Saturday Diary / Nineteen years later, still not quite a Pittsburgher
Share with others:
Nineteen years ago this summer, I moved to Pittsburgh.
It is the longest I have ever lived anywhere and there are ways in which I have become a true Pittsburgher:
• It took about a year but I figured out how to buy beer and now no longer shake my head at the idea that if I don't want to pay bar prices I have to buy a whole case.
• I am regularly one of the participants in a Pittsburgh standoff in which two drivers wave each other the right of way until one finally gives up and goes ahead.
• And I choose which Pirates games to attend based on the giveaways.
In so many aspects, Pittsburgh, to me, is home.
Then there is Primanti Bros.
Primanti's, for out-of-town readers, is gastronomically unique to Pittsburgh. The sandwiches are engineered so that the main ingredient, be it chicken, steak, cold cuts or egg, is secondary to the rest of the sandwich, which also contains tomato, cole slaw and French fries on thickly sliced white bread.
I was an unsuspecting diner the first time I tasted Primanti's. It was 1992. I was working in the press room of the Allegheny County Courthouse and wanted a sandwich, so I walked to the little sandwich shop on the first floor of a parking garage a block away and asked if they had a steak and cheese.
They did.
I was not warned.
I had never heard of the place.
And the sandwich -- it was just too much.
Like a head-injured patient, I don't remember what happened between sitting down at my desk and dropping nearly an entire sandwich in the trash. I was told I took a bite.
I didn't go back.
•
I felt vindicated by the first lady in 1996.
Hillary Clinton held a roundtable discussion at Primanti Bros. in the Strip District. I remember photos and video of her at the restaurant. There was a steak and cheese in front of her; some of the fries had fallen off. The sandwich remained untouched as she used almost superhuman powers to look at everything in the room but the pile of food in front of her. The Post-Gazette reported she ate four french fries.
Primanti's came up in conversation the other day after the kerfuffle about the National Rifle Association convention and the distribution of a photo of Primanti's staff members wearing T-shirts to stop gun violence. Some members of the NRA swore they would not eat anti-gun food.
First Published May 14, 2011 12:00 am
