that I knew I was going to come for the fellowship, I was mentally preparing myself that I will have to cook. I actually started watching people cook while at home, for the first time, with interest. I transferred all my PayTm balance to my mother. I deleted Swiggy and Zomato once I landed here. And before moving into the hostel at Philly, I bought several ingredients to cook. I arranged everything very neatly here on the kitchen shelf and my family was quite proud of me. But alas, all my good intentions are yet to be executed! 

They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I personally feel that the way to any city’s heart is through its food! And I am charmed and disarmed…the food here is amazing and I will tell you about some of the best that I have had till now.

 

Ethiopian Eats

Looking for food, flavour and friends, well it’s Ethiopian food for sure. I tried it for the first time at New Jersey and absolutely loved it. At the heart of it lies the injera, a massive flat bread over which are served different curries and stews. You circle around it, eat together and use your fingers to dig in. You can imagine the injera to be like a thick fluffy dosa, laid flat on a large dish with an assortment of sides over it. Injera is made out of fermented tef, a grain indigenous to Ethiopia. Not only is it healthy but has a unique tangy flavour to it. The stews (wats) are infused with a variety of herbs and spices, a conglomeration of Middle East, Asian and Mediterranean influence. The result is…well, delicious. You can choose to eat with key wat (beef stew), doro wat (chicken stew), tibs (lamb, goat or beef cubes stir fried in niter kibbeh, a spiced infused form of ghee), kitfo (raw ground beef), misir wat and mesirkik (lentil and split pea stews), or shiro (chickpea stew), they are all different but equally delectable. The berbere is the secret ingredient, ground semi-spicy chilli peppers mixed with multiple other spices including garlic, cumin, coriander, ginger and fenugreek, that adds the unique taste to all the dishes. At the end, you are sure to end up licking your fingers to let the taste linger on.

S’mores and More

A cool night, a fireplace and old friends…what more can one ask for? Well some more…a sweet treat to add to the magic of the night! In ancient Egypt there grew a mallow plant near swamps or marshes and was simply called marshmallow, which was used as food for the Pharaohs. The roots and leaves of this plant exuded a gooey substance which was used by the Greeks for its anti-inflammatory property to soothe cough. Then came a French candy maker who added sugar and eggs to this sap and made small balls out of them to soothe the throat. Today, the sap has been replaced with gelatin, but the name has endured and endeared. Chocolate has always been the food of and for the Gods dating back to the Aztec God of Wisdom, Quetzalcoatl. Derived from cacao bean in probably 350 B.C., it has travelled the world and lived to see the rise and fall of civilisations, all enjoying it in every form. In 1893, Milton S. Hershey, an entrepreneur came in possession of a chocolate press left over from the Worlds’ Columbian Exposition in Chicago and he began using it in his factory to make simple bars of one of the most popular brands of chocolate today, the Hershey’s chocolate bars. Come the 1800s, Sylvester Graham, a minister from New Jersey, was committed to promoting healthy lifestyle including a bland diet, thus creating a cookie, the Graham crackers, made of wheat bran, wheat germ and ground flour.

It was no Willy Wonka who put these three ingredients together even though it seems straight from his chocolate factory, but a group of young girls from the Girls Scouts of America who came up with this unique recipe. It was first published in a guidebook called Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts with easy recipes for food to cook in an open campfire. Toast marshmallows till you are satisfied, sandwich them between two Graham crackers and a chocolate bar and let it melt your world! I cannot thank my friends enough for introducing me to s’mores and I will always want ‘some more’!

My Big Fat Gyro Wrapping

New York + Food truck= Gyro

Greek version of shawarma of the Arabs and doner kebab of the Turks, bread rolled with chicken or lamb chunks in Mediterranean milieu is as satiating to the taste buds as the country is to the eyes. Gyro, derived from the Greek word ‘gheereezo’ means ‘to turn’. It is essentially a stacked pile of meat, being roasted upright on a rotating grill. It is cut off in slices and wrapped within a pita roll with tomatoes, lettuce, onions, parsley, Tzatziki (Greek yogurt), fried potatoes with a hint of paprika or cayenne pepper. Its origin can be traced to the Armenian refugees in Greece in the early 1920s. A second theory is that it originated at the time of Alexander the Great. The soldiers in his army would skewer cut meat on long, sword like blades, rotating them over fire. But it was only after World War II that gyro came to the west of the Atlantic. It soon became one of the most popular global fast food. In New York, it became popular in the 1970s with the New York Times declaring, “The Gyro, a Greek Sandwich, Selling like Hot Dogs.” But as easy as it is to eat, it’s equally difficult to get the pronunciation right! While Americans call it “jai-roh”, the Greek pronunciation is “yee-roh” with a characteristic twist of tongue and roll of ‘r’. But I got the best advice from a Greek friend, “It’s better to just say ‘jairoh’ correctly than ‘yeeroh’ incorrectly!”

