This was great.
I live in an area full of immigrants called “retirees”. They move to my state for the low taxes. The other states have a never ending supply, and we have only Arizona and Florida to help us out. We are the cold weather state for the old. I tell you this because while I loved your article, I can’t really relate, but I was infected by it. I think I am sick now. I caught a bug. That bug is “pub roast”.
I once read an article about Obama visiting Hawaii and it said that he had a Plate Lunch. I didn’t know what a plate lunch was, so I did a Google Image Search.
I have never had a plate lunch. I really want to go to Hawaii and have one. It’s annoying to me that food concepts like “cronuts” and “s’mores” are transnational, while items like the plate lunch remain localized. What good is globalization if it doesn’t make Koshari available in New York City? I learned about Koshari from a BBC overnight segment where they were waxing poetic about it and saying that it is what every Egyptian eats for lunch. What do Egyptians do when they move to New York? They don’t eat Koshari, I can tell you that. I made every effort to find Koshari in NYC. One Egyptian told me, “you can’t get Koshari outside of Cairo.”
Now, you casually mention the “Pub Roast”. I didn’t know what you meant, so I did a GIS. This is what I got:
I know that meal well. I call that a Sunday roast. I can make it myself… albeit badly. I often fuck up the roast or the potatoes. I don’t make popovers. Instead I make “Yorkshire pudding.” It always looks bad.
While I make “Sunday roast”, I would never order the “roast beef dinner” at a restaurant because IT WOULD NEVER LOOK LIKE ANY OF THOSE PUB ROAST PHOTOS. More importantly, our “pubs” (even the ones actively aping English or Irish Public Houses) don’t serve “pub roast”. They serve chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, and caesar salad. For authenticity they have “bangers and mash”, “cottage pie”, and “lamb stew” on the menu, but nobody ever orders those things.
I worked with a programmer from Scotland. Whenever we were traveling and had to go out to dinner he would ask, “Do they have prime rib?” I asked him what the obsession was. He said, “We don’t have prime rib.” I started to pay attention to the availability of prime rib. I am now obsessed with it. I often ask, “do they have prime rib?” when people are throwing out suggestions for restaurants. It’s harder to find that I thought. This is what I am talking about:
Prime rib is great, but it is a far cry from Pub Roast. I would much prefer Pub Roast.