There's an old saying when it comes to food. "When you want good wings, don't go to Buffalo" and this applies to everything that a city has made famous. This means don't go to Philly for the best cheesesteak or Miami for the best Cubano. That's not saying you can't get good food there but places that have built their reputation on one dish or item tend to rest on their laurels. I've been to the Anchor Bar, I've tried Genos and Pats in Philly and so on and they're perfectly fine. But do you know where I got the best cheesesteak? San Diego. Some Italian sounding place I don't remember the name of.
Great take (though seafood in America
does get appreciably worse the farther from the coasts you get!) Also something minor that has stuck with me about this episode¹: Jack said he'd never been to Philadelphia OR tried a Philly cheesesteak before. The former I find a bit strange, but the latter I find laughable given he's spent his whole life trying to portray himself as some grand lover of food and eating. Not quite a bon vivant (because no bon vivant would prominently feature a Patrick Star piggybank in their videos) but let's say a Fat Boy Gourmand.
An FBG is the kind of guy he's tried to sell himself as -- it's why he made a big fucking show (or did, back when he could control his muscles and voice) of closing his eyes, covering his mouth, nodding, looking up to heavens as he judged, moaning, performatively using a napkin after each bite, etc. He wanted us, himself, and his (temporary, soon to be lost) friends to believe the Wars and shit weren't just because he loves eating but because he loves eating good food -- which IS something that could pass as a reasonable deal with the devil, i.e., "Die in your 50s, but live awesomely."
But the fact Jack is an American in his mid-fucking 50s who has purported to love good food and has basically had unlimited funds for twenty years and
has never had a Philly cheesesteak before shows the ruse. He doesn't care about food. He has no curiosity about it. He doesn't care about local lore and such. He just loves meat and cheese. And it doesn't even matter to him if the cheese is fresh from a farm or 70% anti-caking agent -- or if the meat is a $70 NY Strip from a Michelin-starred restaurant or Grade F
circus animals from Lunch Lady Doris. Due to the intense brain damage caused by a childhood of being a ridiculed food-insecure dummy, his neurons are as fried as the calamari he orders at every sushi place.
A sincere bankrolled foodie would have had a Philly cheesesteak before. A Wars for it even! There'd be a Wars for New England clam chowder and Louisiana gumbo and Cincinnati chili and Maryland crab cakes and Maine lobster and Miami Cuban sandwiches (as you said, Falcon), etc. Hell, New York alone doesn't only give you the obvious Pizza Wars he did (which was overshadowed by him meeting his LONG-LOST HALF-SISTER and her
HATING him!) but also a potential Pierogi Wars and Food Cart Hotdog Wars and Bagel Wars² and Oyster Wars and Brunch Wars and so on. Tons of cool hidden food gems in the enormous and ethnically insane place we call America. But no, it's just burgers and pizza -- with the occasional BBQ and tacos -- all the way down. In other words, a deal the devil won.
¹
I shudder at the fact I've used the word "episode" to describe the slop this dying monster churns out to postpone his own ego death. It's too legitimizing.
²
I'm aware that a Bagel Wars series would produce content far too elitist, East Coast, alternative, intellectual and left-wing for the Scalfaniverse.