This is the only image taken from the world wide web because I was too busy gobbling the gyro to take a picture. With a National Gyro Day coming up on September 1st, I cannot wait to try one at Philadelphia.

The Cheesesteak Mistake

To be honest, I had been looking forward to this more than my fellowship in Philadelphia. And it did not disappoint. Philadelphia has two famous, must-try rival joints, Pat’s and Geno’s, both across the street from each other. The day I reached Philly, I went to Pat’s King of Steaks. I was greeted with a sign instructing how to eat a Philly Cheesesteak. It is exactly how it is described in ‘visitphilly’, “a long, crusty roll filled with thinly sliced sautéed ribeye beef and melted cheese”. Cheesesteak is more of a misnomer; it is a sandwich. Fried caramelized onions, sautéed mushrooms, ketchup and pepper can be added as toppings. 

Pat Olivieri, the son of an Abruzzi government worker who migrated to America with the rise of Mussolini, was a hot dog vendor. In 1930, Pat’s brother brought thinly-sliced ribeye and Pat frizzled it with onions, putting it in a bun and creating the original version of cheesesteak. A regular cabbie happened to try it and suggested Pat to start selling these instead of hot dogs. The aroma drew in taxi drivers for the new ‘steak sandwiches’. Later, he opened his shop and went around local theatres bringing his sandwich-with-a-twist to the stars and then luring them back to his shop. The pictures of the celebrities enjoying the cheesesteaks adorn the shop wall that overall has a very ordinary look to it. His creation on the other hand is simple yet extraordinary. “Cocky” Joe Lorenzo, an employee at Pat’s is believed to have added provolone cheese to his own sandwich and inventing the present version of the cheesesteak, although Joey Vento, the owner of Geno’s, claims to have added the cheese to his sandwiches. Whatever the case may be, ‘it’s wit cheese’ for sure! Cheesesteak has now become synonymous with Philadelphia, an icon of the city, an integral part of its culture. People from the city, however, do not add the prefix Philly, it has always been theirs. Just keep plenty of napkins, let the fat drip, forget about the health and calories and slip into food coma!

I Love Cheesecakes and I Cannot Lie

New York Style Cheesecake is believed to be the true, unadulterated cheesecake. But here’s the truth, this sinful dessert was created in Greece with excavated moulds dating back to 2000 B.C.! Cheesecakes were in fact served to Olympic athletes as a good source of energy. It’s hard to imagine cheesecake being in the menu of Olympic Village today! But originally it was made simply from flour, wheat, honey and cheese. The oldest recipe is attributed to Athenaeus of Greece, in 230 A.D. With the Roman conquest, the recipe passed on and crushed cheese and eggs were included in the recipe. The baked pastry was served warm on special occasions. Great Britain and Eastern Europe also modified the recipe in the years to come. It was only in the 18^th century that cheesecake arrived in America. Cream cheese is an American addition to the original cheesecake. Cream cheese was accidentally made when a New York Dairy farmer was attempting to make the French cheese Neufchatel. The classic New York Cheesecake is just the cake with no fruit or flavour added to it. 

Being in the city centre and a walker makes everything close enough including The Cheesecake Factory. It was not long before that my solitary walks traced their way to The Cheesecake Factory! Here, it’s a massive restaurant with more than just cheesecakes. I would have had the original one, but I gave into temptation and ordered the one with fresh strawberries. I had the most enjoyable time instigating my tastebuds and all I remember was going ‘mmmmm’ with every mouthful of the dessert!

While I would also like to write about Western Chinese, Mexican and Turkish cuisine in America, I have started feeling hungry with so much of food for thought and I shall continue later.

 

Signing off for tonight…

 

Philo in Philly

MS