Cheesesteaks and steak sandwiches

A few days ago, in honor of the Super Bowl, I spent some time comparing the iconic foods of Philadelphia and Boston.  One of the classics I mentioned briefly was the Philadelphia cheesesteak.  If any food has come to represent a city, it is Philadelphia and the cheesesteak.

There is no single food in Boston that has the “stature” of the cheesesteak in Philadelphia.  In fact, I can’t think of any city in which a single food  represents a city as much as cheesesteaks in Philadelphia.  It is right up there, and perhaps even more extreme, than pizza in New York, BBQ in Kansas City, coffee in Seattle, or fish tacos in San Diego.  In fact many reasonable people attribute Presidential candidate John Kerry’s loss to (a) putting lettuce and tomatoes on a cheesesteak, (b) asking for Swiss cheese, and (c) making a face while eating the result that made it look like he was on the verge of barfing.

I did however, mentioned the cheesesteak and then skipped right over it.  I did this partly because I wanted to talk about other foods, but partly because I really don’t share native Philadelphians’ fascination with this sandwich.  Philly’s roast pork sandwich is truly sublime – one of the all time great sandwiches of this or any other era.  For me, the cheesesteak, not so much.

To understand that, let’s consider exactly what the iconic Philadelphia cheesesteak is.  As Sarcone’s, my favorite sandwich shop said (note past tense – the store has since closed), it all starts with the bread.  The long split rolls used in Philly for hoagies (aka grinders, subs, po’ boys, etc.), roast pork, and cheesesteaks, are unquestionably great.  No problem there.  Add the meat – in nearly all of the thousands of Philadelphia cheesesteak joints, this is shaved top round,  NOT Steak-umm, the processed shaved steak you find in the supermarket freezer.  So far, so very good.

Next we go to onions, or maybe not.  This is the famous “wit’ or wit’out” question.  Fried onions from a flat-top grill are always a welcome addition to anything I’m eating.  Finally comes the cheese and this is where I get off the bus.  The classic Philly cheesesteak is covered with Cheez-Whiz.  Yes, Cheez-Whiz – that processed cheese food that contains no actual cheese and in which cheese cultures are the 17th out of 19 ingredients.  I have no intention of forcing my taste on anyone else, but I find Cheez-Whiz to be too salty, too acidic, and with a texture that verges on the repulsive. As they say, your mileage may vary. And given the number of cheesesteaks that are sold every day in my home town, I recognize that I’m in a definite minority.

For me, though, the story doesn’t stop here.  When I moved to Philadelphia from Boston in 2002, I was a little confused. In Boston, steak sandwiches were a definite thing.  One of my family’s favorite restaurants was the Roundup Western Steakhouse, a local chain that featured steak sandwiches.  Buddy’s Sirloin Pit in the pre-yuppified Harvard Square specialized in steak sandwiches and burgers.  Many sit-down restaurants featured steak sandwiches on their lunch menus.  In all cases, though, we are actually talking about a steak, not shaved pieces of beef.  The steak in question was sirloin, thin (about 1/2″ to 3/4″), and not unlike what the French call steak in their steak et frites.

The only time we ever saw shaved pieces of steak was in sandwich shops that sold grinders or spuckies (same thing as a hoagie or sub and the name depends on the neighborhood) where there was always a steak and pepper on the menu.  This was shaved steak and green bell peppers cooked on a flat top and stuffed into a roll.

So after experiencing life with steak sandwiches, I come to Philadelphia and see all these sandwich shops specializing in steaks.  Imagine my surprise to find out that these steaks were shaved top round, and not actual, y’know, steaks.  I actually had a cheesesteak from Geno’s Steaks (see photo above) and that was sufficient for my research.  To tell the truth, a typical Philly roll, with the shaved steak and fried onions would be a pretty damn good sandwich.  You could add green peppers or a good cheese and still have something great.  It’s that Cheez-Whiz.

I think internet chefs might agree with me.  I did a quick internet search for steak sandwiches and found recipes from Gordon Ramsay, Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa), and Ree Drummond (Pioneer Woman) all had recipes that were actual steaks in bread, as did most of the major internet cooking sites like Kitchn and Epicurious.  Only Rachel Ray offered a Philly-style cheesesteak but even her version was gussied up.

One more story.  I’m doing some food shopping in Philadelphia’s famous Italian Market a week or so before Christmas and I’m in Canuli’s, one of my favorite butchers.  I’m picking up some ham hocks for pea soup, bacon, and some beef short ribs and I’m chatting with one of the butchers while getting ready to pay.  Beside me is a woman with a slight Southern accent who has an enormous pile of packages of meat and her butcher is finishing up her last item.

It turns out that she is buying 10 lbs of shaved top round.  Her husband is a Philly native but they live in South Carolina and come to visit his folks at Christmas.  One of the things she does every year is to go to the Italian Market to stock up on things they can’t get in South Carolina, including shaved top round for cheesesteaks.  That’s devotion.